US Navy using Linux

FOUR YEARS AGO the US Navy was embarrassed when a divide-by-zero fault cascaded through Windows NT systems on the cruiser USS Yorktown, leaving it dead in the water for hours. Now a US Navy organisation is using Linux in some mission-critical roles both shipboard and onshore with good benefits.

The Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) is working with the Open-Source Software Institute (OSSI) to assess its current use of Open Source software and develop recommendations going forward, according to Andrew Aitken, Managing Partner of Olliance Consulting Group, which is assisting OSSI on the NAVOCEANO assessment.

As reported by Newsforge: "In the case of the data collection computers on survey ships, Linux on Intel machines is costing 10% of the former RISC-based systems, Aitken told a crowd of government workers at a Tuesday workshop on Open Source and e-government sponsored by the U.S. General Services Administration and the Cyberspace Policy Institute at The George Washington University."

NAVOCEANO has also been able to save considerable bandwidth and time by hosting raw data Quality Assurance and pre-processing functions on its Linux based Network Attached Storage (NAS) servers. This has enabled it to transfer more processing shipboard, thus improving product delivery turnaround times as well as avoiding major platform costs for expensive fiber-channel SAN storage arrays and their required big-tin servers.

In addition, researchers at NAVOCEANO have modified maths software to crunch 64-bit data on 32-bit Linux PCs, which provides them with broad access to scientific data visualization and reporting capabilities -- without needing to spring for rafts of expensive RISC workstations.

We understand that John Lever, CIO of NAVOCEANO, will also present the preliminary results of this OSSI study at an International Council on System Engineering symposium later this month.

The Newsforge article about this US Navy venture into Open Source waters can be found here.µ