Linux is proof positive that money isn't everything. Formerly high-flying Linux company stocks have remained grounded, with Red Hat and VA Linux Systems trading near their historic lows of $15 and $26.50, respectively. Yet, Linux continues to draw the attention of the development community, gaining add-on software that gives the freeware operating system big features it previously lacked.
To demonstrate Linux' platform flexibility - and its potential for use with mobile and handheld devices - IBM researchers have put Linux on a smart wristwatch that receives e-mail and holds an address book. Big Blue's continued endorsement of Linux is just one example of the fact that while stock prices may have declined, Linux - on the eve of LinuxWorld this week in San Jose - was showing it could take a licking and keep on ticking.
Caldera Systems, for instance, has developed a Linux system management console and remote administration facility. Code-named Cosmos, it was designed to manage multiple Linux servers and workstations.
"If you want a system to become a Web server, you can assign it a Web-server profile. It you want it to function as a commerce server, you can make it that," said Michael Wilkinson, product manager.
The product, which has not been named or priced, is about to go into its first beta test. The system management console is built on top of a directory that knows the hardware and software assets of each Linux system on a network. It periodically polls agents on the systems and collects data. It can then download software that changes their role or updates an existing function.
Hosting companies that add hundreds of servers per month are finding it difficult to keep up with administrative demands. By implementing a management console on top of a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol directory or relational database system, a product based on Cosmos will allow one systems manager to view and modify hundreds or thousands of systems.
On another front, Sun Microsystems teamed up with Linuxcare to supply Linux with a high-availability storage system with no single point of failure. Many storage systems offer some form of disk drive backup or mirroring system, so that if a disk drive fails, the system continues to run, said Mike Knalls, product manager for StorEdge systems at Sun. But if you lose a SCSI card that controls server input and output, "or someone trips over the connection cable, these are each single points of failure" and could collapse a Web site, he said.
To give Linux a bulletproof storage system, Sun hired developers at Linuxcare to develop an open-source driver for its T3 redundant array of independent disks, or RAID, product line. The driver runs on a Linux server and automatically senses if a connection has been broken between the server and the T3 StorEdge system, and switches to alternative SCSI devices and connection cables if a break occurs.
