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Study: Linux Server Roles Expanding

A new study by IDC finds that enterprise Linux server usage is moving beyond its traditional bastion of Web serving and moving into Unix and Windows strongholds such as application serving and database serving.

"This move is being made possible as ISVs (independent software vendors) port more applications that formerly had been running only on Unix servers and Windows servers to Linux servers," IDC analyst Jean Bozeman said in a statement.

"IDC expects that Linux servers will continue to evolve, both in 'scale out' clustered configurations for technical and commercial computing and in 'scale up' configurations for larger databases with a single-system image," Bozeman said.

The study, "Linux Servers Are Taking on New Computing Roles in the Enterprise," came out this month. It is based on usage of Linux servers in 2002.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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