Marc Farley’s challenge of listing all the devices on our home networks got me thinking —I’ve got an awful lot of Linux devices, but all of them are infrastructure rather than interactive PCs. Of the 10 devices currently attached my home network, four are Linux based (two TiVos, a Linksys router, and Linksys NAS), three are Windows PCs (two Vista, one server 2003), and the rest run various embedded operating systems (a Roku SoundBridge, an HP printer, and a 3Com Audrey running QNX).
Notice that all of my PC’s run windows, while all of my servers run Linux! This got me wondering what role Linux plays in enterprise storage. Sure, Linux has a huge role to play on the computing side of the equation. But which enterprise storage devices are based on a Linux kernel?
Xiotech made a big splash a few years ago by announcing that they would switch from a proprietary operating system to Linux. I remember seeing Open-E’s Linux based iSCSI software somewhere, and hearing that Snap Appliance (now part Adaptec) of was using it as well. I consulted LinuxDevices.com and found out about Infrant (now part of NetGear), MaXXan (nee CipherMax), and Raidtec.
There have got to be more! So tell me, who is using Linux as their embedded kernel and why? Was it for convenience, hardware support, or perhaps a financial decision?