Linux News: Enterprise

IBM Taps Green Power With New Chips, Servers
February 08, 2010

IBM on Monday launched a one-two punch with its new Power7 processors, which the company claims have twice the performance of the Power6 line but consume less power. These processors power IBM's Unix servers, four new models of which were also unveiled Monday in a move that might strengthen IBM's position in the Unix server market. The Power7 uses a 45 nanometer process.

Apple and Oracle: Will the Real Tech Titans Please Stand Up?
February 05, 2010

I was a bit distracted from the Apple iPad news due to the marathon Oracle conference last week on its shiny new Sun Microsystems acquisition. However, the more I thought about it, the more these two companies are extremely well-positioned to actually fulfill what other powerful companies tried to do and failed.

Oracle Ropes In Sun
January 27, 2010

Oracle announced on Wednesday the completion of its $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems. At a briefing on its plans, Oracle pledged to reenergize Sun's brand name, products and other assets. Further, Oracle said it will continue its commitment to open systems and Java. "We'll invest in Java One; it'll just go global," Oracle Copresident Charles Phillips said.

FOSS Feats and Follies: Q&A With Red Hat Fedora Project Leader Paul Frields
January 22, 2010

Red Hat Linux and the Fedora Project developers will soon introduce core technological improvements to provide better desktop environments and video driver support in the upcoming release of both the commercial and the free open source operating systems later this year.

When It Comes to Server Migration, You Can Learn a Lot From a Twit
January 18, 2010

OK folks, Twitter may be a fad, but it is also a wealth of information into real people's problems, and I don't think it is going away anytime soon. In fact Google and Yahoo announced recently that they are going to begin crawling tweets, and they will appear in search queries. So yes, I am a fellow "twit," and proudly so, because I know how to use it to find the information that I am looking for.

Top 8 Enterprise Server Predictions for 2010
January 13, 2010

Although the enterprise server market has been among the hardest hit by the suffering economy, there is reason to be hopeful as 2009 draws to a close. I'd like to take a moment to share eight predictions of what we can look forward to in 2010 -- trends that have the potential to dramatically change the enterprise in the years to come.

New Year, New Adventures in Software Application Development
December 30, 2009

In 2010, application developers will continue to be asked to do more with less. During the global financial meltdown of the past year, the amount of work didn't change while resources were dramatically pared back. The result was that new projects suffered. Talking with application development leaders today, there is more optimism.

Software Appliances: Lean, Mean Deployment Machines
December 23, 2009

Today's enterprises are clamoring for software applications that run in a wide variety of environments -- everything from physical to virtual to cloud. If you are a software vendor, how do you make it easy to give them what they want? You could hand customers your software on a CD and let them figure it out.

The New FOSS Frontier: The Database Market
December 11, 2009

Linux and open source middleware JBoss has made its mark in the enterprise, and it is just a matter of time before open source becomes mainstream in other functional parts of the IT infrastructure as well. Where exactly that will happen, however, is the interesting question.

Sun Releases 3 Java Upgrades as EU Begins Closed-Door Merger Hearing
December 10, 2009

Despite plunging revenues due to the resistance of European regulators to its pending acquisition by Oracle, Sun Microsystems has rolled out enhancements to three key products in its Java platform. The timing of the releases -- just as the European Union opens a two-day closed hearing on the Oracle acquisition -- is probably not coincidental.

VirtualBox 3.1 Aims to Bag Enterprise Market
December 02, 2009

Sun Microsystems this week released VirtualBox 3.1, including several key enterprise features aimed at maintaining minimal downtime on virtual servers. VirtualBox 3.1 has the ability to "teleport" virtual servers -- move running virtual machines uninterrupted between disparate hosts on different operating systems and computer classes. It also includes a full suite of enterprise hypervisor features.

VMware Fuses Performance With Convenience
November 16, 2009

There's more than 50 new features in the latest version of VMware Fusion -- an application that allows Windows and OS X to run together in a virtual environment on a Mac -- but the one that has users raving is the big boost in performance. "I installed VMWare Fusion 3.0 just a few days ago," Leon Kotovich, president and CEO of AgileSequent told MacNewsWorld.

Headed for the Clouds - Cisco, EMC and VMware Launch VCE Coalition
November 05, 2009

By and large, IT favors grand pronouncements and overheated rhetoric, and the industry abounds with "unprecedented" efforts firmly rooted in precedent and "unique" solutions fashioned from the commonest clay. Is that the case with Cisco, EMC and VMware's new Virtual Computing Environment coalition? Decidedly not.

Pre-integration is the Ticket With Cisco-EMC Cloud Venture
November 04, 2009

Cisco is broadening its footprint with a major move into the cloud computing space. The company has formed a far-reaching partnership with EMC -- a joint venture in which VMware, a majority owned subsidiary of EMC, will also play a large role. Called "Acadia," the new entity is marketing vBlock infrastructure packages, aka "vBlocks."

Choosing a Desktop Linux Distro, Part 2: Installation and Support
October 23, 2009

With more than 200 Linux distributions currently listed at Linux Online, it's perhaps an understatement to say that newcomers to the field face a broad array of choices. In addition to considering their own goals for Linux, however, potential users may also need to take other factors into account. Hardware considerations are often foremost among them.

IBM, Canonical Put Windows 7 in Their Crosshairs
October 21, 2009

IBM and Canonical have launched a Microsoft-free desktop software suite for U.S. companies, claiming the package will offer substantial cost reductions compared to a Windows 7 migration. Though the IBM Client for Smart Work package was initially designed for emerging markets, it sparked widespread calls for a similar offering in the United States.