To achieve this, the company for the first time has harnessed a number of virtualisation features which will allow system managers to run heterogeneous operating systems — even `mix-n-match’ older 32-bit applications with current 64-bit tools in the same server and storage space.

“You will see a dramatic reduction in the cost of acquisition and operation,” promised Mr Scott Crenshaw, Red Hat’s US-based Vice-President for Enterprise Linux Platform Business. “The savings could range from tens of thousands of dollars to $100,000 per server.”

New features in the fifth iteration of Red Hat’s Linux flavour centre around beefed-up data centre and database offerings, as well as enhanced tools for high performance computing — the burgeoning application in number-crunching mammoths for drug discovery, energy exploration and other scientific quests

Read More @ The Hindu Business Line

A free software that can be downloaded from the Web, Linux has a source code that’s open and therefore available for anyone to use, modify, and redistribute freely. Proprietary Unix and Windows operating systems aren’t available for such tweaking.

With the movement getting the support of IT biggies such as IBM, Oracle and Hewlett-Packard, which have devoted many of their engineers to work with the open source movement, enterprises are now showing confidence in adopting Linux. It’s no more now about getting your software free — in India the dominating Linux brands are Red Hat and Suse from Novell.

Read More @ Economic Times