Linux server market

SMBs embrace servers running Linux

The availability of business applications and support for the open source OS will ensure that Linux will be a major draw with SMBs this year, says Akhtar Pasha

Although we are aware of Linux adoption by large enterprises, most people do not know that there are a sizeable number of installations in small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well. This base is set to grow as server vendors lob tailor-made Linux servers and applications at SMBs.

Says Jyothi Satyanathan, Country Manager, pSeries & OpenPower, IBM India, “Unlike large enterprises, SMBs do not have to face the challenge of migrating legacy applications. The popularity with SMBs has helped Linux grow at 30 percent globally.”

The general consensus is that Linux did better in 2004 than anyone had predicted. Pallab Talukdar, Director-Enterprise Marketing & Alliances, Customer Solutions Group, HP India Sales says, “As per IDC India, Linux in the server market grew by 48 percent in OND, 2004 over JAS, 2004, while the Windows and Unix markets showed a modest 3 percent and 3.4 percent growth respectively during the same period.”

Talukdar says, “For any OS to succeed, applications need to be made available. SMBs can be a major draw for Linux servers as it offers them lower TCO and tighter control on their IT spend.” Since many SMBs already have home-grown applications, a proprietary OS will be the single largest area of spending. It is here that Linux offers a big advantage.

L Gopalakrishnan, Director-Platform Technologies Group, Oracle India, says, “Indian SMBs are realising that software is the way forward, and today, they have many choices before them—Linux on x86 or AMD Opteron or Itanium 2. Additionally, the availability of version 2.6 of the Linux kernel in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Novell’s SuSE 9 will give a big boost to vertical scalability.” As SMBs become a part of the global supply chain, they want enterprise appications on Linux to keep their investments low. This trend will be a key enabler for the Linux server market in India.

Why Linux-based servers?

According to Talukdar, cost is a factor and Linux offers better security as the source code of proprietary software is always kept a secret. With a community supporting it, any security hole in Linux is quickly found and patched.

Linux not only lets an organisation save on software costs, it also offers long-term savings on hardware. Instead of being forced to upgrade software with Linux, an SMB can take control of its IT strategy. Sanjay Sharma, Chief Technology Officer at IDBI Bank says, “You decide when you wish to upgrade, not the vendor, hence you get tighter control on your spending.” This can be particularly important for users, such as SMBs that cannot afford to keep up with the pace of change in commercial software.

Biz apps and Linux

Talukdar gives the credit to Oracle for driving the Linux server market. During the early part of 2004, Oracle came up with a value offering. It offered pre-configured Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition on Lintel boxes for a 10-user licence for Rs 16 lakh. Varanasi Ram Sharma, General Manager-Sales, Oracle India says, “The traction of this offering was seen towards the end of 2004 when we closed a dozen deals that were in various stages of implementation. This is a testimony that SMBs are opting for Linux servers. Some of our customers using this offering are Continental Engines,

Class Automobiles, Ponpure Chemicals, Rucha Engineers and marketRx India.” Sharma of Oracle adds, “Today’s SMB is tomorrow’s corporation. And their pain points being no different from large enterprises, these offerings can scale horizontally (users can start from a 10-user licence and go up to 30-user licence) as well as vertically (from dual CPU to 4-way). SAP is following Oracle in making its application available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. SAP has customers such as Precot Mills, Glass Equipment India and Jayant Agro.

Customised and certified

All server vendors including HP, IBM and SGI are throwing their weight behind Linux and each has a SMB-specific business strategy with significant initiatives to lure them.

Indian SMBs have many choices before them—Linux on x86 or AMD Opteron or Itanium 2. The availability of version 2.6 of the Linux kernel will give a big boost to vertical scalability L Gopalakrishnan Director-Platform Technologies Group Oracle India	Unlike large companies, SMBs do not have to face the challenge of migrating legacy applications. The popularity with SMBs has helped Linux grow at 30 percent globally Jyothi Satyanathan Country Manager, pSeries & OpenPower IBM India

HP has announced that some of its high-end computing tools from the HP-UX environment are ported onto Linux and made available to SMBs. This includes a clustering solution called HP Service Guard for high availability of applications and management tools such as Systems Insight Manager (SIM) and OpenView that offer third-party integration. Additionally, HP is creating a reference architecture stack, including hardware, OS, database and middleware. HP certifies a stack so that customers can feel more confident of deploying their core business application on Linux. Talukdar sees Linux servers being popular in High Performance Computing (HPC) environments such as research labs. HP has recently won a deal for what’s supposed to be India’s largest Linux cluster. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is using Integrity server rx1620 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and 78 nodes with two processors each, totalling 156 processors. In the SMB space, HP has Sundaram Infotech that runs financial applications and asset management on rx4640 (Itanium 2 running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

IBM has recently launched a new family of eServer OpenPower systems based on its POWER5 processor specially designed for Linux. The POWER5 comes with a micro-partitioning technology called Virtualisation Engine (VE) wherein each processor can be sliced into ten virtual partitions with each partition acting as a new server. IBM’s eServer OpenPower 710 is a single CPU processor with 3 HDDs and 512 MB memory with RAID level 1 and 5. It is priced at Rs 1.5 lakh. Satyanathan says, “This eServer offers SMBs an affordable alternative to higher-priced entry-level Unix or Linux system. OpenPower offers a 64-bit platform at a price point of a 32-bit offering. We believe that it is the right product for the mass market.”

Sun Microsystems has the Sun Fire V20 and V40 servers based on the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor, which has been successful with SMBs. It also offers the Solaris 10-Opteron combination. Anil Valluri, Director-Systems Engineering, Sun Microsystems India says, “Of the 2,000 AMD Opteron servers sold in 2004, 30 percent (600 units) were in the SMB space.” He adds, “Our strategy is based on the AMD Opteron and Solaris 10, (with Grid Containers that allow physical partitioning of server resources) and is available for free to businesses.” Sun is aiming to position Solaris 10 as its trump card to take the fight to commercial Linux with support—email, phone and onsite—available at a small price. Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Elite Foods (SAP on Linux), Sage Design Systems, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad are Sun customers running their core applications on Linux.

For SGI, the very definition of SMB spans the gamut of everything from educational research outside IITs, automotive and auto ancillary and consumer durables to pharmaceuticals in a HPC environment. SGI has a modular scalable architecture for the HPC market running Linux on the Itanium 2. Prasad V Medury, Managing Director, SGI India says, “We have Linux server deployments that can scale up to 32 processors. These are used largely for applications in material sciences and life sciences and in the manufacturing vertical. Linux servers are used by SMBs for CAD analysis, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and FEA (Finite Element Analysis).” SGI claims that its Linux systems are rugged as they come with SGI ProPack over and above the standard Linux kernel. This gives customers the ability to scale their computing environments with independent I/O, memory and power supply. SGI’s customers for its Linux boxes include the likes of IIT, Chennai and IIT, Bombay, CADES (16 CPU), Altair Engineering (16 CPU),

Dow Automobile Engineering (32 CPU).

Banking on support

Javed Tapia, Director-India, Red Hat India says, “Linux is gaining traction and getting into commercial business applications in verticals such as manufacturing, small banking and hospitality.” Tapia believes that the availability of Tally on Linux will result in a new chapter being inked in the Linux server market. Red Hat has 950 ISV partners who develop applications that run on its Linux distributions.

Ashit Panjwani, National Manager, Alliance & Marketing, Onward Novell Software adds, “As a server OS, Linux offers secure and scalable solutions to meet SMB requirements.” IBM has 35 to 40 pure Linux partners that offer consultancy and assist it in integrating and implementing services for its customers who are using Linux.

Going by the buzz it enjoys, 2005 will be a banner year for the Indian Linux server market.

akhtar@expresscomputeronline.com