FW: The Linux Executive Report from IBM

Thu Nov 17 21:57:01 EST 2005

I thought this might be of interest.

Richard A Sharpe

8 Meadowview Lane

Merrimack, NH 03054

"Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you, not because
they are kind, but because you are." 

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From: Linux Executive Report [mailto:linuxnews at dbta.com] 
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 12:07 PM
To: Richard Sharpe
Subject: The Linux Executive Report from IBM

The Linux Executive Report 
from IBM

November 17, 2005

  _____  

Welcome to The Linux Executive Report from IBM. The Linux Executive Report
from IBM is a biweekly summary of important trends and market research, case
studies and information about IBM's Linux initiatives of interest to senior
management. If you would prefer not to receive this newsletter in the
future, please scroll to the bottom of this message and follow the
instructions. To subscribe, visit here
<http://news.dbta.com/t/51412/273660/42/0/> .

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SPOTLIGHT
. The County is Open

INSIDE LINUX AT IBM
. SUNY Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics Implements Linux
. Business Needs Drive IT Innovation for GHY International

LINUX INSIGHTS
. Linux IP Legal Foundations Strengthened
. Systems Running Linux Dominate Top Spots in the TOP500
. Moving Beyond Red Hat and Novell SUSE 

SPOTLIGHT 

The County is Open

What began as an effort to upgrade and consolidate an existing eServerT
iSeriesT and pSeriesR infrastructure supporting business-critical systems
ultimately unveiled an open-source solution for the United Kingdom's
Flintshire County Council in North East Wales. The council, which serves as
the local authority for 147,000 inhabitants, has chosen the Linux operating
system as its new supported platform, opening a range of possibilities.
Kicking off the migration project last September, Flintshire upgraded to two
eServer i5 570 systems. The i570s employ IBM POWER5T microprocessors, the
ninth generation of 64-bit processors from IBM. The POWER5 architecture
represents a new approach to enterprise computing, enabling Linux, AIXR and
i5/OST to run natively and share fractions of a processor. Go here
<http://news.dbta.com/t/51412/273660/107/0/> .

INSIDE LINUX AT IBM

SUNY Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics Implements Linux

The State University of New York has deployed a new parallel supercomputer
comprised entirely of clustered blade servers rather than clustered
rack-mounted servers. The blade supercomputer is at the SUNY Buffalo campus,
which has a supercomputer center dedicated to science, visualization, and
bioinformatics, and is used to study the structure of proteins in the hope
of treating diseases and discovering new drugs. Built by IBM, the system is
comprised of 266 two-way HS20 Xeon DP-based BladeCenterT blade servers, each
equipped with 2.8GHz processors and 1GB of main memory. The configuration
also includes seven xSeriesR 345 two-way Xeon DP servers and 5TB of FAStT700
storage arrays that act as a data repository that the blade supercomputer
accesses as it performs its protein simulations. The IBM configuration will
be rated at approximately 1.3 teraflops and runs Red Hat Advanced Server
2.1. For the rest of the story, go here
<http://news.dbta.com/t/51412/273660/2445/0/> . 

Business Need Drives IT Innovation for GHY International

GHY International, a leading provider of international trade brokerage
services, and one of Canada's leading brokers of trade services, faced a
host of new requirements when the business environment changed after
September 11, 2001. It needed to transform its business in order to more
effectively operate in a dramatically changing, cross-border environment. In
response, it re-engineered its IT architecture, consolidating a farm of 17
diverse servers into a highly virtualized environment on IBM eServerT
iSeriesT. It leveraged an iSeries 820 with logical partitions (LPARs) to
host Linux applications and delivered 14 different services, including
imaging applications, a firewall, file-and-print serving and Web application
serving. In the process, GHY cut its IT budget by 14 percent. Read the whole
story here <http://news.dbta.com/t/51412/273660/2446/0/> .

LINUX INSIGHTS

Linux IP Legal Foundations Strengthened

The intellectual property foundation that underpins Linux has been
strengthened considerably, according to an article in the November 16 issue
of Business Week. The weekly business news magazine reported that the Open
Invention Network, funded by IBM, Novell, Red Hat and others, has begun to
purchase patents and offer them royalty free to individuals, institutions
and companies that agree not to make patent infringement claims against
users of Linux. Among the first patents purchased is one from Commerce One,
a pioneer in e-business. OIN is also establishing a collaborative
environment that will help developers pool their resources.

Along the same lines, the Open Source Development Laboratory, which promotes
and coordinates open source development, unveiled its online patents common
reference library. The reference library gives people access to the patent
commons, which has more than 2000 patents from IBM, Red Hat, Novell and
others. Through the library, developers can learn which patents are
available to them and the terms under which they can be used.

Systems Running Linux Dominate Top Spots in the TOP500

Supercomputers utilizing the Linux operating system held four of the top 10
spots in the 26th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's fastest
supercomputers that was released this week at the Supercomputing Conference
(SC05) in Seattle, WA. The number 1 position was again claimed by the
BlueGeneR/L System, a joint development of IBM and the U.S. Department of
Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed
at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA. BlueGene/L
also occupied the number one position on the last two TOP500 lists. However,
the system was doubled in size during the last six months and reached a new
record Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlop/s ("teraflops" or
trillions of calculations per second). No other system has yet exceeded the
level of 100 TFlop/s and this system is expected to remain the fastest
supercomputer in the world for the next few editions of the TOP500 list.

The number two system on the list was a similar but smaller version of
BlueGene/L, which uses a hybrid operating system including Linux. Called
BGW-eServer BlueGene, it is installed at IBM's Thomas Watson Research
Center. IBM also held the third spot, with a system built on the pServer
running AIXR. Linux was used on the eighth fastest system, which was built
on an IBM BladeCenterT cluster and the ninth system on the list, yet another
version of the BlueGene/L technology.

The pace of innovation and performance improvements seen at the very high
end of scientific computing shows no signs of slowing down. This time, four
of the TOP10 systems on the June 2005 TOP500 list were displaced by newly
installed systems, and the last 221 systems on the list from June 2005 are
now too small to be included. IBM has now established itself as the dominant
vendor of supercomputers with almost half of the list (43.8 percent)
carrying its label. 

Moving Beyond Red Hat and Novell SUSE

Ubuntu, one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions, has been
certified by IBM that IBM's DB2 Universal DatabaseT for Linux operates in
the Ubuntu environment. Working together, IBM and Ubuntu have shown that DB2
UDB and Ubuntu deliver a stable environment in which to run business
applications using DB2 as the chosen database.

The combination of this certification and the recently announced server
edition of Ubuntu opens up new opportunities for users and developers to
access the power of DB2 UDB on Ubuntu. Enterprises of all sizes can now
leverage the strengths of DB2 UDB and the security, stability and ease of
use of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu engineers worked directly with IBM DB2 Lab Software engineers to do
compatibility testing under the DB2 for Linux Validation program. The "Ready
for IBM DB2 Software for Linux" mark ensures that IBM will fully support
businesses that choose to run DB2 UDB on Ubuntu, an essential offering for
mission-critical databases and applications.

This certification is the first major one of its type awarded to Ubuntu.
"Being ready for DB2 UDB is a real step up for Ubuntu, and the whole project
is moving into new and exciting areas. Our release last month included a
server edition, which provides the perfect foundation for major database
environments," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder and sponsor of Ubuntu.

The certification will be attractive to Ubuntu's growing partnership
members, as well. "With a respected product like DB2 on Ubuntu, our partners
will relish the chance to discuss database and solution choices with their
clients," commented Malcolm Yates, alliances and partner manager at
Canonical Ltd, which is committed to the development, distribution and
promotion of open source software products. 

Since its launch in October 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most highly
regarded Linux distributions, with millions distributed and in use around
the world. Based on Debian, Ubuntu will always be free, and will not have
restrictive licenses associated with it. Ubuntu aims at being the most
widely used of all Linux systems, and is the center of a global open source
software ecosystem. 

ABOUT US 

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