New York-based oil company Amerada Hess Corp. also uses unsupported Linux for Apache Web servers as well as for much of its network management infrastructure. Granted, these are relatively straightforward applications for which Linux is well suited, so neither the NHL nor Hess needs much outside help. Frye maintains that will change. "Linux came from [an arena of] simpler applications and highly technical staff," he says. "[But] it is moving into [an arena of] complex, large applications with nontechnical staff, which will trigger a growing need for service and support."
But Hess also uses 300 Linux-based servers clustered together to create a supercomputing application for oil exploration, which is "a core, critical business application," says Jeff Davis, a Houston-based senior systems programmer. The supercluster helps create three- dimensional models of subsurface areas under the Gulf of Mexico, using enormous data sets that run into multiple terabytes. "We use it to decide what to do as far as poking holes in the ground," says Davis. And Hess does it alone. "We currently have no Linux support," says Davis. "I haven't come across anything I couldn't solve by looking at the Internet."
"Amerada Hess is an unusual customer," insists Frye. "It spends the money to have a highly technical staff that is comfortable working with the [online] open-source community." Frye prefers to point to Shell International Exploration and Production BV, in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, which also uses a cluster of Linux servers for oil exploration and modeling, but buys support from IBM. Shell's oversized cluster uses 1,024 servers, which exceeds Linux's usual buffer limits, explains Jack N. Buur, principal research physicist. "IBM was and is instrumental in solving these issues," he says. "Shell is not a computer hardware nor [an] IT company."
The jury is still out on whether it is Hess or Shell that is unusual. Examples abound of companies that run essential business systems on Linux without outside support. Long Beach, California-based Kenwood Americas Corp. moved its legacy business applications to a Linux-based server and ran into trouble. That could have been serious-- the system handles inventory control, accounts receivable, accounts payable, general ledger, sales analysis, order entry, and even employee time sheets and attendance records. But a quick search of Internet newsgroups helped Kenwood's systems administration manager, Gary Calvin, figure out what was wrong and fix the problem--in two hours.
What CFOs Should Know
As Linux matures, support, compatibility, and vendor viability become important issues. "I think a CFO is wise to be skeptical and make sure that vendors selling products based upon Linux have a long- term plan, appear to have lived up to their plans in the past, and are trustworthy," says IDC vice president Dan Kusnetzky, "just as I would expect them to be skeptical of an accounting software vendor."
Fair enough. But finance professionals are more likely to have heard about Linux on the news than in the hallways. "The vast majority of the Fortune 2,000 has Linux running somewhere--it's hard to keep it out," says IBM's Frye. "But in many cases, [it was installed] without the knowledge of the CIO or the CFO."
That's partly because Linux handles important but obscure IT grunt work unobtrusively, and partly because it requires no cost justification. "Actually, that is really one of the advantages of Linux," says Calvin. "You can bring it in the door without any justification at all and experiment with it on an old piece of hardware. You don't have to build a business case ahead of time. If it doesn't work, you don't say anything about it at all. If it does, then you just present the working solution."
And IT purchasing decisions typically don't--and shouldn't--begin with the operating system. "The operating system is obviously important, but it is the application that drives the decision," says the NHL's DelGiacco. He says the platform for NHL.com was driven by the market penetration of the Apache Web server, which happens to run very well with Linux. "The bonus was that [Linux] didn't cost very much."
Most CFOs must rely on their IT counterparts to make the right decisions about support. "I report to the head of finance," says DelGiacco, "but we are not going to have discussions about operating systems." NHL.com gets an average of 40 million page views a month, he says, but during the recent player trade deadline, that spiked to 4 million page views in a single day. "What finance cares about is, can [the operating system] handle the amount of traffic, and is it going to support our needs?" says DelGiacco. "I'd better have the right answers." CFOs wondering what the right questions are regarding Linux might begin by asking who will do what should something go wrong.
Tim Reason (timreason@ cfo.com) is a staff writer at CFO.
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According to a Gartner Dataquest study, 8.6 percent of the shipments in the traditional U.S. server market during the third quarter of 2000 were Linux-based systems. That number is expected to grow to 10 percent this year. Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC conducted a broader study of the market for server software and concluded that while Windows led with a 41 percent share of software shipments in 2000, Linux was a strong second with 27 percent, up from 24 percent in 1999.
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