Community Linux has become increasingly popular within the enterprise as organizations look to cut costs without compromising on functionality and reliability. In this webinar Brad Reeves, Senior Content Engineer with OpenLogic, provides a comparison of the leading community Linux distributions, including CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. Brad discusses which distributions are best suited to different uses within the enterprise as well as how to approach migrations from commercial Linux distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Other topics covered in this webinar include: * Community Linux in your datacenter – top server distributions * Community Linux in your enterprise – top desktop distributions * Best practices for enterprise involvement in Linux communities * Options for community Linux support and maintenance help

1. Choosing the Right Community
Linux for Your Enterprise
Webinar on Jan 28, 2010
Presented by Kim Weins, Sr. VP of Marketing
and Brad Reeves, Sr. Content Engineer at OpenLogic

2. About OpenLogic
OpenLogic is an open source provider and aggregator.
We enable enterprises to
successfully and safely
acquire, deploy, support and control
all of the free and open source software they use.
Facts Pioneering Achievements
12 years in open source 2006 OXC – OpenLogic Expert Community
130+ enterprise customers 2006 OSS Discovery scanner
Library of 130,000 open source projects 2007 OLEX – SaaS Governance Platform
Support for 500+ open source projects 2008 OSS Census
200+ OXC members 2009 OSS Fulfillment Center
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3. OpenLogic Capabilities
Aggregating Open Source for the Enterprise
Certified library of 500+ open source projects
Provisioning Trusted source Packaging and deployment to multiple formats
Managed updates
Code Scanning & License compliance
Governance Risk reduction Policy enforcement & approvals
Indemnification
Developer Support
Support One throat to choke Production Support
Remote Monitoring
Training
Services Independent Expertise Configuration & Tuning
Policy Workshops
3
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4. Disclaimer
OpenLogic is a provider of open source support,
governance, scanning, and provisioning solutions for
enterprises.
There is no “one size fits all” solution – your
enterprise is unique, and that must be taken into
account.
Proprietary operating systems and software may be
mentioned during this talk as a comparison only, any
mentions are not recommendations or endorsements
of those proprietary packages or systems.
© Copyright OpenLogic 2009

5. Brad Reeves – Senior Content Engineer
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6. The First Sieve
• Data Center ( Server )
• Desktop
• .RPM based Enterprise Desktop Linux
Linux on the Desktop used to
be a running joke. Now it is
not only possible, it is a very
• .DEB based good alternative.
More on this later.....
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7. A Little Bit of Revisionist History
Four score and seven revisions ago......
Actually the first Open Source Unix system to be widely
accepted into the Enterprise was FreeBSD. Why?
- Could be deployed on COTS hardware.
Replacement cost for a component went from thousands of
dollars to hundreds, if not tens of dollars.
Excellent support for SCSI drivers and RAID systems.
- Very Fast Network Drivers
BSD had the best networking speeds for years.
Linux now does all of those things and does them better,
faster and cheaper.
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8. The Second Sieve
• CentOS
RPM Based
• Mandriva
• Ubuntu
DEB Based
• Debian
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9. What? Wait? How Did That Happen?
How did that happen? We started talking about 100’s of distributions
and now we have 4? A little history and then 4? Cmon? How did you
get there?
Refining our search for the best Enterprise Linux
• Supportability
• Upgradeability
• Reliability
• Compatibility
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10. The Bottom Three
Upgradeability Reliability Compatibility
Ubuntu LTS to newer LTS is a Data Center uptime of thousands Hardware. In the “old” days this
direct update. of days for Linux servers. was more of an issue. Now
CentOS 3 -> 4 -> 5 upgrades. Coupled with the Long Term modern Linux systems have the
RedHat -> CentOS updates have Support Versions, and solid best drivers for networking and
been done in the wild. hardware, years of uptime is raid controllers. It still pays to do
CentOS to Ubuntu has been expected. a little research on the exact
done. models of major components of
your servers.
Ubuntu Desktops can be
configured to self upgrade / On the desktop, the biggest
update as new code rolls out. single issue is the graphics card.
That too, is getting better as time
goes by, and choosing a desktop
with a major branded graphics
card ( nvidia, ati ) will save you
lots of time (and headaches).
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11. Support?
Support is really the most important aspect of Enterprise Linux. If
you can’t get help... what is the point?
• Centos - 7 years. Follows RHEL. CentOS 5.x will be supported
until 2014.
• Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) Released every 2 years.
• 3 year support on Desktop Linux.
• 5 year support on Server Linux.
• Mandriva 5 year support.
• New versions roll out every 2 years.
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12. Recommendations
Server Desktop
CentOS - RPM based. Rock solid Ubuntu - Can be easily ghosted to quickly
distribution with great support options setup desktop systems. There are
available. applications for accessing most current
Enterprise email and document
Debian - .DEB based. There is third party repositories.
support available. Many systems and
network administrators rank it as the best
linux server.
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13. How much is this going to cost?
The Good News
If you choose Open Source, the licensing cost is $0.00.
A significant savings over proprietary systems licensing that can run up to
hundreds of dollars per seat.
The OK News
A switch of operating systems will cost you some productivity, however those
losses will be recuperated after your team has gone through the learning curve.
The Bad News
Operating Systems are the very core of your computing infrastructure. A change
at the core takes time and patience. There can be a steep learning curve if you
choose the wrong distribution for either the desktop or the data center. Make sure
you evaluate your enterprises strengths.
The Great News
OpenLogic offers a full range of support services to assist you with the support of
your operating system and underlying packages, at far lower cost than proprietary
vendors, OpenLogic can lower your overall software budget.
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14. OpenLogic Support for Community Linux Distros
Currently provide support for CentOS
A community operating system based on publicly available
source code of RHEL
Updated within 72 hrs for fixes (usually within 24 hrs) or 4-8
weeks after point releases of RHEL
Supported for 7 years
Licensed under GPL (and other licenses for included
packages)
Will be adding support for other community Linux
distros next quarter
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15. OpenLogic’s CentOS Support Offering
3 tiers
Up to 4 servers
Up to 10 servers
Unlimited servers
Unlimited CPUs & sockets per server
Up to 5 VMs per server (can be pooled)
Business Hours or 24x7 SLAs
Indemnification
More info: http://www.openlogic.com/products/centos-support.php
Get a quote: http://go.openlogic.com/go/6322
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16. Contact Information
For more information, please visit:
www.openlogic.com/products/centos-support.php
To get a quote on CentOS Support:
http://go.openlogic.com/go/6323
Or contact us by email at:
kim.weins@openlogic.com
brad.reeves@openlogic.com
© Copyright OpenLogic 2009