Linux is rapidly shedding its "techies only" image to emerge as the OS increasingly being used across industries. Yet, niggling issues with Linux have made sure that the unsettling of proprietary systems, if ever, is a distant possibility. A Dataquest-MAIT Report on Linux use in organizations, shows who is using the OS, and why…

It used to be something only techies did—those geeks in cubicles who derived immense pleasure from tinkering with the innards of a white box while ordinary mortals in the organization earnestly grappled with completing the task at hand using the computer. Today, even as Linux has graduated from being a hobby for programmers to a tool company’s use to advance their products, user mindsets remain much the same.

Ask users to work on a system that works much the same but looks different or use a few more steps to share a file on the network… The office will soon resound with complaints about "how technology only makes life more complex, how busy people need not waste time relearning the use of basic software applications and so on..."

And in most cases, these complaints are justified. Organizations implementing Linux have to grapple with critical issues like support, ultimate accountability, and administration of the system, which is more complex.

Despite the hurdles and the hiccoughs, Linux is actually making inroads into the enterprise space. User companies approached by Dataquest-MAIT (Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology) have stated cost savings ranging from 40% to as high as 70% as a result of using Linux.

"We are working with Red Hat. But once UnitedLinux becomes available, we will ensure that all Oracle products are certified by UnitedLinux..." Shekhar Dasgupta, MD, Oracle India

While the lower cost of the OS remains the advantage, companies have found a lot of other interesting reasons to usher in Linux. As for that niggling issue of a familiar user interface, there is a ‘workaround’ to that.

Eicher Goodearth, for instance, has its backend on Linux while users continue with the familiar proprietary software apps.

As Linux on desktops is not yet popular, currently almost all applications are server oriented. Hence the cost reduction generally depends on the number of client server applications used in the organization. Organizations thus save on both operating system (OS) licenses and client licenses.

"Linux operates as well on an old 486 machine as on a Pentium III machine, unlike some of the commercial operating systems" Santosh Desai, security services, Rolta

Shekhar Dasgupta, managing director, Oracle India pegs at saving between 35% to 50% costs for users running software on Linux, adding that all Oracle applications are now available on Linux.

Apart from Oracle, virtually all leading IT vendors in India including Oracle, HP, IBM, Sun, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro have developed products for the Linux platform. It is this support from large corporations as well as the development of a growing number of applications that run on Linux that have triggered off the proliferation of Linux among enterprises. Another significant reason is the arrival of Red Hat (distributor of the most popular variant of Linux) in the country.

Despite the efforts at promoting Linux, it is still largely found at the printer-server stage rather than at the mission-critical database server level.

So, who’s using Linux?
IT companies for one, have had good reason to leverage on the cost benefits of deploying Linux in their own organizations, given the financial squeeze that the slowdown brought in. Also, IT companies naturally find it far easier to tackle niggling Linux usage deterrents like the need for good technical support given the technical expertise available in-house. Once out of the technology expert’s closet, Linux is raising its head in enterprises across verticals, from education, manufacturing, banking and finance to defense engineering, life science and the one with the largest potential—government.

"Linux has evoked particularly strong interest in certain solution segments such as the Internet and networking related services, high performance computing in petroleum, research, bioinformatics etc, Carrier Grade Linux in telecom, workload consolidation in the financial and manufacturing industries and in distributed computing in retail and branch automation industries," points out IBM India MD Abraham Thomas.

Rolta India is a good example of how a software company that started using Linux in-house and the success of the experiment prompted it to develop software applications that run on Linux for its customers. With a calendar year 2001 turnover of Rs 304 crore, Rolta has over 2,500 desktops, servers and systems running on Windows, Linux, and some flavors of Unix over LAN/WAN. RoltaNet, its ISP setup that initially started on the Microsoft platform is currently running entirely on Linux.

"Linux runs fast even on old machines. There are plenty of open source programs that give an equivalent solution to Windows" Steven Rudolph, director, Jiva Institute

Oracle itself has quite a few Linux based pilots and operational systems in use.

InterGlobe Technologies, a travel technology company with annual sales of over $5 million has been using Linux. Out of the 70 PC users at Spider Systems, a Rs 1.5 crore IT services company, 25 have been using Linux. So is Samtech Infonet.

Mascon Global’s Life Sciences Division extensively uses Red Hat Linux 8.0 in its development activities, as it is "well suited to addressing problems of computational biology." The Central Bank of India, Madhya Pradesh Commercial Tax (Treasury) and IDBI bank are currently using Oracle applications running on Linux.

From the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) to centres of learning and research like Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, BITS, BARC, ISRO, and C-DAC, Linux has found several takers in the education segment. The Jiva Institute as well as Jiva Public School has been running systems on Linux in as early as 1994.

Another interesting Linux initiative in the education segment is the Goa Schools Computers Project (GSCP) in trying to implement GNU/Linux in schools.

With an IT investment of approximately Rs 20 crore and 250 PC users (out of which 200 are onto the network), automobile manufacturing company Honda Siel plans to migrate its internal network, desktops as well as other applications from NT to Linux. The company has recently started using the LINUX as a proxy server.

"One of the reasons we are using Linux is the issue of licenses. None of the other open source OS’ are in the public domain" Navin Chandra, CEO, Infinite Computer

However, Khan admits that disturbing the proven and running system to achieve some perceived benefits is a bit difficult, and requires agreement from the company’s management cadres too.LG Electronics (India) a company with a Rs 3,000 crore turnover (and nearly 1,000 users) also has a migration plan in place. Small and medium sized enterprises too have been quick to realize that it can deliver immediate, tangible benefits. In the SOHO segment, the techies are the ones playing with Linux and very few actual users.

The ER&DCI (Electronics Research and Development Centre of India) based in Noida has developed Linux based solutions like thin clients and a platform independent word processor called Lekhika to offer Indian languages support. ER&DCI is also an ISP and its setup is based on Linux.

ER&DCI, Noida, and IIT, Kanpur has developed a Linux based translation support system for English to Hindi. IIT Chennai is working on localizing Linux to Malayalam and Tamil, while IIT-Bangalore has committed resources to the IndLinux project. Mithi Software too is adopting Linux and other open source platforms for its local language software.

It’s more than the Money
LGEIL deputy general manager (IT) Arindam Bose estimates that the use of Linux can save up to Rs 20,000 per user. Besides, it is legal, with the same deliverables as proprietary software and is more secure and stable" says Bose.

"One finds that the cost of licensing itself makes up for about 20% of the overall cost of a medium level application software development project. Using Linux curtails this cost significantly," points out Honda Siel’s Khan. Not only are licensing costs taken care of, but using opensource systems immediately puts enterprises using pirated software (especially in the SME space) and thus vulnerable to reprimand from anti-piracy agencies, on legal ground.

Spider Systems CEO Rajan Bhatnagar adds that using Linux eliminates hidden costs like setup, migration time, downtime, additional hardware costs etc. "With Linux the setup is quicker, downtime is almost non-existent and hardware requirements very lean," he says. Then there is stability. Users say Linux almost never freezes under normal use.

"The provision to play with the source gives one an ability to customize the OS suiting specific needs," adds Alok Gupta, of Samtech. Businesses also value open source software because it allows groups of companies to collaborate on software problems. Linux programs can be installed on practically any machine including older, outdated computers and offer business owners a degree of flexibility they wouldn’t find with other operating systems. Since the source code is available to all, modifications and enhancements are easy to do. And while critics of Linux accuse the system of being "too open to be secure", its supporters say that as the internals have been scrutinized by thousands of technical specialists, and most security holes have been plugged.

"Linux will have to build a significant developer community if it is to give MS a run for its money. Sniping is relatively far easier" Ganesh Natarajan, CEO, Zensar

"Linux can be tailored to the specific hardware and software needs and has the ability to connect with several different types of machines into a coherent whole. For example, Linux can run both SMB protocol (which Windows understands), and Apple Talk (for Mac users), so it can act as a Windows/ Mac go-between" says Vipul Doshi, COO, InterGlobe Technologies.

Linux is also known to be easier to manage either centrally and remotely. These better known advantages of Linux apart, Mascon Global attributes its use of Linux to the fact that most of the bioinformatics tools developed in various universities across the world are developed on this platform and that it is best to avoid "reinventing the wheel." Using the same platform helps in smooth integration with the work done by academic and research organizations worldwide.

"We are basically tackling problems which involve huge data generated in life sciences experiments and needs supercomputing powers. Additionally, large computing power would be cost effectively available through massively parallel Linux cluster of existing desktops. Hence we have decided to adopt this approach, " explains Mascon Global’s Dr A P Agnihotry.

Downside Linux
But being in the highly specialized field of bioinformatics, Dr Agnihotry says that there are times when the open source community is not be able to understand your problem. "Then you have to solve it yourself which takes some time and a lot of understanding of internal architecture. Besides, there might be bugs, which a developer has not noticed or you may face limits imposed by the kernel itself in manipulating huge data. But since the source code is also available, you are always at the advantage of solving it yourself, though it needs understanding, "says Dr Agnihotry.

But then, does this mean that Linux is the prerogative of those with a high degree of technical knowledge?
LGEIL’s Arindam Bose cites technical support as one of the main deterrents in the bubbling over of the Linux revolution. The problem of technical support has reduced to a great extent, as large software vendors are willing to offer support for their own software applications running on Linux.

The OS also lacks a strong, robust journal file system, supports a limited number of processors, and has relatively few administration tools and little backup support compared to products from UNIX vendors and Microsoft.

Commodore Navin Chandra, CEO (India Operations) of Infinite Computer Solutions says that acquiring Linux compatible modems systems and good training material on Linux is a problem as is identifying ways to speed up the software installation process.

Samtech MD Alok Gupta points out that Linux is not very well documented and that there are far too many variants to choose from.

While Onward Novell does not use Linux across the organization, it is used on the network front. "It is cheap and robust due to its Unix flavor. But being open source, it is prone to hacking and viruses and not many applications work on it," says Sandeep Sehgal, regional manager (North), Onward Novell.

"Grid computing is becoming popular in the Life Sciences community. Solutions based on Linux would be useful to grid computing community users" Dr AP Agnihotry, Mascon Life Sciences

Zensar MD and global CEO Ganesh Natarajan believes that Linux use among enterprises is still in the experimental stage. "It is really the small and medium software firms and some segments of government that seem to be embracing Linux, while large enterprises including firms like ours are still enterprise users of Microsoft," he says. Natarajan admits that using Linux in a company the size of Zensar (with revenues worth Rs 225 crore and over 1,200 PC users) could result in savings worth a few crore. "However, for companies focused on their own business, integrating multiple third party software becomes an irritant," he says.

Even today, the likes of Zensar, who prefer not to rock the boat sailing on proprietary systems, far exceed the number of companies that have embarked on the Linux journey. Obviously, the list of ‘Why nots’ for Linux still runs longer than the list of ‘Whys’.

MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta emphasizes that eventually, it is the relevance of the applications to the local market and apt support that will determine if Linux is here to stay.

Software that runs on Linux is hitting the market. Software vendors too are supporting Linux as it brings down the cost of running their own software applications. As for the enterprise space, paradigms have begun to be redefined.

It’s like the benefits of exercise. Most people agree it is good for you, but few actually end up doing it! For years, people in the IT industry have spoken about the benefits of opensource systems. Enterprises have listened and agreed, but very few actually ended up using opensource.

And that is finally changing now.

Manjiri Kalghatgi