When you think Ubuntu, you probably think of an outstanding, easy-to-use desktop Linux. You probably don’t think of Ubuntu as a server operating system. Maybe you should.
In a recent survey, conducted by Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, and the research company, RedMonk, they found that Ubuntu Server Edition is being used for all the usual infrastructure and edge services you expect from a first class server operating system: Web, database, file, print, back-up and mail serving.
That, I expected. Linux has owned edge server jobs for years now, and Linux is also usually strong as an infrastructure player. What did surprise me though was that larger companies, with more than a 1,000 employees are also using Ubuntu in clustering, batch processing, and data mining. That’s the kind of work I usually see Red Hat and Novell SUSE doing, not Ubuntu.