Linux has changed the economics of how companies do business by shifting the OS and infrastructure models they use from more expensive, proprietary Unix-based systems to lower-cost, standards-based Linux platforms. This has dramatically reduced IT costs and enabled companies to acquire more computing power to drive their business productivity and research. Linux is also altering the corporate mindset by applying the benefits from traditional research areas to business initiatives. This has resulted in lower TCO, better competitive advantage, and faster time-to-market in many cases. This change allows companies to take on projects they never could before and to focus on the future.

An excellent example of this is CGG (Compagnie Generale de Geophysique), a leading supplier of services and products to the worldwide oil and gas industry, which has deployed a massive 3,000+ Linux-based supercomputer with Dell. The system uses a cost-effective and efficient Linux-based server cluster that can process seismic data from all over the world much faster than a single monolithic Unix system at about 10% of the cost. This helps CGG identify new oil and gas reservoirs more accurately, as well as model pressure in existing reservoirs in order to help optimize production.

Linux-based super computers are also having a similar impact in pharmaceuticals and, in general, bioinformatics. Because of the extremely attractive cost/performance attributes of these systems, substantial computing power is more readily available to researchers working on discoveries related to illnesses and cures. As a result, advances in health care are occurring at a much faster pace.

Linux has profoundly impacted research institutions too. Johns Hopkins University uses a Linux-based HPC cluster in its department of earth and planetary sciences to perform ocean-circulation and climate modeling to better understand trends in global warming. The cluster is also used to simulate the penetration, storage, and dispersal of atmospheric contaminants in the ocean, such as man-made carbon dioxides and chlorofluorocarbon gases. Prior to Linux clusters the researchers would have had to share time on a large Unix system, potentially even at a different university or at a government site. Today, thanks to standardized systems and Linux they can now conduct their research - and more of it - all within the confines of their departmental offices. We call this trend "a cluster for every classroom."

As more and more organizations and companies move away from proprietary environments to standards-based, scale-out Linux architectures, the stage will be set for the next step in the progression of open source - the application arena. The open source OS will serve as the foundation for a whole new generation of open source applications and grids in the future.