Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center caused scores of companies to reconsider their disaster recovery and business continuity plans, whether they were affected by those catastrophic events or not.
Not so long ago, if Underwriters Laboratories needed to add three additional servers worth of computing power in three weeks, the company just bought three new units, says Kent Walker, manager of computer operations for UL. With more time for capacity analysis - which is both labor and time-intensive - Walker might be able to shift resources around and stave off the purchase. But when the need is immediate, there's no time for that.
IT managers who once used Linux chiefly to support Web and file-and-print servers said at last week's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here that they're now running key applications and databases on Linux-based systems -- a sign that the open-source software is penetrating deeper into corporate enterprises.