InfoWorld: Linux Future Scales Out

“As dominant systems and software companies continue to pour
millions into scaling Linux for the enterprise, some observers now
believe the open-source OS’s future is to serve as a distributed,
network-based operating system.

“During the past year, users have too closely equated Linux’s
‘scale-up’ capabilities–the capability of a single instance of
Linux to handle more and more processors–with its legitimacy as an
enterprise operating system, some observers said.

“Rather, at a time when distributed architectures such as those
proposed by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems are
beginning to emerge, Linux should be considered for its ability to
‘scale out’ in a horizontal fashion…”

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