We analyze why Linux / Unix is the default Operating system in the Cloud IaaS Vendors.
First, due to the O/S being non-proprietary in nature, it?s cheaper and customers believe they are less ?locked in? to proprietary standards where a vendor can charge ?rent?.
New software innovation above the operating system in areas ranging from databases to containers (Docker, Kubernetes), analytic
processing (MapReduce, Hadoop) to cloud orchestration and management (Apache Mesos, Mesosphere) have been developed through open source projects. These ?higher level? technologies are the basis for many cloud services such as database offerings, complex event processing, analytics, and more. The vibrant ecosystem of open source innovation has enabled these services on cloud infrastructure to be rolled out much faster than if they were dependent on a single vendor to develop.
A third and final reason is due to share gains of Linux within on-prem environments. Steadily over the past few years, RHEL has chipped away at Windows Server?s share of the market to where RHEL commands ~35% of the total server install base, a trend which we expect to continue. At its simplest, RHEL is gaining share (and will continue to gain share) against Windows Server due to the fact that it provides a similar level of performance at a lower cost.
