High-performance databases are optimized for transaction processing and used by several industries around the world, notably financial services and health care. They are more commonly available on 32-bit Unix platforms (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and Linux). The trend is to 64-bit-enable them and migrate them to the IA-64 architecture.

No doubt this topic has been debated to death; however, as I have a different perspective on this issue, I reckon it's worth writing down. Over the past few weeks I've been involved with one of our local customers who, after a lot of consideration, has decided to make the jump to Linux. This was no quick decision, mind you, and was more than a 'I'm tired of paying Microsoft for licenses' thing.

Linux is emerging as the platform of choice for a growing number of enterprises across the globe. The cost, choice, and control advantages of using Open Source software for mission-critical applications have already enabled hundreds of organizations to control IT costs while expanding IT capabilities and productivity. Customers in telecommunications, financial services, and government have aggressively already deployed Linux in production workloads like databases, SAP, messaging services, and custom applications.

In today's market IT professionals face a wide array of issues ranging from virus outbreaks to security flaws. These problems have spurred a revolution called Linux and Open Source. IT professionals face a wide variety of issues ranging form virus outbreaks to security flaws across the board.

For many businesses, the Web storefront is the only point of contact for customers, and for others it's a major one. As such, it's important that this architecture meets the needs of your business, not just from a technology point of view but from a strategic one. No business likes to have an important asset be vulnerable to the whims of a particular vendor, and this is particularly true of a technology asset. As you probably know in IT there are two broad options that can implement your business needs: the Microsoft family of Windows and .NET products, and the open standards community.

As with all big conferences, LinuxWorld Boston earlier this year had a few broad themes that you couldn't help be exposed to just by walking the floor. One that caught me by surprise was the excitement around thin client Linux. At first I attributed it to a combination of the big vendors pushing blade computing and the malaise that had developed around desktop Linux. For the past few years the battle cry had been 'This is the year of Linux on the desktop.'

Open source databases running on Linux like MySQL, Ingres r3, PostgreSQL, and Firebird have aroused a lot of interest. Database developers and corporate users are heralding the anticipated the release of MySQL 5.0, which includes enterprise-level features such as stored procedures, triggers, and views. Last August Computer Associates made Ingres r3 available under the CA Trusted Open Source License and followed up with a Million-Dollar Challenge, an unprecedented offer to the open source community to develop migration toolkits for the system. Tony Gaughan, senior VP at Computer Associates, says, 'The relational database world is evolving. Enterprise customers are demanding rich, functional products that scale, while lowering the total cost of ownership. Ingres has the pedigree of one of the most seasoned and functional products in the market that can be flexible enough to meet the demands of even the largest organizations.' The publicly traded data infrastructure software company Pervasive Software now services and supports PostgreSQL. Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB, as quoted in Se archEnterpriseLinux.com, is optimistic about open source databases this year betting that 'We will see increased growth, faster growth than before, in the adoption of open source in the enterprise, not just for MySQL, but across the board.'

I often speak about the Linux desktop as a viable business solution and analyze how and why it works, what's handy and where it's progressing but maybe one point gets lost and that's the manageability of the Linux desktop, not only locally but remotely and centrally.

Corporate migration to a Linux desktop requires rigorous premigration planning to succeed. The goal of migration is to finish with a Linux desktop that is cost-effective and responsive to the organization's needs. Without proper data center planning, the migration won't meet this goal and can become a technical and organizational challenge.

With the recent release of SuSE 9.2 Professional and Novell's Linux Desktop operating systems, the Linux desktop is ready to compete with Microsoft Windows for client-side computing in a business environment. I know this is something of a debate among many, but the opportunities for Linux to garner a respectable percentage of the desktop market is not unreasonable if done correctly and the cost savings of using Linux on the desktop could easily exceed the savings realized by replacing just the server components of your infrastructure.

International Data Corporation (IDC) released a study in December 2004 noting that the worldwide Linux market for PCs, servers, and software will hit $35 billion by 2008. There's a general industry consensus that we're at the brink of a major Windows-to-Linux migration. However, with all the high-level discussion, there has not yet been much attention paid to the practical steps of moving from a Windows desktop to a Linux desktop.

Linux is gaining ground in the enterprise. It began on the server, but more and more Linux is being tested and deployed on the desktop. Linux solutions for typical business productivity applications, including Evolution, Mozilla, and OpenOffice, are available and included with most Linux distributions.

In August, as the proverbial dog days of summer were upon us, I found that news in the Linux world slowed as many people went on vacation with their families. Consequently, these Linux users spent a considerable amount of time snapping large numbers of pictures, capturing memories of landmarks, friends, and family.

It's a fact of life for most of us: we all receive e-mail solicitations to 'Make Money Fast' or for a 'Mail Order Drugstore' or offensive or adult content that makes us blush, especially when a colleague is looking over our shoulder. Spam, a slang term for Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE), has reached epidemic proportions.

It's 2:00 a.m., you're working on that critical presentation, and the power goes out. Since you moved your power supply to your significant other's computer, you just lost all your work.

The move to Enterprise Linux is accelerating. Enterprise Linux, provided by RedHat, SuSE, and a number of open source projects, supports clustering, load balancing, and high availability. Yahoo is using Linux with the MySQL open source database, the fastest growing database in the industry, and Hewlett Packard recently announced support for an enterprise stack of Linux, JBoss, and a MySQL database.

In my editorial in last month's LinuxWorld Magazine, I defined inflection points (with the help of Intel's Andy Grove) as those things that change our behavior with regards to our IT strategy. I was speaking of software and hardware upgrades and other realities of running a business that make us consider other options before investing in our IT infrastructure.

Many people feel that if they get something for free there is no real value in it, but that's not always the case. Free doesn't always equate to low quality or 'cheap.' Especially when it comes to open source and free software.

Welcome to the third installment of 'Guide to Linux on the Business Desktop.' Part 1 (Vol. 2, issue 4) covered some of the many Linux distributions available, and Part 2 (Vol. 2, issue 5) looked at some of the major vendors' Linux desktop offerings and began to explore the Linux laptop. Part 3 completes the journey with a more in-depth look at laptop Linux.

At the end of 2004, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows NT. At that point, anyone using Windows NT will have several choices: follow Microsoft's upgrade path to Windows 2003, continue to use Windows NT without Microsoft support, or switch to Linux.