The certification means HP will list Ubuntu as a supported operating system and verify the work undertaken by Canonical to ensure full certified compatibility. Furthermore both companies are fully co-operating at the engineering level to provide full underlying confidence for HP customers using the certified servers.

HP won’t be shipping servers with Ubuntu preloaded. But, as Canonical marketing manager Gerry Carr explained to me, the certification will provide HP customers with assurance that if they sideload Ubuntu, it will work with specific information regarding performance. This news follows Canonical’s announcement of user survey results that revealed an uptick in adoption of the server-based operating system in a variety of mission-critical Web and database applications. The surveyed Ubuntu users shared that they mostly use the OS on assembled servers and tower and desktop PCs.

However, Carr explained that “It appears to be that HP ProLiant is the second most popular [server] brand behind Dell PowerEdge servers. I expect that is consistent across the unknown Ubuntu users out there.”

For an example of who is using Ubuntu, Canonical shared the story of a Chicago-based finance house that runs entirely on Ubuntu server and runs their open and proprietary stack on primarily HP machines, with some Dell in the mix.

In his blog post regarding the announcement, Joe Panettieri of WorksWithU, an Ubuntu dedicated news website, explained the history of Canonical’s Ubuntu Server edition initiative. He shared that a recent site reader survey revealed growing momentum for Ubuntu in the enterprise market. However, the big players (Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux) continue to lead the way in both mind and market share.

Al Gillen, VP in charge of system software research with IDC, echoed this perspective in a statement to Ed Scannell of Information Week:

“In terms of noise level, Ubuntu has been hot lately. But the ecosystem simply isn’t as mature for Ubuntu as it is for Red Hat and SUSE Linux. They do not have the level of application support and data base support, and some other things that you need to be enterprise ready.”

Ubuntu achieved certification on Sun’s x64 servers in early 2008, around the time Canonical released Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

Carr shared that Canonical is working to see Ubuntu certified on all the major manufacturer servers in the next few years. The timing of certification on HP’s servers is unclear, but is underway and Carr expects to see it “sometime soon.”

Just in time for the holidays, HP released it’s preinstalled SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10 SP2 on its HP Compaq dc5850. (I wonder if the name SLED is a coincidence, or if they held off the release to get it out with the snowy weather?) Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has already been reviewing SLED 10 SP2 on his blog, noting that the main improvements surround interoperability with Microsoft. He shares that the new version of SLED supports read and write access to local NTFS drive partitions and has better active directory integration. Vaughn-Nichols installed SLED and encountered a few kinks — a hassle that can be avoided in HP’s preinstalled offering.

But if all of that sounds too practical, or dare I say too boring, fear not — Ken Hess has provided a Linux geek wish list for the 2008 holiday season.You may already have a Linux mobile phone, but do you have a Chumby? Hess points out that all of these gadgets have Linux inside. What more could you want?

1. Asus Eee PC
2. Chumby
3. MusicPal
4. LimeBook
5. Linux-based phones
6. Amazon Kindle
7. MVIX MX-760HD
8. Garmin Nuvi880
9. Nokia N810
10. TiVo

But if you don’t want to spend a bunch of dough, Matt Hartley provides some ideas of “homemade” items that you can give your family and friends by putting your Linux skills to use.

… by utilizing your existing computer system, chances are you already have access to what you need to build a really great gaming rig, with the right open source videos games. Enter PlayDeb for Ubuntu. Whether you download each game individually or opt to give the “gift of plenty” all at once, there are more games here than most people would likely have ever imagined.

From Second Life to a number of very well done first-person shooters, even 3D strategy games, just about anything you might conceive of is available here — at no cost whatsoever.

Hartley also suggests updating an unused notebook and giving the gift of Internet, anywhere, to a loved one. Or spread the joy to your community and give “an off-lease or even totally used PC preloaded with Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuSE or PCLinuxOS.”

DirectAuthorize arrives as the third member of a line of products created to ease the task of managing mixed environments with Active Directory. The other two products, DirectControl and DirectAudit, perform centralized authentication and auditing.  

“Typically we serve customers who are looking to introduce Linux, Hewlett-Packard, AIX, or Unix into their environments, and also often VMware.” Centrify CEO Tom Kemp said. “In terms of access rights and password management, that ends up being a lot of sticky notes next to your screen.” DirectAuthorize replaces non-Windows systems’ authorization infrastructure with that of Active Directory, which allows admins to move all user authorization information to a central location and to manage it from that location.

Take for example the HP ProLiant DL 380 G5 and the Dell PowerEdge 2950 III, which can be configured for a general purpose Windows or Linux server and can have most connectivity options available: fiber networking interfaces, storage area network (SAN) fiber channel adapters and any additional copper networking. The local drive configurations currently use serial attached SCSI (SAS) drives with local array controller. 

Dell and HP generally divide models by Intel and AMD processor offerings, so the selection process is aided by that distinction. If you strive for a common server for the Enterprise Linux builds and the Windows server space, a uniform processor brand platform is a must. 

Choose wisely

If you embark on the single server across software groups, be sure to get all members on board and mutually agree on a server specification. If the needs are different, it may be more likely to work in terms of base server and customize up as required. This can save the incremental cost of a small number of under-utilized servers in a mixed environment. 

In June, if you’ll remember, IBM was awarded the same EAL4+ certification for RHEL5 running on IBM System x, System p, System z, and BladeCenter servers.

This cert is part of the Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS), an internationally recognized standard used by governments and businesses worldwide to determine the level of security and assurance of IT products. CCEVS, undertaken by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), is part of a collaboration between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Security Agency.

HP has been awarded EAL4+, the highest level of assurance for an unmodified, commercial operating system, for Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP), Controlled Access Protection Profile, and Role-Based Access Control Protection Profile for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on HP Integrity, ProLiant and BladeSystem platforms as well as select workstations and desktops.

According to HP, the company worked with Red Hat and the Linux community to develop the features required for the EAL4+ certification. This included contributions to help customers integrate a Linux system into a mixed network with other trusted operating systems. As part of HP’s Secure Advantage product portfolio, this certified product offering helps companies protect data and resources across their entire IT infrastructure to achieve better business outcomes.

The LSPP profile enables HP and its partners to build applications with multiple levels of security. This capability allows government agencies and commercial businesses to collaborate securely by sharing applications with different security clearances on a single system and still have assurance that the system will enable only authorized access at the appropriate level.