There was a lot of action in the enterprise Linux world in 2010: Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and its storied Solaris franchise, leaving uncertainty about the future of Linux support from Oracle, and OpenSolaris and MySQL development. In Q2, a private equity firm proposed a not-so-friendly buyout of Novell Inc., spurring speculation about the future of SUSE Linux. The latest Ubuntu release and shift of Linux distributions away from Xen virtualization also caught reader attention.
1: Linux is now Oracle’s low-end offering
A month after Oracle completed its $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems closed, Oracle
execs blessed Solaris as its high-end enterprise-class operating system. This came after many
years of pushing Linux as the de facto standard OS for Oracle’s market-leading database and
middleware. In some ways the new Solaris love was a return to Oracle’s roots. Before Linux,
Sun and Oracle were pretty much joined at the hip with Sparc/Solaris as the preferred platform for
Oracle software. The more things change…..
2: SUSE Linux users nervous as Novell explores options
In late May, Novell
Inc., apparently
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put itself on the block two months after an unsolicited -- and unwelcome
-- $2 billion buyout bit by Elliott Partners. The company, which made its name on NetWare, joined
the Linux fray with its purchase of SUSE. Novell SUSE Linux struggled against Red Hat Linux in big
accounts, but retained a devoted base of users who now worried about what Novell's plans
meant for their favorite Linux distribution.
3: New Ubuntu for desktops adds Windows file integration
With the Ubuntu
10.10 release Canonical Ltd. tried to build on Ubuntu’s fan-favorite status in desktop Linux.
And, it sought to woo disaffected Windows users with new synchronization for Windows files. The
release, available in October, targeted both desktops and the hot-selling netbook
category.
4: Ubuntu Server makes gains at SUSE Linux' expense
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) remains the most commonly used Linux distribution in large
companies, but the number two slot was under contention with
Ubuntu Server gaining steam against SUSE Linux. Granted, Ubuntu’s server market share remained
tiny compared to Windows Server and RHEL, but it was closing the gap with SUSE, according to
TechTarget’s Data
Center Decisions 2010 survey.
5: Linux community turns away from Xen virtualization
Xen was the early favorite virtualization among the open-source crowd. But this year, KVM
virtualization started to take off as Red Hat blessed it as its virtualization technology
of choice. Many argued that Xen sustained mortal damage with the Linux community could not
get the Xen Domain 0 (Dom0) merged into the mainline Linux kernel. KVM, by contrast, was merged
into the mainline kernel with Linux 2.6.20 three years ago.
Let us know what you think about the story; email Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at bdarrow@techtarget.com, or follow us on twitter.
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