System Management for Ubuntu

I started my professional career as UNIX system administrator back in the mid-1990&aposs, so I know first hand what a headache it can be to keep a bunch of operating systems and other critical software up to date across the entire IT environment. Canonical has plans to make this a little easier for people running Ubuntu with the announcement of the Landscape Dedicated Server. According to Ken Drachnik, Landscape manager at Canonical, "Landscape Dedicated Server will give customers the flexibility to download package updates from their own private repository or the Ubuntu public package repository." The system configuration, policies, and profiles are kept within the internal infrastructure, so you will even be able to use Landscape to manage systems that are not on public networks, which can be fairly common in certain environments (manufacturing, etc.)

This is pretty good timing for Canonical. A report released on July 24, 2009 from Forrester highlights the importance of using system management tools to automate IT activities:

A combination of forces, including skyrocketing complexity and severe economic pressure, are radically and irreversibly altering the IT landscape. New methods, new functional sourcing, and new organizational structures are needed to address this onslaught, but one theme is obvious throughout all of these approaches ¡X a need to automate more of what you do in IT. The typical IT organization wastes a significant portion of its budget on inefficiencies that only get worse as complexity grows. Automate many of these tasks and you become leaner and more responsive to business changes. Evidence indicates an automation "tipping point" is already under way this year. All IT shops need to consider their plans for automation, including the many derivative outcomes for process refinement, staffing, tools, and the organization itself.

Landscape Dedicated Server will be released in late September and will cost $150 per node with additional fees for server, installation and support.

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IntelBlogs/~3/gm-0xQD3XG0/

Is the current economy good for open source software?

With the economy in a downward spiral, many companies and individuals are changing how they spend money as budgets tighten. I&aposve been an open source software fan since college in the early to mid 1990s. For me, there are many benefits of using open source. Cost is just one of those many benefits, but with the current economy, cost is becoming a primary driver leading more companies to explore open source solutions.

I recently started thinking more about the relationship between the economy and open source software after the Red Hat earnings announcement in late June. Headlines, like this one from Matt Asay, ¡§Red Hat: Bad Economy is good for open source¡¨ started emerging. Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat President and CEO, seemed to fuel the interest in Red Hat&aposs relationship to the economy with this statement: "Budgets remain tight and we don&apost see an end in sight for this. In relative terms, this is pretty good for us."

I decided to dig into this idea a little more to see what research I could find to support the idea that the current economy is driving more open source software adoption. Here are a few data points that support the idea.

IDC Study (PDF link):

¡§53% of respondents are planning to increase adoption of Linux on the server and 48% are planning to increase adoption of Linux on the client as a direct result of the economic climate.¡¨

¡§Looking forward, IDC sees Linux as a platform solution that we expect to thrive in the post-recession time period, especially given the compatibility of Linux with two of the industry&aposs more exciting trends ¡V virtualization and cloud computing.¡¨

Freeform Dynamics Study (sponsored by IBM):

¡§Desktop Linux adoption is primarily driven by cost reduction. When asked during a recent online survey of over a thousand IT professionals with experience of desktop Linux deployment in a business context, over 70% of respondents indicated cost reduction as the primary driver for adoption.¡¨

Forrester Analyst, Jeffrey Hammond on open source software:

¡§Generally, the goal is to save money. That&aposs where organizations tend to start. And then what tends to happen is the more that they become comfortable with using open source, and the more that they apply it successfully, the more they start to realize that there are benefits other than cost savings that they can take advantage of. And that&aposs when you start to see them turn from open source opportunists into open source advocates.¡¨

For pointers to additional research on open source use in the current economy, you might start with these two articles:

• Open source rising as the economy continues to fall
• Linux desktop adoption boosted by economy

There are so many reasons to use open source software. The down economy and lower cost are not the only reason people are moving to open source software, but it does seem to be driving a few more companies into evaluating open source software solutions.

What do you think? Have you noticed any trends toward increased open source software adoption as a result of the down economy?

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IntelBlogs/~3/h21XJjWHUO8/

Forrester Analyst Craig Le Clair Presents the 2009 Forrester Wave: Document Output for Customer Communications Management

	Forrester Analyst Craig Le Clair Presents the 2009 Forrester Wave: Document Output for Customer Communications Management Location : Online Date : Jul 23 – 23, 2009.
Location : Online Date : Jul 23 – 23, 2009.
Update your feed preferences

URL: http://emcfeeds.emc.com/rsrc/link/_/forrester_analyst_craig_le_clair_presents_the_20_535399309?f=84f8d580-01de-11de-22d1-00001a1a9134