What is it about the Linux operating system that makes it particularly well-suited for Grid computing? I put that question to Carl Drisko — Service Line Principal of Open Source and Linux at Novell — and here’s what he had to say:“From a performance standpoint, when you’re working with Linux, you get very close to the metal. So there isn’t a lot of systems overhead, and you can take full advantage of the hardware that you’ve got, as well as support customization. For example, there are Grid users out there that are accessing a bunch of sensor data. They need to be able to very easily write their own device driver to go and grab some data off of potentially unique devices.Grid users often aren’t just buying solutions off the shelf, they’re building them themselves. Linux allows much more flexibility to do what you want, to create custom installations. If something isn’t there, you can more easily add it in and make it work better on your own – which is something that’s attractive to a lot of people, particularly researchers. Despite all the talk about Grids from some of the major hardware players, there’s not a heck of a lot of good software out there, so you still have to do a lot of work yourself to fill the gaps. Another obvious factor for Linux’s popularity in Grid environments is cost. Anytime you’re deploying 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 boxes, licensing costs become a big consideration. Cost may not be a big consideration for the financial services world – but for any research institution, where Grid traction has been strongest to date, cost is a huge consideration. Beyond the O/S, it is just as big a factor, if not bigger, for other “up-the-stack” software. And in many cases, the proprietary software (and even some open source) licensing models have not adjusted to Grids.” Technology Industry