IDC Research: Switch from UNIX to Linux Servers Relates to Virtualization

Research conducted by IDC in February 2009 confirms the continued replacement of Unix by Linux on servers. That is a trend we have been seeing for 10 years but there is one methodology caution in the survey: the 'n' uses only respondents that deploy Windows along with Unix and/or Linux and other operating software. It appears to exclude the very substantial demographic that uses only Windows as its server operating software.

A complementary summary of the research is available from Novell (NOVL). It is full of good statistics on general IT budget planning and industry trends as well.

Interestingly, IDC said:

"Nearly half of the survey participants stated that moving to virtualization is accelerating their adoption of Linux. Eighty-eight percent of respondents plan to evaluate, deploy, or increase their use of virtualization software within Linux operating systems over the next 12-24 months."

This indicates to me the limited support of virtualization among older Unix products rather than any particular Linux accelerant. Of course, I believe Linux is UNIX--but that's another blog post.

IDC also surveyed about adoption plans related to Linux as a single-user operating system. The top factors among the sample are security/reliability, usability/familiarity, and application and peripheral support. Given that the sample surveyed is made up of open choice adherents and not the extremes of either Microsoft (MSFT) or open-source bigotry (see Methodology note above), this is probably a good indicator of what will drive the emerging netbook market.

Comments

[ratmix:]

"This indicates to me the limited support of virtualization among older Unix products rather than any particular Linux accelerant."

I guess this depends on what you mean by "older Unix products" -- are you talking about SCO Unix? Interactive Unix?

The big three UNIX OSes (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) have had virtualization support since before VMware existed. Solaris can be virtualized today on both VMware and Hyper-V, as well as Sun's own VirtualBox product.

Mar 17 11:01 AM