News Today In Usa

WAMP Stack bridges the chasm on the way to LAMP

Ever since the eWeek bakeoff of application-serving stacks -- demonstrating intriguing performance stats for the WAMP stack (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python) -- there's been increased coverage of enterprise WAMP usage. eWeek's key conclusion:

...most surprising was the solid performance that came from the stacks that contained a mix of a Windows server and open-source components. Traditionally, these kinds of WAMP setups have been considered suitable only for development and testing purposes, not for production systems. But, based on the performance we saw in our tests, businesses should seriously consider the combo for their enterprise applications...

CIO India ("Users Mix Open-Source, Windows for Server Apps") reports that there is increasing willingness to mix-and-match OSS technologies with Windows infrastructure:

...The need to interoperate and cut costs led Sherwin Lu of Le Petite Academy Inc. to install the JBoss software on top of Windows Server 2003 last year. Lu, director of application infrastructure at the Chicago-based preschool chain, said moving from a Visual Basic 6 development environment to J2EE "felt a little risky." But the cost of training his staff on J2EE was about the same as it would have been if he had upgraded to a .Net infrastructure. Moreover, by adopting JBoss rather than proprietary application servers, Lu figured that he saved about US$1 million in license fees alone. And he said that by staying on Windows, he avoided the pain and cost of hiring an all-new systems administration and support team...

Even Microsoft is talking WAMP:

...Faced with the allure of open-source applications among its customer base, Microsoft has toned down its .Net-only rhetoric. "It's a myth that open-source and Windows can't work together," said Ryan Gavin, a director of platform strategy at Microsoft. "Customers just aren't religious about these things..."

From LinuxWorld, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that Linux on enterprise server infrastructure is the status quo. But the real news relates to the forthcoming sea-change in enterprise desktops:

...The good news here, is that Linux has become so accepted that CFOs are more than willing to give Linux a try. The bad news for bad-boy Linux fans, is that Linux is no longer a revolution -- it's the establishment. The only place where Microsoft is really still the IT establishment is on the desktop. But that's changing, too... It's not just that Microsoft is fumbling Vista more than a third-string halfback against the Chicago Bears' defense. This summer, we've seen not just good Linux desktops arrive, but great Linux desktops... Novell's SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10 is a no-holds-barred business replacement for XP...

WAMP stacks appear to be a credible, mainstream bridging technology on the road to LAMP.

Related:
SandHill's Guy Smith has an even more aggressive take in, "Is Enterprise Software Doomed?"