City of Vienna

City of Vienna deploys Red Hat

Industry: City administration

Geography: Austria

Opportunity: Cost-effective server operating system with high stability and performance, integrated system administration, deployment and supervision, that’s flexible and independent of manufacturers, with a wide selection of certified software and hardware. This coupled with reasonably-priced and high-performance industry standard hardware.

Solution: Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and AS
Applications: Red Hat Satellite Server with Provisioning Module (Upgrade to monitoring module planned)
Hardware: HP Proliant Servers and Blade Servers

Benefits: Subscription model provides maximum freedom, simple system administration and provisioning with Red Hat Network, extremely reliable, high security due to Satellite Server.

Background

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Linux has a strong reputation within Magisterial Department 14 in the city of Vienna. In many ways, its use of open source is exemplary of other public institutions and enterprises. From the early 1990s, the city of Vienna has been running Linux servers. At the start, these were mainly systems with FreeBSD. However, as the City of Vienna looked to the future and the migration of mission-critical systems to Linux, a reliable Linux platform, developed and supported by a professional vendor, was needed.

Opportunity

As the capital city of Austria, Vienna serves in many ways as a role-model for local councils throughout the country. The IT organization of the capital city has always promoted the use of the most reliable and effective technologies. The fact that the city is also called upon to invite tenders for all major projects that extend across the European Union points to a cost-effective IT infrastructure. Costly experiments with underdeveloped or expensive software are therefore out of the question. Overall, the City of Vienna has made the decision to use open source technology in as many areas as possible. In terms of server operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux was chosen.

After the introduction of Linux with Free BSD, the City of Vienna sought for a reliable Linux distribution, to be developed and supported by a professional company. Before Red Hat had developed its Enterprise product Vienna used Red Hat Linux 7.2. “Red Hat has always had a rigorous focus on the stability of its Linux platform, a commitment that has been apparent and appreciated by us since we began deploying Red Hat,” explains Franz Brauneder, server management at the City of Vienna. “In addition, Red Hat could always provide the largest partner network and the most certifications from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and IHVs. Not only was this a key factor in our choice of an operating system, but it is reflected in our experience of the outstanding quality of Red Hat software. Since the start of our use of Red Hat, we have never had a critical problem connected with the operating system.”

Solution

After the early stages, when Linux was used almost exclusively for file servers, the City of Vienna worked with Linux to create systems that were increasingly at the core of its IT infrastructure. In the meantime, more than 100 servers run Linux, with the majority using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. “Red Hat’s introduction of Enterprise was extremely timely for us,” said Brauneder. “The emphasis placed on functions that are essential for professional use is a definite advantage, and the longer development cycles in close consultation with the hardware manufacturers also enable more effective planning and stable systems. The subscription model is also ideal for our needs as we pay for a specific service level. Which version of the operating system we install and when we run an upgrade is decided exclusively by internal factors on our end and not by the product policy of a manufacturer. Additionally, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux we also gain a high degree of independence from manufacturers, because Red Hat does not use code that is unsupported by the community. This prevents us from ending up in a technical blind alley.”

Benefits

The City of Vienna uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and AS on HP hardware. The IT department operates both “classic” HP Proliant servers of the ML and DL series and HP BL 10 and HP BL 20 blades. Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES is predominantly used by the City of Vienna. Applications used include Samba File Server, Apache Server, and applications developed by the City of Vienna itself. For applications that place high demands on resources, such as database servers, which must also be available at all times, the IT managers of the City of Vienna use Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS. For example, Oracle databases run on this top-of-the-range platform from Red Hat, and future expansion will continue to focus on this type of installation. The use of PostgreSQL on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS is imminent, along with the migration from AIX-Unix databases to Red Hat’s flagship product.
We have many years experience using Linux. Over the years we have become especially convinced of the outstanding quality of Red Hat software. Since we’ve been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there has never been a critical problem at any point.

We have many years experience using Linux. Over the years we have become especially convinced of the outstanding quality of Red Hat software. Since we’ve been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there has never been a critical problem at any point.

– Franz Brauneder, Server Manager

In order to manage a continuously growing Linux infrastructure effectively, the City of Vienna uses the Red Hat Satellite Server with the provisioning module. All Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems are integrated into the management console of the satellite server and can be administered from a central location. If required, remote access can also be made available easily and the provisioning module also allows the IT managers of the City of Vienna to add new computers via the network. Due to its architecture, the Red Hat Satellite Server can also be operated independently of the Internet, so it provides a particularly high degree of security from attacks from hackers. “With the Red Hat Satellite Server we have an ideal solution for all management tasks,” said Brauneder. “The larger our Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure grows, the more important the satellite server becomes for us. In the future, we are also planning to use the monitoring module, in order to have centralised control of system monitoring.”

In conclusion, Brauneder commented on the support provided by Red Hat: “In most cases the web-based support works extremely well. However, we have not yet been in a position of having to resolve a critical problem. That says a great deal about the reliability of the Red Hat solution.”