US Navy using Linux

The Inquirer ^ | July 17, 2002 | Egan Orion

[JameRetief]

Lower costs, more flexible

By Egan Orion: Wednesday 17 July 2002, 13:40

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

[bvw]

Hooray! This would be good if it counters that news I heard a few years back that the Navy intended to move ALL it's shipboard systems to Windows.

However I would hope that the NAVY would also consider some other unix alternatives to linux and its quasi-monolithic kernal.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

However I would hope that the NAVY would also consider some other unix alternatives to linux and its quasi-monolithic kernal.

If the next word out of your mouth is 'Hurd' I'm going to scream...

[bvw]

No. Here's a list of some that I found w/ google though ... Unix or Unix-like Operating Systems

[alex]

I am really shocked that anybody would consider using WinNT for anything as dangerous as modern warship.

Next thing we will know is that the world ended because bug in WinNT caused nuclear attack.

[RolandBurnam]

please click ok or cancel to fire nuclear weapons.

[lelio]

Some of the reasons the Navy is moving to Linux are:
1. the source is open. Who knows what's in NT? For all the Navy knows it could be sending off their coordinates to the ChiComs.
2. if you don't like something in Linux you can change it.
3. linux (without X) is more stable than NT.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yea, what he said.

[Mike Fieschko]

please click ok or cancel to fire nuclear weapons

'Windows has detected new hardware and is installing the drivers ... '

[JameRetief]

'A fatal error has occurred...'

[dyed_in_the_wool]

I'd think the Navy would either go with a BSD variant (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.), a BSD-Like Linux (Gentoo, Slack) or with a proprietary system (QNX?, Plan 9?)
I would have recommended SCO except that Caldera is screwing that up now.
Not that I don't think Linux is up to the task in general, or embedded Linux in particular.
In fact, in the old License Agreement for Win 3.1 I remember reading a line about how Windows should never be used for mission critical deployments.
'nuff said.

[lelio]

a line about how Windows should never be used for mission critical deployments
Doesn't the EULA for Java when you download it from Sun say about the same thing?

[Tribune7]

bump

[The KG9 Kid]

I think the system should be completely proprietary both in software and hardware.

Just get Texas Instruments to whip something up.

[NormsRevenge]

"ABORT, RETRY, OR FAIL" :-?

[tm22721]

NT is used on many carriers for disparate functions including navigation, steering, etc.

BUMP

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Doesn't the EULA for Java when you download it from Sun say about the same thing?

If not, it should. I'd never deploy Java for a life or death app. I'd probably do it in C, most likely on Unix, possibly on Linux.

[Texas_Longhorn]

[Erasmus]

Just get Texas Instruments to whip something up.

Like a 960B running PAM/D.

Ahhh, the old days.....

[stylin_geek]

Yeah, for whatever reason, SCO Open Server is considered a mature product, and no further upgrades will be created. So, the upper file limit size it will handle is 2 gigabyte. Unixware 7 is pretty good, it does some slick stuff when it comes to WAN and network printing, but I think Caldera is screwing that up too.