Success stories: 'JBoss Innovation Awards' category

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: GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company)

CATEGORY: Superior Alternatives

INDUSTRY: Insurance

GEOGRAPHY: US

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Existing proprietary middleware platform was complex to manage, not performing and scaling as expected and expensive to maintain. The architecture team decided to investigate alternatives that could be deployed that would better meet their needs.

MIGRATION PATH: Proprietary middleware platform to JBoss Enterprise Middleware

SOFTWARE: JBoss Enterprise Application Platform: 28 bands (1 band = 32 CPUs), JBoss Technical Account Manager (TAM), Red Hat Consulting, Amentra

HARDWARE: 50 Dell servers

BENEFITS: Reduced the total cost of ownership by more than 30%, throughput gain of 3X with utilization down to 1/3rd of the current platform, overall resource utilization went from above 50% to under 10% which allowed significant room for scalability without having to acquire additional hardware.

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COMPANIES: Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) and Optaros

CATEGORY: Extensive Ecosystem

INDUSTRY: Convention center management

GEOGRAPHY: Boston, MA

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Manual processes and siloed systems resulted in inefficient workflows that caused customer service to suffer.

MIGRATION PATH: From a Microsoft™ Windows – based client-server application to service oriented architecture (SOA) J2EE application based upon the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

SOFTWARE: JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, JBoss Enterprise SOA, JBoss Messaging, JBoss ESB, JBoss jBPM, J2EE™, Google Web Toolkit™, Apache

HARDWARE: Intel Xeon™ – based x86 servers

BENEFITS: More efficient and timely access to data and an automated streamlined workflow that improved worker productivity and customer service levels and increased revenues. Approximately 90 percent of the MCCA’s day-to-day operations are run using open source technologies.

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COMPANY: American Family Mutual Insurance Company

INNOVATION AWARD CATEGORY: Management Excellence

INDUSTRY: Property and Casualty Insurance

GEOGRAPHY: North America

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Needed a cost effective centralized management solution for its 1,200 instances of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform that would scale with its growing computing infrastructure

MIGRATION PATH: ad hoc monitoring solutions to JBoss Operations Network

SOFTWARE:JBoss Operations Network (JBoss ON), JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on 150 plus systems, Red Hat Consulting, Oracle DB, HP OpenView

HARDWARE: Intel based Dell x86 commodity servers

BENEFITS: Improved availability and reliability of applications, a monitoring solution that can manage a large number of application server instances, simplified management, enhanced management and monitoring, and reduced costs

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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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Category: Certified Service Provider

Winner:Amentra

Submitted by: Amentra Team

Industry: Amentra = Technology / La Petite Academy = Education

Geography: Virginia

Overview
Selected for helping enterprises deploy mission-critical business systems on JEMS through a formal, experience-proven mentoring and software development program.

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Category: Business Process Auotmation

Winner:Helio/SK Telecom

Submitted by: Junwon Lee, Manager, Convergence and Internet R&D Center, SK Telecom

Industry: Telecommunications

Geography: Korea/USA

Overview
SK Telecom (www.sktelecom.com), Korea’s leading wireless telecommunications services provider, and Helio (www.helio.com), an advanced U.S. mobile service provider, were selected for their use of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and JBoss jBPM to build and streamline its wireless data portal (WDP). After deploying Red Hat solutions, Helio quickly experienced cost reductions. Operational savings amounted to 50 percent monthly and the company experienced a 90 percent reduction in commercial software and licensing costs.
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Category: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Implementation
Winner:Vivat (client = US Trust)
Submitted by: Max Yankelevich, Chief Architect
Industry: Vivat = Technology Partner / US Trust = Government, Financial
Geography: Bensalem, PA

Overview
Vivat (www.vivatconsulting.com), a professional services organization focused on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Application Integration, was selected based on its work with US Trust, one of the oldest private banking firms in the U.S. Vivat successfully moved US Trust’s main revenue stream, the Client Fee Calculator, from an antiquated legacy system to a new SOA system built on JBoss technologies, including JBoss Rules and JBoss Application Server. The solution is expected to bring in an additional $20 million over the next five years as well as maximize customer profits, thanks to newly transparent and manageable fee rules.
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Category: Increased ROI
Winner: Alintec
Industry: Tech and Government
Geography: Milan, Italy

Overview
Alintec (www.alintec.it) (previously Politecnico Innovazione), a non-profit consortium promoting technological innovation within SMEs and public institutions and technology transfer between academia and industry in Europe, was selected following the high return on investment (ROI) it achieved after the implementation of multiple JBoss technologies within its Internet-based Library Management System (LMS) for the Province of Bergamo. The JBoss-based solution increased library loan rates by more than 25 percent and the frequency of inter-library loans by over 30 percent. Overall, it has positively impacted the end-user experience in terms of speed and ease-of-use.
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2008 JBOSS INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

Category: Ecosystem
Winner: Rivet Logic Corporation
Submitted by: Mike Vertal, CEO/President/Owner
Industry: Rivet = Technology Partner / Kaplan = Education
Geography: Reston, VA

Overview
Rivet Logic, a provider of professional services focused on open source solutions, and Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses, were selected for their use of Alfresco’s content management platform in support of the upgrade of Kaplan’s online presence from a legacy system to a JBoss-centric solution. The teams employed JBoss Seam (and Facelets), JBoss Application Server, Hibernate and jBPM to create a next-generation platform for the www.kaptest.com site that can deliver personalized applications and dynamic, targeted content. The results include a 26x performance improvement over the legacy content authoring/delivery system, much faster page load times and a “fresher” web presence for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.
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Category: User Experience
Winner: Daiwa Securities America
Submitted by: Steve Dunstan, Vice President / Enterprise Systems Architect
Industry: Financial services
Geography: New York, NY

Overview
Migration of 120 separate applications running to JBoss Portal using a series of unified templates. This enabled rapid growth, increased productivity, faster service, and hundreds of thousand of dollars in cost-savings.
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Category: Migration
Winner: Sakonnet
Submitted by: David Renton, Vice President, Product Delivery at Sakonnet
Industry: Oil and Gas
Geography: New York, London, Rio de Janeiro

Overview
Used JBoss Application Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux to develop a scalable, performance-driving, well-supported solution that provided ease-of-use, cost savings, and transparency for Sakonnet’s energy-trading solutions. With JBoss Application Server, Sakonnet discovered a solution that combined low-cost, quality software and reliable support to fit into its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategy of frequent application upgrades and top-notch support.
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Category: Joint JBoss/Red Hat Deployment
Winner: CompuCredit Corporation
Submitted by: Guido F. Sacchi, CIO and SVP, Corporate Strategies, Cindy Hayden, Manager of Real-Time Integration
Industry: Financial services
Geography: Atlanta, GA

Overview
Used JBoss Enterprise Application Platform to construct an XML Gateway that serves as the company’s main real-time transaction hub—enabling rapid growth, increased productivity, faster service, and millions of dollars in cost-savings.
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Category: Emerging and Leading Edge Technologies
Winner:Big Lots
Submitted by: Big Lots Application Architecture Team
Industry: Retail
Geography: Columbus, OH

Overview
Big Lots used the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and JBoss Seam to develop and implement an interactive Inventory Management System usable across a variety of devices (Point-of-Sale, mobile handheld, and back-office server) in 705 retail stores across the US (rollout to its fleet of approximately 1,350 stores will complete in 2008). The Inventory Management System is part of a multi-year store technology refresh project. Thus far, the changes have resulted in increased productivity at the front end, improved customer experience, and improved ability to respond to future business initiatives.
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Category: New Generation Technology
Winner:Lexicon Genetics
Submitted by: Buckley Kohlhauff, Mark Ma, Jason Williams
Industry: Biotechnology
Geography: The Woodlands, Texas

Overview
Selected for their use of JBoss Seam to glue together Hibernate, JSF, EJB3, and JBoss jBPM to dramatically simplify their development process and create a robust platform that can deploy mission-critical applications for the Texas Institute of Genomic Medicine.
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Selected by the community as the 2006 JBoss Innovator of the Year
Category: Service Orientated Architecture
Winner:RLPTechnologies
Submitted by: RLPTechnologies Team (see below)
Industry: Bio Engineering
Geography: Farmington Hills, Michigan

Overview
Selected for their use of JBoss AS and Hibernate as the foundation for their SOA-based platform that has revolutionized how data is collected, enhanced and compiled to increase data-file processing performance by 70%, increase scalability by 400%, and enrich the timeliness, accuracy and quality of R.L. Polk’s data for the automotive industry.
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Category: Clustering
Winner: J. Craig Venter Institute
Submitted by: Pete Davies, Indresh Singh, Tom Dolafi, Chris Lemieux, Sean Murphy, Adam Resnick, Angelo Trivelli, Bryan Yu, and Saul Kravitz
Industry: Bio Engineering
Geography: Rockville, MD

Overview
Selected for use of JBoss messaging and clustering to provide the stability and scalability necessary to process in excess of 40 million traces in batch across a 2 node cluster that supports over 100 DNA sequencers (scaling to 8 nodes to process large collections of traces) while also saving the not-for-profit genomic research center over $500,000 per year in licensing and maintenance costs.
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Category: Core Infrastructure