Linux

Database vendor Ingres has teamed up with Red Hat to offer an open source developer stack with features intended to be comparable to proprietary offerings from the likes of IBM or Oracle.

The Ingres Development Stack for JBoss combines the Ingres database with Red Hat's JBoss Developer Studio and JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. This allows the development of Java applications and provides the middleware and database software to support those applications, Ingres said in an announcement.

Ingres said it has pre-configured all the components to work together, and it has provided documented sample applications to get developers started.

The company said it is aiming at developers who want enterprise-grade features at a lower cost than would be offered by proprietary offerings. Features provided by the stack include hot back-up, active-passive high availability, online table and index reorganisation, security auditing, database partitioning and parallel query execution.

"Java developers that have previously used JBoss Developer Studio with another underlying database technology will find the move to Ingres to be completely seamless," said Ingres vice president of product management, Deb Woods, in a statement.

Ingres, the second-largest open source company after Red Hat, counts the likes of BAE Systems, Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa among its customers.

The company is focused on moving open source software deeper into enterprises, and has said it sees the credit crunch as fueling demand for open source generally.

Ingres chief financial officer Tom Berquist said in December that the company also believes the move toward software-as-a-service (SaaS) will create an open source boom, because it requires SaaS vendors to spend large amounts on hardware and software.

"The more we move towards cloud computing, the more that rewards open source, because the cloud software vendor cannot afford to pay for software for, say, 25,000 server CPUs," Berquist said at the time.

The development stack is available immediately from Ingres for a 90-day trial period. Ingres and Red Hat said they plan to sell developer support services as well as technical support for production applications.

The Kickfire appliance is a Linux-based, rack-mountable, database appliance tuned for Data Warehousing.

Here's the real scoop: Starting at a mere $32,000 US, you get the horsepower performance of a system (actually a set of systems) costing in the $400,000 range. And it consumes very little power while saving you a bundle of cash while performing like big iron.

How do they do it?

Linux, MySQL Enterprise DB and a SQL chip. Read all about it here.

So, now you're asking (like we did), "What about your future as an Oracle competitor now that Oracle owns MySQL?"

Armstrong stated that they (Kickfire) have discussed this change among themselves and with Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL, about his new project the Open Database Alliance (fka MariaDB). As Armstrong sees it, Kickfire has options--lots of options and all of them smell like success. To get all the information about Kickfire's options, listen to the live podcast.

The Kickfire appliance is an amazing machine that deserves a look if you're into data warehousing or need super speed for your queries of any kind. Remember this: 10% of the price, 10% of the power consumption, 100% of the performance of any other data warehousing solution.

That's the ultimate Linux device for which we've been searching. Innovative, creative, inexpensive, powerful. I just don't know if it gets any better than that.

Oh, wait, it just did.

Kickfire is having a contest where you can win a Kickfire appliance. You'll have to compete with me, of course, and others who want to win the ultimate Linux device but we'll all have fun doing it.

What do you think of the Kickfire appliance? Also let me know if you're going to enter the contest.

It's now easier to run on a USB drive without data loss and reformat

Users of Red Hat's Inc.'s Fedora who wanted an easier way to use the popular and free community-supported Linux operating system on portable USB drives have had their wishes granted.

The improved USB drive capabilities are one of the biggest new features of the latest Fedora 9 release, which was announced today.

The USB drive capabilities mean that Fedora 9 Live images can be added to a USB key under a Linux or Windows application with no loss of data loss, and without the need for repartitioning or reformatting, which increases flexibility for users, Red Hat said.

Other Fedora 9 new features include the following:

• The latest KDE 4 graphical user interface, with its new desktop design.
• An integrated desktop search tool to make it easier for users to find their files.
• The integration of OpenJDK6, the open-source implementation of Sun Microsystem Inc. 's Java SDK Standard Edition.
• Improvements to NetworkManager, including wider support for mobile broadband, multiple connections and connection editing and sharing.
• GNOME 2.22, which has a world time clock, better file system performance, security improvements, power management at log-in, dynamic display configuration capabilities and improved Blue tooth integration and podcast support.

 Fedora 9 comes six months after the release of Fedora 8 last November under Red Hat's Fedora update schedule.

Free downloads of Fedora 9 are available at the fedora Project Web Site.

Red Hat touts Fedora as the ongoing, free version of its Linux operating system, for use by anyone, including consumers, hobbyists and open-source fans. Last month, Red Hat said that because it continues to expand the Fedora Project, it has no plans to release a retail version of its Linux operating system specifically for consumers.

Paul Frields, the Fedora Project Leader at Red Hat, said the new USB thumb drive capabilities include another huge feature for users called "persistence." With persistence, changes can be saved in the operating system image on the thumb drive, allowing them to remain or "persist" whenever the drive is booted up again in the future.

Previously, such changes couldn't be saved, just as a CD-ROM can't be modified once it is closed. In Fedora 9, as long as a user has a thumb drive of at least 2GB, there will be enough free space for both operating system changes and data files to be saved on the drive, Frields said.

"Persistence is an overlay," Frields said. "It captures information on the changes you make to the image. It's something that lives on, even when you're not paying attention to it, so changes stay on the [drive] even after you power down."

"This live USB changes that whole game," he said.

Red Hat is also providing the tools to make USB drives for Fedora 9 using a Windows-based computer. The Windows operating system can be used to load Fedora 9 onto the thumb drive, then the drive can be used to reboot the Windows machine and run Fedora 9.

 

Experts predicted that the economy would make this the year that many organizations switched to Linux. A coming Window 7 upgrade considered to be better than Vista -- seemed to increase the odds.

Indeed, some organizations have switched to Linux, but a recent report, "Linux on the Desktop: Lessons from mainstream business adoption" from Freeform Dynamics, sponsored by IBM (NYSE:IBM), issued mixed findings: the change was easier than expected, but most deployments rolled out Linux only to a targeted group of users -- a group that could be as small as one person. The survey covered 1,275 IT processionals worldwide who responded to a Web-based survey.

"In contrast with certain other vendor-sponsored reports, this report doesn't say that 100 percent of the world is moving to Linux, rah rah rah," Dr. Robert Sutor, vice president of open source and Linux at IBM's software group told InternetNews.com.

He added that the report achieved its goal, which is to be useful. "If I was considering rolling out Linux within my business, I would look at this report and say I know what needs to be done."

Of course, IBM has already rolled out Linux. "IBM has over 30,000 people using Linux desktops within IBM," said Sutor.

The company has also adopted open source as a stratgey for its own software. It reported yesterday its partner ecosystem for "IBM and Canonical teaming with Virtual Bridges to provide the company's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology as part of a Microsoft-alternative desktop offering" has added sixteen new partners since the start of the year.

Adoption is growing, but those who reported greatest success planned ahead. They successfully targeted specific user groups and communicated with them well, Dale Vile, research director for Freeform Dynamics and co-author of the report, told InternetNews.com.

The virtualization alternative

IT managers determined in advance what applications were important to users and ensured that they could deliver those apps on Linux. If only one application was a problem, managers could virtualize it using Citrix, suggested Sutor.

Of course, some groups have applications that are famously unavailable on Linux. "The Adobe creative suite including Photoshop is not available on Linux," said Vile. "Sometimes in-house applications cannot be delivered to a Linux desktop."

When users are asked to compromise in order to embrace Linux, they resist the transition, and that resistance (plus the political games that ensue) are two of the three top obstacles to Linux adoption (the other being those applications that are not available on Linux).

Vile added that managers that communicated early with Windows power users, those to whom the rest of the employees go to for basic advice on solving Windows issues, rollouts proceeded more smoothly.

Linux went to technical staff first. Only 29 percent of respondents rolled out Linux to non-technical users.

Deployments were small. Forty-four percent went to 10 or fewer users, and only 15 percent went to over 250 users, even though 18 percent of those surveyed worked in organizations with over 5,000 employees.

Respondents indicated that current Linux deployments are likely to grow. Vile explained that some deployments in large organizations are pilot projects, and other deployments occur initially in one department only but can then grow outside it.