Success stories: 'Red Hat Innovation Awards' category

2009 RED HAT INNOVATION AWARD WINNER: MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

COMPANY: Whole Foods Market

CATEGORY: Management Excellence

INDUSTRY: Consumer

GEOGRAPHY: North America

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Needed a cost-effective operating platform and complementary management solution that would scale with the company’s growth while increasing the security, manageability, and availability of business-critical applications

SOFTWARE: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Cluster Suite, Red Hat Global File System (GFS), Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Consulting

HARDWARE: 75 HP x86 servers, 16 virtual servers

BENEFITS: Obtained an easy-to-use and reliable systems management solution that enabled increased productivity and reduced costs by increasing system administrator efficiency; Experienced increased performance and internal-user satisfaction of homegrown applications, including order processing applications.

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COMPANY: Union Bank, N.A.

CATEGORY: Superior Alternatives

INDUSTRY: Financial Services

GEOGRAPHY: Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: An aging and costly IT infrastructure was impeding the ability of Union Bank to scale to growth and respond agilely to changing market dynamics

MIGRATION PATH: UNIX™ on high-end RISC machines to Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on Intel Xeon based HP servers; Websphere to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

SOFTWARE: Red Hat Enterprise Linux™, Red Hat Network Satellite, JBoss Enterprise Application Platform™, JBoss Seam, JBoss Hibernate, Red Hat Consulting

HARDWARE: More than 150 Intel™ Xeon™ processor-based HP ProLiant servers

BENEFITS: Improve reliability and scalability, cut costs, and deliver new financial services and products to market faster

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COMPANY: Verizon Communications Inc.

INNOVATION AWARD CATEGORY: Optimized Systems

INDUSTRY: Telecom; Broadband, Wireless, Wireline

GEOGRAPHY: North America

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Needed a reliable and cost effective solution for its SAP and PeopleSoft Enterprise Resource Planning applications that would scale with its growing computing infrastructure

MIGRATION PATH: UNIX-based SMP platform to Red Hat Enterprise Linux

SOFTWARE: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, Red Hat Network Satellite, SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle RAC

HARDWARE: 300 Dell and HP servers

BENEFITS: Reduced costs, improved performance, increased ability to scale and prepared for future growth, increased energy conservation efforts

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Australian Insurance Company Saves $500,000 by Migrating from Windows and WebSphere to Red Hat Platform and JBoss Middleware Solutions, Gains Increased Flexibility, Scalability and Freedom

COMPANY:Allianz Australia Insurance Limited (Allianz)

CATEGORY: Carved Out Costs

INDUSTRY: Insurance

GEOGRAPHY: Australia

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Rebuild Allianz’s IT infrastructure based on a flexible and scalable platform that could leverage new virtualisation technology to generate hardware and support savings, and reduce its underlying software and operations costs for several strategic business application projects

MIGRATION PATH: Windows and Intel-based infrastructure to Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM System z10 mainframe and from Websphere to JBoss Enterprise Middleware on Intel processor based HP ProLiant servers.

SOFTWARE: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Network Satellite, JBoss Enterprise Middleware, JBoss Operations Network, Red Hat Consulting

HARDWARE: IBM System z10 mainframe, HP ProLiant servers

BENEFITS: Significant reduction in middleware software and support costs, reallocation of IT budget from software licensing to staff and resources, resolution of data centre power limitations with new capacity for growth, superior workload management and operational efficiency, reduced carbon footprint, increased flexibility, scalability, and freedom from vendor lock-in

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COMPANIES: Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) and Rivet Logic

CATEGORY: Optimized Systems

INDUSTRY: Publishing

GEOGRAPHY: Cambridge, Massachusetts

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: The HBP’s ability to get new products to market and the quality of the customer experience at its e-commerce site were hindered by a proprietary operating system, a difficult-to-use legacy content management system (CMS), and inflexible customer-facing Web applications, which were negatively impacting the HBP’s revenues and limiting growth

MIGRATION PATH: From a proprietary operating system running a proprietary legacy CMS application to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Application Platform running the Alfresco Content Management System

SOFTWARE: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and Frameworks including JBoss Seam, JBoss Hibernate, jBPM, Oracle Database, and Alfresco’s open source Content Management System

HARDWARE: Intel™ Xeon™ processor-based Dell™ 2950 multicore servers

BENEFITS: Increased employee productivity, lowered IT operational costs, and increased Web site traffic and e-commerce transactions

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FAST FACTS

Industry: Construction & Engineering

Geography: Headquarters and global operations is based in the Principality of Liechtenstein

Business Challenge: To migrate all SAP® business-critical applications from a
discontinued legacy UNIX environment to a scalable and reliable platform and to eliminate vendor
lock-in

Migration Path: HP Tru64 UNIX on Alpha Servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 on x86_64
commodity based hardware

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Red Hat Cluster Suite, Red Hat Global File System
(GFS), ATIX Open-Sharedroot Extension, SAP applications including SAP Business Suite, SAP ERP and SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), and the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform

Hardware: 185 HP ProLiant servers, the largest machines have 32 CPUs with 128GB RAM

Benefits: Eliminated vendor lock-in; achieved an estimated 50 percent overall cost reduction; increased performance by more than 100 percent; provided ease of management and reliable uptime; reduced electricity costs and carbon footprint; and provided the company with a long-term platform strategy that will help retain expert knowledge and enable the team to be highly responsive to the increasing requirements of a global manufacturing, sales and service organization

Download the PDF case study This case study is also available in: German.

“We migrated to SAP applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on HP ProLiant servers after evaluation and testing. Since migrating, we have have experienced increased performance of more than 100 percent. We also reduced IT costs with a commoditized architecture. Having a tight level of integration between Red Hat and SAP support organizations gives us the confidence to continue along this path and further reduce our costs by migrating all of our SAP environment to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.”
– Martin Petry, CIO at Hilti

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FAST FACTS

Company: Discount Tire Company

Industry: Consumer – Automotive Retail

Geography: Scottsdale, Arizona

Business Challenge: Support the rapidly growing e-commerce side of the business while keeping costs contained and complying with strict PCI security standards

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Satellite, Apache, WebLogic, IBM Lotus Domino Server, Red Hat Consulting

Hardware: 50 Dell x86 servers

Migration Path: Microsoft Windows to Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Benefits: Provided an easily managed, secure, and utterly reliable platform for Discount Tire’s e-commerce business. Enabled compliance with PCI security standards. Increased IT staff productivity and contained costs due to the ability to easily provision, maintain, and manage servers.

“I’ve been in the IT industry for about 20 years now, and Red Hat is far and above any other company I’ve ever worked with. Not only are its products of the highest caliber, but it is incredibly responsive to all our needs. Red Hat support is top-of-the-line, and the Red Hat phone number is on my phone’s speed dial, and it is going to stay there.”
– Will Darton, senior server support administrator, Discount Tire.

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Read More about Discount Tire in the press:
INO.com
LinuxBIZZ.com
Manufacturing Central
SYS-CON Media
Xtreme Open Source

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Optimized Systems

Winner: Infoplex

Submitted by: Sean Kaye

Vertical: Information Technology

Geography: Australia

Website: www.infoplex.com.au

Company Background

Infoplex is one of Australia’s fastest growing and most dynamic IT managed service providers. Based in St. Leonards, Australia, it specializes in delivering an innovative and diversified range of services to both private and public sector clients. Offerings include on-demand storage, disaster recovery, and collocation services as well as software as a service (SaaS). Currently, the Infoplex Group has 55 employees in the firm’s three functional divisions: Infoplex Managed Services, Infoplex Procurement Services, and ThinkSecure Security Consulting. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leighton Holdings Limited, the publicly listed parent company of Australia’s largest project development and contracting group.

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Superior Alternatives

Winner: Booz Allen Hamilton

Submitted by: Christopher Dale

Vertical: Government

Geography: US

Website: www.boozallen.com

Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm with more than 18,000 employees serving government clients from more than 80 offices and has been recognized by major publications as a best place to work. Integrating the full range of consulting capabilities, Booz Allen is the one firm that helps government clients solve their toughest problems with services in strategy, operations, organization and change, and information technology. Booz Allen is committed to delivering results that endure. » Read more

2008 Red Hat Innovator of the Year

Creative Use Winner: IBM and Raytheon
Submitted by: Keith Bright

Vertical: Information Technology and Government

Geography: US

Websites: www.ibm.com, www.raytheon.com

Company Background

Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 people worldwide. Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon, is a leader in joint battlespace integration. It serves as the prime mission systems integrator for all electronic and combat systems for the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer program.

IBM is the world’s largest information technology services and consulting services organization, with 2007 revenue of $98.7 billion. As a business, IBM delivers innovation that matters for its clients. As a global enterprise, it values innovation that matters for itself and for the world, addressing some of society’s most complex problems with game-changing business and technology innovation. IBM’s collaboration with Raytheon is one example of its innovative approach to addressing challenges facing government and commercial organizations alike. » Read more

Enhanced Security Winner: Likewise Software

Submitted by: Rosie Hausler

Vertical: Information Technology

Geography: US

Website: www.likewisesoftware.com

Company Background

Likewise Software is a privately-held company that provides audit and authentication solutions designed to improve security, reduce operational costs, and help demonstrate regulatory compliance for enterprises with mixed network environments. Its product, Likewise Open, which has been certified by the company to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is an open-source enterprise-class solution that addresses the authentication needs of organizations with heterogeneous network infrastructures, by easily and quickly joining virtually all enterprise platforms to common directories such as Microsoft Active Directory. Likewise Open is a great starting point for companies that are grappling with homegrown solutions to solve their authentication challenges. Likewise’s premier offering, Likewise Enterprise, which has been certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, provides enterprises with significant added value by addressing the authentication, audit, and reporting needs of companies running multiple operating systems in their networks. By providing an easy upgrade path for customers that have installed Likewise Open, Likewise Enterprise allows enterprises to use group policies to manage their mixed environments as well as their audit capabilities. Located in Bellevue, Washington, Likewise currently has 50 employees. » Read more

Delivered Value Winner: Nortel

Submitted by: Ernest Szeideman

Vertical: Telecommunications

Geography: International

Website: www.nortel.com

Company Background

By linking hundreds of millions of users the world over, Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering the communications capabilities that make its promise of “business made simple” a reality. Based in Toronto, Nortel provides enterprises and service providers in more than 150 countries with the next-generation technologies they need to support their multimedia and business-critical network applications. Nortel technologies help eliminate barriers to efficiency, speed, and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to their information-whenever and wherever they need it. » Read more

Category: Innovation in Government
Submitted by: Douglas Babb
Vertical: Government
Geography: Hill Air Force Base, UT
Website: http://www.hill.af.mil

Overview
Selected for use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 to greatly reduce or eliminate system crashes, simplify a complicated operating environment and have minimal user disruption.

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Category: Emerging and Leading Edge Technologies
Submitted by: John Brzozowski, Architect and Principle Engineer
Vertical: Broadband services
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Website: http://www.comcast.com

Overview

Selected for ther use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 virtualization capabilities to create a cost-effective, highly efficient testing and certification environment to support the corporate IPv6 initiative.
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Submitted by: Michael Simpson, CTO
Industry: Healthcare
Geography: Louisville, CO
Website: http://www.mckesson.com

Overview

Selected for being the first company to employ the Red Hat Enterprise Healthcare Platform to integrate its varied healthcare software applications on one unified platform, saving approximately one million dollars in combined software and hardware costs and allowing the company to provide a more robust and enterprise-ready solution for patient care.
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Category: Increased Return on Investment
Submitted by: Andrea Zissler: Director, Information Technology
Industry: Education and Information Technology
Geography: Ann Arbor, MI
Website: http://www.proquest.com

Overview

An innovative approach to drive out cost and achieve measurable ROI as a result of implementing a Red Hat solution. Results could include financial return or percentage increase in productivity, yield, efficiency, quality, or uptime performance.
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Category: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Submitted by: Sanjay Sen, Senior Director, Digital Properties; Aled Davies, Architect; Brian Compton, Architect
Industry: Entertainment
Geography: New York, NY
Website: http://www.wmg.com

Overview

Selected for implementing JEMS to create a customer asset management system with a Service-Oriented Architecture that enables efficient website data management and maximum scalability across WMG’s rapidly growing extended enterprise.
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Category: Joint Red Hat / JBoss Deployment

Winner: DST Health Solutions

Submitted by: Gary Krasovic

Industry: Health Information Systems

Geography: Birmingham, Alabama

Overview

Selected for their use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JEMS to build a consumer-directed healthcare solution that was first-to-market, yielding immediate customer traction, increased market visibility, thus reflective of corporate leadership and success.
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