Limited scalability is another criticism of Linux in the enterprise.
This results from the current limitation of eight processors in a Linux symmetrical multiprocessing configuration. By contrast, enterprise systems provided by Sun support 64 processors, and IBM supports more than 500, according to IDC's Kuznetsky. Extra scalability, however, can be delivered in a couple of ways, each with advantages and disadvantages. Big Unix servers, those packed with many processors, provide vertical scalability. These systems are expensive to buy but are straightforward to manage.