IBM Expands Linux Support in WebSphere

Computerworld - IBM announced last week that its WebSphere Application Server for the first time will run on Linux on its pSeries and iSeries hardware with its Power4 microprocessor.

WebSphere already ran on IBM's Linux-based xSeries servers with Intel Corp. processors at the low end and on its zSeries mainframe at the high end. Now it will also be supported on Linux-based midrange servers that traditionally have run the Unix operating system, said Bob Sutor, director of WebSphere infrastructure software at IBM. "IBM continues its commitment to Linux on our strategic hardware," he said, "and we're continuing to put our commitment on our strategic software as well."

Sutor noted that Microsoft Corp.'s Windows servers run only on Intel processors and added that Sun Microsystems Inc. "has relegated Linux to the lowest end," supporting the open-source Unix derivative on Intel-based servers rather than on its Sparc processors.

"In the Sun Sparc environment, you can only go so far up with Linux before Sun shifts you over to Solaris," said Dwight Davis, an analyst at Summit Strategies Inc. in Boston. "So this is in large part an attack on Sun, trying to draw people from the Sun platform to the IBM platform by offering them a more scalable growth path with Linux as the foundation."

Davis said most users will base their decisions on the whole IBM offering and an assessment of WebSphere. He said developers don't write to Linux directly, but rather to the J2EE platform, which, in IBM's case, is WebSphere.

"Obviously, people do care about the underlying hardware and the performance profile of the microprocessors," Davis said. "But I don't think many people are making decisions based solely on whether it's a Sparc chip, an Itanium chip, a Power chip. They're really looking at the entire package."

New Products WebSphere 5.02 for Linux/Power4-based pSeries and iSeries servers EDITION PRICE AVAILABILITY WebSphere Application Server $10,000 per processor Tomorrow WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment $15,000 per processor Tomorrow WebSphere Application Server Enterprise $30,000 per processor July 25 Source: IBM