RedHat, VA Linux Launch New Platforms
IBM Corp. hardly needs to make the case for Linux from a technology point of view, but even Big Blue might need to hone the business pitch. IBM did just that at this week’s LinuxWorld Expo.
First, IBM said the Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SAIC) is moving its Artmail application to Linux. SAIC designs the computer systems for the New York Stock Exchange. Artmail previously ran on Sun Sparc servers. SAIC plans to use IBM zSeries mainframes running Linux for the application. Artmail sends trade information to brokers and investment firms from the trading floor.
Next, storage management vendor Legato Systems, Inc. announced support for the Linux flavor of IBM’s DB2 database. Now, users can back up and recover the Linux version of the database using modern technology. Although open-source databases such as PostgreSQL offer disaster recovery features, the features are relatively rudimentary compared to Legato or Veritas. Disaster recovery is considered to be a major hurdle for adoption of Linux as an enterprise database server.
Finally, IBM said the official website for the US Open Tennis tournament will use Linux in its infrastructure. This follows the announcement that the National Hockey League uses an IBM mainframe running Linux as its backend.
About the Author
Chris McConnell is Product and Technology Editor for Enterprise Systems.