[LINK] IBM and Linux
stephen at melbpc.org.au
stephen at melbpc.org.au
Thu Sep 19 01:09:03 AEST 2013
Glen writes,
> They make Linus look organised .. which he is ..
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/526695
"IBM will fund development of Linux applications and expansion of a Linux
cloud service"
IBM will invest US$1 billion to promote Linux development over the next
five years as it tries to adapt Power mainframes and servers to handle
cloud and big data applications in distributed computing environments.
The investment, expected to be announced at the LinuxCon conference in New
Orleans this week, will fund Linux application development programs for
IBM's Power servers and also be used to expand a cloud service where
developers can write and test applications for Power servers before
deployment. The investment will also facilitate software development around
IBM's new Power8 chips, which will go into servers next year.
IBM is also adding a Power Systems Linux Center in Montpellier, France,
where developers will get access to Power chip and server technologies to
develop and deploy Linux applications. The company already has similar
centers in Beijing, New York and Austin, Texas.
Linux is the OS of choice for cloud and big data deployments in data
centers, said Doug Balog, general manager of Power Systems at IBM.
"As we look at our current clients, with Linux I want to leverage what they
have developed for years and bring these new ... capabilities," Balog said.
The investment will be applied to Linux development by clients, developers
and students, though IBM did not elaborate on how the funds will be made
available. IBM expects code contributions in applications such as
OpenStack, a distributed computing environment that deals with processing
of large data sets over a network of servers.
IBM's homegrown Power hardware is best known through the Linux-based Watson
supercomputer, which outperformed humans in the televised game show
"Jeopardy." Power chips have been traditionally used for demanding
applications such as financial transaction processing, but IBM believes the
chips are flexible enough to handle cloud computing and analytics through
features that quickly gather, manage and analyze data.
IBM also hopes to rope in more Linux developers to remain competitive
against companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, whose x86 servers are
widely used in cloud and analytics deployments. IBM also makes x86 servers,
but believes Power can transcend from mainframes into general-purpose
servers.
IBM has already invested millions of dollars in Linux development over more
than a decade. The latest announcement follows IBM's decision last month to
open up its Power chip architecture and license it to third parties that
want to build servers and components based on the processor. IBM hopes
Linux will make Power8 attractive to third parties that want to build non-
x86 servers.
The first Power licensees of Power include Google, Nvidia, Mellanox and
Tyan, who joined IBM as part of a new development alliance called
OpenPower. IBM hopes to expand OpenPower as part of the $1 billion [B]
investment. IBM will continue offering Power servers, with an upgrade to
Power8 due next year.
The Power8 chip architecture has new technologies compared to its
predecessor, Power 7+ and IBM also hopes developers will write applications
that take advantage of the new hardware. The architecture's new
technologies include the PCI-Express 3.0 protocol, shared memory and a new
CAPI (Coherence Attach Processor Interface) for outside components to
communicate with the CPU and other processing units.
The increased focus on Linux raises questions about the future of AIX, but
Balog said the Unix OS remains targeted at higher-end applications. The
Linux investment could potentially bring the flexibility for existing
Power-AIX infrastructures to handle new cloud and analytics workloads,
Balog said. AIX and Linux are already cross-compatible at the
virtualization and system management levels, so servers with the different
operating systems can coexist in a data center.
"AIX is too important to my client base and long-term strategy," Balog
said, adding that the company has billions of dollars invested in the OS,
and will continue to invest in it.
Linux was the least important operating system to IBM on the Power
architecture and it was treated as a stepchild, said Al Gillen, program
vice president for system software research at IDC.
"What has changed is the Unix market has been in a nosedive and while IBM
has successfully captured some significant share from competitors in this
contracting market, it is still a declining business for IBM. As a result,
the company has concluded that it needs to readjust its investment to
reflect where the growth opportunity is [Linux], rather than where the
growth opportunity used to be [Unix]," Gillen said in an email.
It's not clear where IBM's $1 billion investment will go, but the money
could be applied to improve Linux on Power, development of hardware
architecture, and porting kernel-based virtual machine to Power. However,
the investment will not directly benefit the greater Linux community
relying on x86 servers, Gillen said.
"That said, there also are likely to be other investments that IBM is
making that do benefit the larger Linux community. For example, any work
IBM does to increase the performance or scale of the base Linux operating
system likely benefits all Linux users," Gillen said.
Hardware makers are focusing more on customizing software to take advantage
of power, performance and instruction-set features on specific chips.
Intel, which is a big contributor to Linux, offers a version of Hadoop for
IT administrators who want scalability in their x86 server infrastructures
to deal with large amounts of data. Oracle is customizing its database,
cloud and other applications to work with Solaris OS and Sparc chips.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG
News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is
agam_shah at idg.com
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