>
> I'm wondering why the pay is increasing.

I really don't think Linux on the desktop is a factor. Maybe it's just
me, but I haven't encountered any large managed IT environment that
has Linux as a supported desktop OS. Obviously the University is an
exception.

But as an enterprise server platform, it's become an absolute
standard. I've been doing web development in large enterprise
environments for a few years now. When you add up application servers,
database servers, web servers, in multiple stages (dev, integration,
test, staging, prod), you start talking about a lot of hosts.
Especially now considering we've moved to cloud computing and
virtualization, you start getting a lot of hosts. Somebody's got to be
able to manage all of those, especially when you're conducting
millions to billions of dollars of business on them.

Linux hosts are easy to multiply, but Linux operators are not :) So,
if you've got skills to effectively, reliably, and securely manage a
large number of hosts, you are a valuable commodity, because a lot of
business is taking place on this platform, and it's not going away any
time soon.

-Erik
--
Erik K. Mitchell
erik.mitchell at gmail.com