Exploiting the Potenital of Linux

Exploiting the Potenital Of Linux

Executive Summary

Organizations today are struggling with how to

expand their business and compete in the face of

lean IT budgets. Doing more with fewer resources,

optimizing systems and revitalizing IT infrastructures

for greater efficiency and agility to respond to everchanging

business conditions remain at the top of

many business leaders' agendas.

The Linux operating system is not only ushering

in a new approach to software development worldwide,

but also solving key problems and limitations that

have plagued enterprises for decades. Linux is

reducing costs; increasing customer satisfaction and

providing business benefits through greater reliability,

efficiency and scalability; and offering unprecedented

flexibility by extending computing capabilities to new

devices. Linux is no longer considered a "fringe"

operating system; it is now becoming part of the

mainstream corporate IT infrastructure.

While solving many IT problems, Linux also

presents unique challenges of its own. Since

few organizations have homogeneous computing

environments, they have to be able to integrate Linux

with their other systems to provide seamless access

to applications and data. They have to be able to monitor,

manage, secure and back up Linux systems like their

other platforms. And they need to take full advantage

of Linux by deploying more applications that run on it.

As the management software experts for more

than 28 years, Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA)

provides the support necessary to allow organizations

to leverage the Linux operating system, meeting the

technology demands of today and the future, and

enabling companies to focus on their core businesses.

Linux in the Enterprise

More than a dozen years have passed since Linus

Torvalds put Linux -- the UNIX-like operating system

he created -- on the Web, making it available to

anyone who wanted to download it or develop it

further. Much in the way the combustion engine

revolutionized transportation, this open source

approach has transformed software -- the way

it's developed, paid for and supported. Using a

participative development model and a unique

licensing approach, Linux has grown from a handful

of users on the Web to an integral part of corporate

IT organizations worldwide.

Linux initially entered the market as an

alternative to proprietary operating systems in

the server room, where its adoption was driven by

commodity hardware and customers who were trying

to minimize the cost of their software investments.

Over time, as this open source solution demonstrated

its ability to address traditional computing needs,

Linux moved into the mainstream market. Today, it's

used by major global organizations attracted to its

flexibility, power and potential in both server and

mainframe environments. Small footprint devices

are also leveraging Linux more frequently, and Linux

is emerging as the operating system of choice in

embedded solutions for consumer electronic devices,

handheld devices and other fixed-function appliances.

The adoption of Linux is expected to increase even

further in the future. The analyst firm IDC anticipates

that Linux will grow from its 2002 market share of

4.6 percent to 16.1 percent by the end of 2007. A

Forrester study reports that 72% of IT executives of

$1 billion or larger companies plan to increase their

investments in Linux. Clearly, open source is becoming

more pervasive, and Linux is becoming a significant

competitor in the enterprise market.

Linux: The Right Alternative

Linux is ideally suited as an enterprise-class operating

system for many reasons. One is its reliability. Linux

systems offer mainframe-class stability with reported

system uptimes of a year or more. Google, one of

the Internet's foremost search engines, runs on

Linux servers and has run continuously for more

than one-and-a-half years without any downtime,

according to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Google's