How to choose the right Linux distro for you

September 24, 2014, 3:00 am

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Unlike most other desktop and server operating systems, Linux comes in a wide variety of flavors, each based on a common core of the Linux kernel and various GNU user space utilities. If you're running Linux servers -- or Linux desktops, for that matter -- you should understand the important differences and be discerning about which flavor of Linux is best suited to any given situation. This article will help you do just that. 

Because Linux is open source software, the number of discrete Linux distributions is hard to know for sure. But a short list of major distributions account for the lion’s share of commercial Linux deployments: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and OpenSuse. 

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How-to: Get started with MariaDB

October 20, 2014, 4:01 am

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MariaDB is a fork of the wildly popular open source database MySQL. Although MariaDB is very similar to MySQL, it is not necessarily the same. One of the primary goals behind the MariaDB project is to serve as a drop-in replacement for MySQL, but MariaDB also offers features beyond those available in MySQL.

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(Insider Story)

7 great open source monitoring tools

November 19, 2014, 3:00 am

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Network and system monitoring is a broad category. There are solutions that monitor for the proper operation of servers, network gear, and applications, and there are solutions that track the performance of those systems and devices, providing trends and analysis.

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SDN in action: Hands on with Cumulus Linux

November 30, 2014, 8:58 am

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The stage is set for SDN (software-defined networking) to change the way we push data through our infrastructures, with the promises of more agile network provisioning and management, as well as more affordable network hardware. But for many, the SDN concept is still amorphous. What does SDN look like in practice? 

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(Insider Story)

How-to: Get started with Nginx

December 22, 2014, 7:23 am

≫ Next: Review: Mirantis takes the sting out of OpenStack deployments

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Although the most popular Web server in the world is still Apache, Nginx is cutting into that market share in a very significant way. Both versatile and extremely fast, Nginx generally performs faster than Apache right out of the box, especially when serving static content or acting as a reverse proxy server. It's used to serve content for many extremely large-volume websites.

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(Insider Story)

Review: Mirantis takes the sting out of OpenStack deployments

January 14, 2015, 6:32 am

≫ Next: First look: VMware vSphere 6 keeps its edge

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Those who know OpenStack know it’s an exceptionally powerful cloud infrastructure platform. They also know it’s far from simple to build and deploy. A large number of moving parts make up a production OpenStack environment, and coordinating them can be tricky at best.

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First look: VMware vSphere 6 keeps its edge

March 12, 2015, 12:21 pm

≫ Next: NAS shoot-out: QNAP vs. Synology

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In the not so distant past, VMware held a long and commanding lead in the server virtualization space, offering core features that were simply unmatched by the competition. In the past few years, however, competition in virtualization has been fierce, the competitors have drawn near, and VMware has been left with fewer ways to distinguish itself.

The competition may have grown over the years, and VMware may not enjoy quite as large a lead as it once did -- but it still enjoys a lead. With useful improvements to a number of key features, as well as the bundling of functions such as backup and recovery that were previously available separately, vSphere 6 is a worthy addition to the vSphere line. That said, some of the major advances in this version, such as long-distance vMotion, will matter most to larger vSphere shops.

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NAS shoot-out: QNAP vs. Synology

April 8, 2015, 6:21 am

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The past few years have seen a meteoric rise in the breadth and scope of small-business NAS, and while the top names in this space may have brought the core disciplines of NAS and even SAN to maturity, they continue to add features to their hardware. The latest from QNAP and Synology -- two longtime leaders in this market -- showcase this trend.

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(Insider Story)

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How-to: Get started with Docker

July 2, 2014, 10:16 am

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Docker is an open source framework that provides a lighter-weight type of virtualization, using Linux containers rather than virtual machines. Built on traditional Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu, Docker lets you package applications and services as images that run in their own portable containers and can move between physical, virtual, and cloud foundations without requiring any modification. If you build a Docker image on an Ubuntu laptop or physical server, you can run it on any compatible Linux, anywhere.

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7 free tools every network needs

October 14, 2014, 3:45 am

≫ Next: Review: Cisco ACI shakes up SDN

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In the real estate world, the mantra is location, location, location. In the network and server administration world, the mantra is visibility, visibility, visibility. If you don't know what your network and servers are doing at every second of the day, you're flying blind. Sooner or later, you're going to meet with disaster.

Fortunately, many good tools, both commercial and open source, are available to shine much-needed light into your environment. Because good and free always beat good and costly, I've compiled a list of my favorite open source tools that prove their worth day in and day out in networks of any size. From network and server monitoring to trending, graphing, and even switch and router configuration backups, these utilities will see you through.

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Review: Cisco ACI shakes up SDN

November 11, 2015, 3:41 am

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The concept of object health is present throughout ACI. When problems are detected, an object’s health score drops from 100, with lower scores indicating greater severity. This is hierarchical, so while a port that is disconnected on a single endpoint will show a health score of 0, the fabric node containing that port may show a health score of 50, and the application containing the down endpoint may show a score of 80. This can be traced visually through the Web UI by selecting the Health view on the affected application. This makes it extremely easy to pinpoint problems on a vast fabric.

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(Insider Story)