| Enterprises tout Linux's cost, performance benefits |
Jun. 03, 2005
In contrast to its reputation for being difficult and sometimes expensive to implement, some large enterprises are beginning to see significant cost savings and performance benefits as a result of migrating to Linux.
Harry Roberts, CIO for Boscov's Department Store LLC, in Reading, Pa., told attendees at the Linux Solutions Retail Conference here last week that while a move to open source had initially been difficult to justify to company executives who knew little about Linux, the cost savings the company realized some two years into the implementation were enough to quell dissent.
"The annual savings directly related to [Linux] implementation is my trump card," Roberts said, adding that moving to Linux saved Boscov's $1 million in the first two years, with ongoing annual savings expected to be about $500,000. That figure could rise to $1 million per year by 2007 as the retailer continues to port technologies to Linux.
Boscov's has migrated not only edge applications to Linux but also its invoicing database server.
The tales told by Roberts and other IT executives at large enterprises run counter to the persistent pitch from Microsoft Corp. that moving to Linux is not only expensive but also difficult and time-consuming.
Robert Wiseman, chief technology officer of Cendant Corp.'s Travel Distribution Services division in Centennial, Colo., which has more than 5,000 employees in 110 countries and owns brands such as Galileo International Inc., Cheap Tickets Inc. and Orbitz LLC, said the company's move from a mainframe environment to Linux in 2001 has saved the company $100 million.
"When we moved to Linux, we also found that using the low-cost x86 hardware platform made our system run three times faster and was 90 percent cheaper than the mainframe using Unix had been. It also has the highest uptime of any system we have had. We have not had a single second of outage, either scheduled or unscheduled, since June 2004," Wiseman said.
But while Linux is not free -- "and don't let anyone tell you that it is -- part of our savings also came from human capital, where we now have one person supporting all 200 instances of Linux in our enterprise," Boscov's Roberts said. "That allowed us to move other Windows support staff to new functions."
Aaron Graves, a senior vice president at Citigroup Inc.'s technology infrastructure group in New York, said that while Citigroup decided to stay on the mainframe, it looked at Linux to bring distributed workloads into its mainframe hardware environment.
"We were able to configure an environment where a Linux application was running and connecting to [an IBM] DB2 database at the back end," Graves said. "We were able to configure multiple Linux instances across multiple mainframes and multiple databases, giving us a back-end Linux environment processing credit card transactions at a rate of between 90 and 120 transactions per second per Linux instance."
Josh Levine, chief technology and operations officer at E-Trade Financial Corp., in New York, said the company has switched from Sun Microsystems Inc. hardware running Solaris to Linux on Intel Corp.-based servers. "The way Linux is supported is incredible. The nice thing about Linux is that it can be supported in many ways, from both vendors and the community, and there is no mystery around it," Levine said.
All these enterprises plan to build out and grow their Linux implementations, which the executives said they believe will result in even greater cost savings. For Boscov's, that means replacing its aging POS (point of sale) infrastructure.
"The cost of Linux software will be less than half up front, with almost no ongoing costs, compared with Windows, which we believe will add a cost of $180 a device every 24 to 30 months," Roberts said. "We will avoid about $630,000 in costs every two years."
If you found this eWEEK.com article by Peter Galli informative, be sure to check out eWEEK.com's Linux & Open Source Center for the latest open-source news, reviews, and analysis.
Related Stories:
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
Approaching the Linux Desktop
The purpose of this paper is to help organizations evaluate the Linux desktop against their own enterprise needs and discover what benefits the Linux desktop might bring to their organizations.
Migrating To Linux: Application Challenges and Solutions
Several solutions exist to help organizations migrate in an orderly fashion from Windows to Linux desktops. This paper establishes the characteristics of an ideal cross-platform solution and reviews these alternatives in light of this ideal standard. The paper takes a closer look at the pros and cons of various solutions and outlines the business benefits that can be achieved.
Linux Advantages: Publicly Available Information on Linux Software
This paper offers a brief summary of readily-available Linux information to help businesses sort out this widely misunderstood operating system.
Top 5 Strategies for Managing Linux
Despite continuous evolution in the manageability of Linux, a 2006 survey cited manageability concerns as a top reason why organizations are hesitating to adopt Linux. Levanta believes Linux can be as manageable, if not more so, than other operating systems by following key strategies. These strategic recommendations were developed from experiences in numerous customer environments, both large and small.
Why Choose Novell for Linux?
This paper outlines the benefits of switching to the Linux platform and choosing Novell as a high-performance, enterprise solution.
Enterprise Linux Selection Guide
Considering moving your enterprise to the Linux operating system? Since there are so many similar versions, choosing the right one can be tough. This paper offers a clear process to help you make an informed decision and get the features, support, and cost that are right for your business and technical needs.
Overcoming Challenges in Managing Linux
Levanta has created a new administration model with innovative technology that breaks down the barriers to making the most of Linux systems. This paper will provide an in-depth look at the workings of Levanta’s product, the first Linux appliance of its kind.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 for Retail Businesses
Discover why major retailers have switched to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop in the back office. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a low-cost desktop that offers a complete set of productivity applications and interoperates seamlessly with the other Windows, Macintosh and UNIX desktops in your store.
Moving to a Linux Desktop
Migrating from Windows to Linux on the desktop can be a substantial undertaking because it has the potential for touching -- and perhaps disrupting -- every user in your organization. Unlike a data center (server and infrastructure) migration that is largely transparent to users, the cultural and administrative transitions and environment readiness required to support a Linux desktop migration are extensive.
Seven Good Reasons to Exchange Exchange
This paper describes seven compelling reasons why you should switch from Exchange to Scalix.
|
|
|
|
|
news feed
