Unisys is to support Linux on its ES7000 series high-end
servers.
It already offered Linux on two-way or four-way servers based on
Intel microprocessors, and is now adding support for Linux on a
range of multiprocessor machines containing up to 32 Intel 32-bit
or 64-bit processors.
Unisys will offer two distributions of Linux on its ES7000
servers: SuSE, from Novell, and Red Hat from Red Hat.
SuSE Linux will run on up to 32 processors, Red Hat Linux on up
to 16, according to Steve Rawsthorn, Unisys vice-president of sales
and marketing for systems and technology in Europe, the Middle East
and Africa.
For support and service,Unisys will provide the main point of
contact with customers and handle first-line support, Rawsthorn
said.
He pointed out that Unisys is not turning its back on Microsoft,
supplier of the Windows operating systems that previously shipped
on all ES7000 models.
"We see this as an incremental revenue opportunity for us with
Linux. We don't see it detracting from what we do with Microsoft,"
Rawsthorn said.
The company had been prevented from bidding for some contracts
because it did not support Linux, he added.
Unisys is planning to expand its ES7000 range in the near
future, and future models will be compatible with Microsoft's
operating systems, Rawsthorn said.
Some organisations are already running Linux on ES7000 machines.
These early adopters had "very little" help from Unisys in doing
so, Rawsthorn said.
One area where Linux may steal a march on Microsoft's operating
system is in its support for dynamic partitioning.
If, for example, an ES7000 machine is running one application in
an instance of Linux across 16 processors, and another application
in a different instance across another block of 16 processors,
dynamic partitioning allows processors to be taken away from one
application and given to another as the workload changes, while the
application continues to run.
ES7000 hardware has been ready for dynamic partitioning for
years, but so far no operating system has been able to make use of
it, according to Andy Carter, Unisys server product manager for
Emea. "You won't have that in Windows until Longhorn comes along,"
he said.
Support for dynamic partitioning in Linux requires version 2.6
of the kernel, which SuSE and Red Hat have not yet incorporated
into their versions of Linux intended for enterprise users.
Rawsthorn expects SuSE to move first, releasing an enterprise
version with the 2.6 kernel in the next day or two, although a SuSE
spokesperson refused to comment on when such an announcement might
be made.
Peter Sayer writes for IDG News Service