As the Linux operating system continues to break new ground and win new customers, SuSE Linux A.G. will on Tuesday announce the availability of a Carrier-Grade Linux (CGL) edition of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, while IBM will open a new Linux competency center in London that is focused on the British financial community.
SuSEs CGL, which SuSE developed along with HP, IBM and Intel Corp., is initially targeted at Intel-based hardware platforms. It also incorporates technologies defined by the Open Source Development Labs Carrier Grade Linux Working Group.
CGL will enable businesses to develop and deploy new products and services on standards-based, modular communications platforms, at a lower cost, said SuSE CEO Richard Seibt in a statement.
“Given the current high cost structures and harsh market conditions, customers demand an adaptable solution that offers cost-efficiency, standardization and reusability. Developed initially for telecom, the promise of CGL has attracted attention of businesses in many different industries—including financial and retail,” he said.
SuSE Linuxs CGL Edition is available as a free service pack to SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 customers. Its specifications, which were developed and created with the telecommunications industry, network equipment providers and independent software vendors, include high-availability features for error detection and rapid failover for the operating system, applications, Ethernet and disk.
It also features better serviceability enhancements enabling faster problem determination, improved system scalability/performance, soft real-time performance, kernel preemption, application loading and concurrent timers scaling behavior and reporting, Seibt said.
For its part, IBMs new London Linux center will be known as the Linux Center for Financial Services and aims to provide financial services and banking firms an environment that allows them to test and deploy IBM Linux-based solutions, including IBM TotalStorage products running Linux; the entire eServer line; high-powered Linux clusters; eServer zSeries mainframes; as well as IBM software including WebSphere, DB2, Lotus, Tivoli and some Rational product offerings.
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This is the ninth Linux competency center across four continents IBM designed to help drive its Linux business and allow customers of all sizes and from a variety of industries, including government, oil and gas and retail, to take advantage of Linux.
One such customer is Virgin Money, which has already moved its Web servers away from Sun hardware to IBM eServer BladeCenter systems running Linux. “This new Linux solution, which just took three weeks to deploy, is 20 percent quicker than our previous setup and gives us the flexibility to add new blades so the system can easily scale to meet the needs of various projects, said Virgin Moneys Andy Makings, in a prepared statement.
As the company looks to grow its Linux solution, “it will be extremely beneficial to have the resources available at the IBM Linux Centre for Financial Services to test new configurations and applications,” he said.
The other relatively new Big Blue Linux centers include the IBM Linux Center of Competence for Wall Street in New York; the E-Government Center and the Linux Integration Center, both in Germany; the Energy Competency Center in United Arab Emirates; the China-IBM Linux Solution Cooperation Center; the Open Computing Center in Singapore; the Linux Hub Center of Seoul National University; and the Linux Labs in Brazil.
Jim Stallings, general manager for Linux at IBM, said that an increasing number of customers are realizing that the “cost savings, reliability, security and performance of Linux provides the foundation that will allow them to respond quickly to changing market conditions and meet the needs of their customers, suppliers and partners in an on-demand environment.”
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