As the New York Times reported yesterday, IBM is in the process of purchasing Red Hat, one of the largest corporate contributors to the Linux kernel. The news is great if you’ve got stock in either company or a passion to see a cloud computing services challenge Amazon (and Microsoft). But if you’re a fan of open source software, IBM’s move might be a little worrisome.
The cycle in which ideas turn into software is getting shorter and shorter. By and large, this is a good thing as new functions are delivered to users faster than ever before. But one of the consequences is software bugs are introduced and sometimes missed. I suspect part of the reason is testing cycles are being squeezed. This is part of the root cause, I think, as to why a two year old bug was introduced into Linux.
In recent years, software containers that allow applications and processes to run in isolation have gained traction in the IT community. The open-source container platform Docker is the top player in this space and big IT vendors have been tripping over themselves to incorporate its software containerisation technology into their own offerings. Open source software provider Red Hat has been working with Docker since 2013 and has provided some key learnings on what not to do when using the container tool.
Red Hat is having a busy week. Fresh off the back of the announcement that the company is offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft Azure, Google has revealed it has brought Red Hat Gluster storage on the Google Compute Engine. Here are the details.
Microsoft is once again stepping up its game in the Linux business as it starts to sell Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) licences for its Azure public cloud platform. Here's what you need to know.
Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia have figured out that many versions of Linux have a security flaw that allows users to bypass system security by pressing Backspace 28 times.
Virtualisation produces impressive results, but it also requires a fundamental shift in mindset. The 'fortress' approach that works with older IT environments needs to shift once you're dealing with virtualised systems.
Amazon Web Services had added Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.4 to its list of supported Amazon Machine Images (AMI). The release, which is available in all Amazon regions, comes two months after Red Hat released 6.4 to its existing customers.
AWS is now offering the ability to purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) applications directly within the platform. Three apps are being offered initially: Alfresco Enterprise, BMC Application Diagnostics and Tibco tibbr.
Historically, the speed and ability of computers has dictated what they're used for. But with even the cheapest phone dwarfing systems that used to run entire businesses decades ago, trying to solve a problem by thinking about what computers can do right now won't necessarily get you the best results.
