The UKs only government-approved open source supplier announced today that the latest release of Debian Linux is ideal for enterprises looking to save money in the recession. Sirius Corporation claims that Debian 5.0, codenamed 'Lenny', includes new security and high performance virtualisation features that make it the most capable and affordable Linux distribution to date.
Until recently Red Hat dominated the enterprise market for Linux. But with their mandatory 'subscriptions' often costing more than Windows licenses, Sirius believes the economic slump will see more UK organisations adopting Debian because it has the same enterprise pedigree without the overhead.
Mark Taylor, CEO, Sirius Corporation said: “With Debian there are no strings. There are no 'subscriptions' to pay if you want updates, no commercial tie-ins with middleware stacks. The Debian guys take software freedom very seriously and just happen to produce the most scalable Linux distribution available.
“Over the past ten years we've proved Debian has the lowest total cost of ownership of all major Linux distributions. With the release of Lenny we're now seeing the inclusion of functionality designed specifically to grow enterprise adoption.
“If you want open source middleware like JBoss, Glassfish or Spring; infrastructure services like OpenLDAP, Samba or Exim; and enterprise-grade databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL, they're more reliable and cheaper on Debian.”
Used by over 75% of its support customers, Sirius believes the growth in demand for Debian as an enterprise server platform is helped by the popularity of desktop-oriented distributions.
“We're indebted to downstream distributions like Ubuntu because the more people use them, the more they're aware of Debian as an enterprise-class server platform.”
About Debian GNU/Linux
Debian GNU/Linux (Debian) is known for strict adherence to the Unix and free software philosophies as well as using open development and testing processes. Many distributions are based on Debian, including Ubuntu, Dreamlinux, Xandros, Knoppix, and Linspire.
Debian 5.0, or 'Lenny', was released on Saturday 14th February 2009 and has added more proactive security-oriented features to pre-emptively reduce the chance of vulnerabilities. For example, the Debian Installer now applies any security updates before the first boot, several security-critical packages have been built with GCC hardening features, and the standard system contains fewer setuid root binaries and fewer open ports.
On the server-side, new features includes support for IPv6, Network File System (NFS) 4, PostgreSQL 8.3.5, MySQL 5.1.30 and 5.0.51a, Samba 3.2.5, PHP 5.2.6, Asterisk 1.4.21.2, Nagios 3.06 and the Xen Hypervisor 3.2.1.
A recent study (German only) on the use of open source software in German businesses ranked Debian the leading Linux server distribution with 47% market share.
An interview with the leader of the Debian Project, Steve McIntyre, about the release of Debian Lenny can be found at on the Sirius website
Debian 'Lenny' can be downloaded via BitTorrent (the Debian Project's recommended way), jigdo or HTTP.
About Sirius Corporation
Sirius Corporation plc is a leading European IT services group specialising in enterprise-class Open Source infrastructure solutions including databases, email systems, file & print, directory services, and cross-platform authentication.
Sirius is the only Becta/OGC accredited provider of open source software and services in the UK. Their clients include Specsavers, Yellow Pages, European Commission and St George's University of London.
For more information visit www.siriusit.co.uk or call Tom Callway on +44 20 870 608 0063.
