Migration programs are often met with resistance on the part of end users, and a demand for cost-justification from managers, and then after approval has been granted, the migration itself seldom goes exactly as planned. Nonetheless, if the key benefits have been defined, the results can be dramatic. Nowhere is this more evident than in a migration from proprietary UNIX to an
enterprise Linux system.
One of the biggest issues facing IT is finding ways to reduce cost and complexity, particularly in an increasingly competitive environment in which upper management demands justification for every expense. Gone are the days of the CFO signing big cheques for projects just "because the IT guys say we have to have it."
Harvard Research Group (HRG) 
conducted a survey of professionals involved in migrations to Linux, especially as the migrations relate to initiatives to reduce cost and complexity.
The move to Linux is likely to be evident across multiple verticals in the foreseeable future. In the healthcare industry for example, although the high degree of customisation typical to this vertical will mean a slow uptake, a move to Linux in healthcare will be driven by continuing demand on the part of consumers as well as governments to reduce costs and improve efficiency. The financial services industry is moving towards Linux more rapidly especially in core workloads. By the same token, telecoms companies are rapidly migrating towards Linux and away from Solaris platforms.
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Migrations though, are seldom taken all at once, and some of the more highly customised apps and transaction processing systems are less likely to move immediately. Java-based applications are more typically targeted for early migration because of the simplicity of the process. All in all, the decision to migrate to Linux will typically call for some external assistance, both for the integration process itself, and for the strategic decision support on what to migrate and when. Third-party integrators and consultants such as Sabeo Technologies that specialise in enterprise Linux are well suited to take charge of the process. Based in Dublin Ireland Sabeo’s engineers have 15 years of experience working in Enterprise Computing environments and provide a large range of technical services on both the UNIX and Linux platforms. The first part of an integration typically is to gain a deep understanding of business needs, and this comes with hiring an integrator/consultant that will take the time to work directly with managers and decision makers to come up with the best solution before diving into the migration process.
Customers relying on mainframe platforms are typically approaching migration by partitioning the mainframe apps, and moving a portion of the workload to Linux, in some cases moving specific applications off the mainframe onto an IA platform running Linux for significant savings. In the area of virtualisation, Linux is also making major inroads, and legacy apps can today more easily migrate to a virtualised cloud infrastructure, with the result being lower cost, better manageability, and no negative impact to performance.
The move from proprietary UNIX to Linux is a decision that often makes good economic, as well as technical sense, especially as IT organisations are increasingly compelled to accomplish more, with fewer resources and less money. The availability of IA Linux platforms, as well as availability of cloud and virtualised options, especially means it is often not necessary to move to a large platform to enjoy the performance and functionality required.