Oil and Gas Leader Reduced Costs and Increased Performance with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Integrated Virtualization on Intel® Xeon® processor-based Servers

FAST FACTS

Company: YPF SA

Industry: Oil and Gas

Geography: Argentina

Business Challenge: Renovate proprietary infrastructure with the goal of reducing costs and boosting performance with open source solutions

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization, Red Hat Network, SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), 10g DB, Red Hat Consulting

Hardware: Intel Xeon Processor-based IBM System x 346, 366, 3650, 3850 servers

Migration Path: From SUN Solaris, HP-UX, and IBM AIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with virtualization on Intel Xeon Processor-based IBM System x servers

Benefits: Reduced capital and operational costs, boosted performance and efficiency of administrators, increased internal customer satisfaction by reducing implementation time, increased scalability and agility, and expanded flexibility

“Now, more than 80 percent of our Oracle databases and 90 percent of our SAP applications run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization on Intel Xeon Processor-based servers and is the choice for our SAP and Oracle implementations.”
–Adriana Marisa Vázquez, responsible for the UNIX administration group at YPF.

Download the case study [PDF]

BACKGROUND
YPF S.A., the largest company in Argentina, is an energy company, operating a leading integrated oil and gas business across the domestic upstream and downstream segments. The upstream operations consist of the exploration, development and production of crude oil, natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. The downstream operations include the refining, marketing, transportation and distribution of oil and a range of petroleum derivatives, petrochemicals, liquid petroleum gas and biofuels.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE
In 1999, YPF embarked on the task of renovating its proprietary infrastructure for the solution of its YPF Gas business unit with the goal of reducing its costs and to boost the performance of its critical business applications.

YPF determined that migrating its infrastructure off legacy RISC/UNIX and proprietary software and deploying open source solutions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, would allow it to manage operations more efficiently and drastically reduce the cost of IT operations.

At the time of the decision, YPF had to overcome internal hesitation about open source platforms, as Linux was just beginning to emerge as a viable enterprise operating platform, and had not yet gained the widespread adoption prevalent in today’s industry.

“At YPF, decisions are made only after thorough testing and research, and the IT team had proven that migrating from the RISC/UNIX and proprietary servers to open and flexible platforms would pose no risk to the reliability, availability, and performance of the systems,” said Adriana Marisa Vázquez, responsible for the UNIX administration group at YPF. “We also had to ensure that our SAP and Oracle solutions were fully supported and certified on the selected platform.”

SOLUTION
After research and testing, YPF selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Intel Xeon Processor-based hardware and started incorporating the solution on small Informix systems to renew the database servers distributed among the company’s 29 gas plants around Argentina.

The company saw an immediate positive impact on cost and performance. The significant reduction in costs, especially when compared with the license cost of RISC-based platforms, and the increased performance and availability, drove the decision to scale with Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Intel Xeon Processor-based IBM System x servers.

“We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a number of reasons, the most basic being the lower costs, simplified management with Red Hat Network, and the compatibility and performance with our SAP and Oracle solutions,” said Vázquez. “After the initial success, we began to include other platforms. Now, more than 80 percent of our Oracle databases and 90 percent of our SAP applications run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization on Intel Xeon Processor-based servers and is the choice for our SAP and Oracle implementations.”

There are 117 Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Intel Xeon Processor-based servers, 83 percent of which are allocated to SAP and Oracle applications supporting different company processes such as:
- Serviclub
- YPF Boxes
- Internal Service Stations network
- Service Station Stores
- Well information for extraction and maintenance
- Retail
- 90 percent of the dialog steps processed at YPF run on the Red Hat and Intel

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization enables YPF to quickly virtualize servers for testing and development, and arranging configurations to try new features in-house before offering them to the public. YPF can rapidly push servers live into productions, effectively increasing the utilization of servers without server sprawl in data centers.

“The virtual machines we built were very expansive, and we’ve achieved truly outstanding performance with Red Hat. Without the help of Red Hat Consulting, we would not have been able to have the virtual servers providing the SAP and Oracle application services as we have today,” said Vázquez. “With Red Hat’s virtualization technology, we can maintain the hardware without affecting the performance by moving virtual machines on the fly,” she added.

YPF relied on Red Hat Consulting to contribute expertise during the deployment and ongoing improvement, and the Red Hat Consultants still provides expert product knowledge to increase internal capabilities. With demanding day-to-day activities at YPF, deploying new technology solutions generally takes significant time and resources, Red Hat Consulting has been able to speed up implementation projects, helping to free up internal YPF resources to work on strategic projects.

“Over the years, Red Hat Consultants have gained considerable knowledge of our business and we consider them technological partners rather than a consultant or a vendor,” said Vázquez.

The implementation of Red Hat Network, a centralized systems management platform, heavily involved Red Hat Consulting. “Red Hat Network has allowed us to administer the platform in a centralized manner, which has helped us save considerable time and enabled our administrators to become far more efficient,” said Vázquez.

BENEFITS
The success of YPF’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization deployment has allowed the company to roll out Red Hat as the standard solution of choice across its organization. Through the combination of Red Hat’s virtualization capabilities and Intel processor-based servers, YPF achieved cost savings, heightened performance, simplification and ease of management, and expanded scalability.

Through Red Hat’s advanced virtualization capabilities, the organization was able to free up internal hardware and technical expert resources for reallocation in alignment with business goals. With its virtualization technology integrated with the operating platform, and at no extra cost, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provided YPF with added flexibility and reduced costs and complexity for its critical systems.

“Our systems have become more agile and flexible with the combination of Red Hat’s virtualization technology on Intel’s reliable platforms,” said Vázquez. “Our systems are now more operationally efficient, and we still have the high performance our business demands, coupled with decreased costs” she added.

“With Red Hat Network, our work has been simplified by means of set-up and configuration standards. With Red Hat virtualization technology, deployment times are drastically reduced, and a Linux server only takes a few minutes, compared to hours, to configure,” said Vázquez.

The reduced delivery times of an installed server have increased YPF’s internal customer’s satisfaction too.

Currently, YPF is analyzing the addition of the Red Hat Network Satellite option, in order to leverage high-end management, provisioning, and monitoring. It is also evaluating the implementation of Red Hat Cluster Suite for high-availability solutions.

“Red Hat is based on the subscription model, which has provided us freedom from vendor lock-in,” said Vázquez. “We trust Red Hat as a technology partner for the solid expertise of its IT professionals, its knowledge of our business-critical concerns, and its commitment to high-quality support and services. We look forward to growing together with Red Hat in the future,” she concluded.

SUCCESS STORY HIGHLIGHTS

BBP develops financial messaging applications that are offered to financial institutions on an in-house or service bureau basis for SWIFT, SIC, and other financial networks. BBP guarantees continuous interbank connection availability and 24×7 access to its IGTplus middleware. Given the sensitivity of the application and the underlying data, BBP required an application infrastructure that could meet its stringent requirements for security and availability. BBP chose Red Hat and Ingres technologies due to comprehensive functionality provided by the individual products as well as the fact that the products were pre-integrated, fully certified, tested, and tuned for performance.

This solution was also chosen because both Ingres and Red Hat are well known for providing 24×7 support and maintenance to enterprises around the world. Cost was an important factor as well. Deployed since 2003, the application provides software and services to hundreds of banks throughout Europe as well as other countries including the United States.

Download the case study [PDF]

More about Ingres: [Ingres and Red Hat]

CHALLENGE

BBP AG is an integrated software and solution vendor specializing in integration of interbank applications. Founded in Baden, Switzerland in 1984, BBP has been a subsidiary of New Jersey based Fundtech Corporation since 1999. Known as IGTplus (Interbank Gateway), the middleware created by BBP connects financial institutions to payment transactions, securities trading, and processing systems. BBP offers this middleware on an in-house or Service Bureau basis for a range of financial networks including SWIFTNet (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications), the trading, clearing and settlement systems of the SIX Group (SWX, SIC, euroSIC, SECOM) as well as FED and CHIPS (US Dollar clearing) and connectivity to Brokers.

In 1995, BBP opened Switzerland’s first independent ServiceBureau (SB). Today, BBP and its subsidiaries directly serve more than 200 financial institutions, making it the largest SWIFT SB in the world. With more than 100 active installations at approximately 50 banks and data centers, BBP serves more than 400 banks throughout Switzerland, as well as in Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, France, Singapore, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Product reliability, security, and control are top priorities for BBP. These priorities – combined with a company-wide commitment to long-term, successful collaboration with clients and partners – have earned BBP an excellent reputation in the banking industry. Committed to serving smaller financial institutions as well, BBP promises extremely cost-effective access to interbank services plus quick, easy installation without any significant investment in hardware or software. To uphold its rock-solid reputation, this ISV must be able to guarantee continuous interbank connection availability and 24×7 access to their business-critical application, along with unshakable security and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

SOLUTION

BBP’s IGTplus middleware is a custom Java EE application developed in-house using the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and the Ingres Database. The integrated application development stack from Red Hat and Ingres enabled BBP to develop its application in an environment preferred by their developers, and then to deploy in production within the same environment. Developing and deploying in a common environment enabled BBP to further reduce cost and risk. “By using this stack, we were able to reduce overall project costs by approximately 30% without increasing risk or sacrificing quality,” reports BBP Chief Technical Officer Amir Housseini.

Our customers come to us because they want to reduce the risk and complexity of supporting multiple platforms, procedures, and standards required in a multi-bank environment – while lowering TCO, increasing security controls, and strengthening compliance reporting capabilities. Basically, they place their trust and the success of their day-to-day business processes directly in our hands.”

That is why BBP’s entire business relies exclusively on an integrated commercial open source stack comprised of Ingres Database, a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. “Ingres and Red Hat have proven, long-term track records of successful enterprise deployments,” says Housseini, “as well as world-class global support which is crucial in helping BBP meet its goals.” Additionally, BBP prefers this solution because the license-free economics of commercial open source provide the company with all the functionality of a proprietary solution at a fraction of the cost.

“With the Open Source development stack offered by Red Hat and Ingres, we can develop and deploy custom applications within the same environment. This helps us manage costs, and more confidently ensure performance, reliability, and security, because we no longer have to develop in a production environment, then deploy in another.” – Amir Housseini, Chief Technical Officer, BBP

Yet, the primary reason BBP prefers this integrated stack above all others is the fact that Ingres and JBoss are commercially proven, pre-integrated technologies that work together seamlessly. “Because JBoss is certified to work with Ingres,” says Housseini, “we know the technologies have been tested repeatedly and are guaranteed to work together. Without that certified level of assurance, we could not confidently guarantee continuous interbank connections to our customers.” Further, Housseini and his staff find Ingres to be a highend, robust database that features “solid” tools and “perfect” installation and documentation.

RESULTS

The first version of the middleware known as “IGTplus” has been in use since 2003, with a third-generation product due out in 2010. Available as an in-house solution as well as through an outsourced BBP Service Bureau solution, the mission critical application is used by leading financial institutions throughout Europe and other locations, including the United States, to:

-Access all interbank applications
-Simplify and streamline corporate payments
-Reduce TCO
-Increase security and control

Rivet Logic Helps New Gravity Venture Deploy the Application on Alfresco, JBoss, Ingres, and Red Hat

SUCCESS STORY HIGHLIGHTS

As Facebook seeks to expand beyond purely social networking, New Gravity Ventures enters the market with ConnectedWeddings.com, a Facebook application that offers an innovative and easier way to plan weddings. The new application enables couples anywhere to use Facebook, an iPhone or the Web to manage planning tasks and create a customized, professional looking wedding page-all for free.

The two most important criteria for the Facebook application were scalability and the ability to derive optimal value from the content and present it to consumers in unique ways. New Gravity Ventures also required a solution that would empower end-users with the tools they need to fully take advantage of the application’s social networking capability.

Rivet Logic chose Alfresco as the content management platform for ConnectedWeddings.com because of its ability to support content-rich applications. Rivet Logic deployed a solution based on an open source infrastructure stack that included the Alfresco content management platform, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and the Ingres Database on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Download the case study [PDF]

More about Ingres: [Ingres and Red Hat]

CHALLENGE
In May 2007, Facebook, the popular social utility tool for connecting people with friends and others around them, embarked on a strategy to make it easier for outside companies to provide their services on pages within the Facebook online community and enable them to interact with Facebook’s users and their personal networks. For Facebook, the strategy marked a significant step toward taking the business beyond pure social utility and into broader commercial territory.

To grow the application ecosystem, Facebook established the fbFund in September 2007 and began accepting grant applications to support innovative development ideas. By helping remove the development barrier, Facebook sought to build compelling businesses on the platform and broaden the scope and utility of the tool.

ConnectedWeddings.com – Developing a next-generation consumer application based on open source.

Enter New Gravity Ventures. During a 2005 trip to India, Dan and Stacy Kerzner, co-founders of consumer application developer New Gravity Ventures, were struck by the rapid pace of change in India’s retail and consumer markets. Inspired by that trip, Dan and Stacy launched Trendy.in, a free daily lifestyle newsletter designed to offer smart, fashion-conscious women-from the college-age teen to women in their 40s-the best of what’s happening around India from a woman’s point of view. The site is currently up and running with in three cities-Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore. As a result of the attention New Gravity Ventures garnered from Trendy.in, the company received a commission to write Wedding Belles: How to Make Your Dream Wedding Come True, a book about wedding planning scheduled to be published in the fall of 2008 by Random House.

“Rivet Logic’s deep Alfresco expertise was a great fit for us; we now have an end-toend open source platform that will enable us to scale quickly and cost effectively” – Dan Kerzner, CEO of New Gravity Ventures

Having retained the Web publishing rights to the book, New Gravity Ventures began thinking about ways in which it might best leverage the book’s content. It was at this time that the company turned to Facebook and applied for the company’s fbFund grant in an effort to “make a wedding application that leverages social networking functionality in order to help couples organize their lives and gain productivity through use of the social networking tool,” said Kerzner. Shortly thereafter, New Gravity Ventures became one of the first recipients of an fbFund grant and began architecting the application. To launch a successful commercial social application for Facebook, Kerzner knew that he needed a development partner who could help address several key challenges, including: the ability to fully leverage the value of the existing content; the need to develop an easily scalable solution that would provide a foundation for additional Web 2.0 functionality, such as user-generated content capability; and the ability to integrate the Facebook platform’s unique features. “With Web-based businesses, good monetization and the ability to make the most of the content assets require agility,” said Kerzner. “We’ve seen that some of the existing players in the space are spending a lot of money on their CMS systems to make them as flexible as possible in order to respond to sales needs and not just view content in a static way.”

Developing a scalable and agile Alfresco content management solution to power ConnectedWeddings.com

Perhaps the two most important criteria for the Facebook application were scalability and the ability to derive optimal value from the book’s content and present it to consumers in unique ways. New Gravity Ventures also required a solution that would empower end-users with the tools they need to fully take advantage of the application’s social networking capability. Understanding that he would need a development partner with deep open source expertise, Kerzner selected Rivet Logic, an Alfresco Certified Gold “Partner of the Year” and JBoss Certified Partner, to create a scalable and agile content delivery system based on an open source platform that would be flexible enough to address continued growth and additional features moving forward. “Rivet Logic’s ability to optimize the value of the content and build applications that scale easily made working with them a great fit,” said Kerzner.

Rivet Logic chose Alfresco as the content management platform for ConnectedWeddings.com because of its ability to support content-rich applications. Rivet Logic deployed a solution based on an open source infrastructure stack that included the Alfresco content management platform, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and the Ingres Database. The Alfresco-based Web application also supports collaboration and community functionality, such as forums, discussion threads, photo galleries, polls, and other ways for brides and grooms to contact others and facilitate communication. In this way, ConnectedWeddings.com serves as a model of the increasing significance of content services in the Web 2.0 environment and how content is connected to people in the context of social networking.

Rivet Logic led the overall architectural design of the platform. The solution design enables the Alfresco platform to publish content to an Alfresco and JBoss production Web site that integrates not only with Facebook for social network interaction, but also with an array of applications such as Web site analytics and based on an open source infrastructure stack that included the Alfresco content management platform, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and the Ingres Database. The Alfresco-based Web application also supports collaboration and community functionality, such as forums, discussion threads, photo galleries, polls, and other ways for brides and grooms to contact others and facilitate communication. In this way, ConnectedWeddings. com serves as a model of the increasing significance of content services in the Web 2.0 environment and how content is connected to people in the context of social networking.

Alfresco also provided the flexibility and agility necessary to accommodate multiple end-users and templates. With the Alfresco solution, the ConnectedWeddings.com editorial team can generate content and upload it to the site quickly and easily. Further, with single sign-on support across the application, Web-based administration, and the ability to easily integrate dynamic Web pages and portlets, JBoss Enterprise Application Platofrom offered the scalable enterprise-grade solution that New Gravity Ventures needed moving forward. Alfresco provided a robust back-end solution that features sophisticated workflows, rich metadata modeling, full-text and metadata search capability, and support for rich content, including audio and video.

The Ingres Database was selected because of its track record of high performance and scalability in mission-critical environments, and because of the advantageous economics that open source software offers over proprietary alternatives. Ingres is also a certified Alfresco database partner which helped to shorten development timelines and simplify deployment.

A cost-effective, zero-license-fee approach based on open source and open standards will enable New Gravity Ventures to scale the platform to meet user demand, without incurring prohibitive costs. As a result, the open source approach will also allow New Gravity Ventures to minimize upfront investment and focus efforts on customization and innovation. The open source model will establish a foundation from which to reduce operating costs and accommodate future extensions.

Rivet Logic-Developing open source solutions for the next generation of social networking applications

For New Gravity Ventures, Rivet Logic’s combination of deep technical knowledge, and experience designing and implementing innovative open source applications proved to be a winning combination.

“We were building a unique, socially aware application so we needed a trusted development partner who had a proven track record of building rock-solid solutions,” said Kerzner. The launch of ConnectedWeddings.com makes Alfresco the first platform of its kind to form the backbone of a content-intensive Facebook application.

Critical to the success of ConnectedWeddings.com is the ability to scale and integrate Web 2.0 functionality, such as discussion threads, photo galleries, polls and other forms of user-generated content. Alfresco enables site editors to create and upload content quickly and easily, while allowing end-users to participate in community activities, reference site features easily, and communicate with other users through the power of social networking. Ultimately, Rivet Logic provided an objective view of the unique challenges faced by New Gravity Ventures and delivered a solution based on a set of proven best practices and an understanding of the unique needs of the ConnectedWeddings.com site.

ABOUT RIVET LOGIC
Rivet Logic is an award-winning consulting and systems integration firm that helps organizations better engage with customers, improve collaboration and streamline business operations. Through a full suite of open source content management services, Rivet Logic enables organizations to fully leverage the power of industry-leading open source solutions. With deep expertise in the Alfresco Enterprise Content Management platform, Liferay Portal, Ingres Database and JBoss Enterprise Middleware, Rivet Logic crafts content-rich solutions that power the new generation of Web properties, Enterprise 2.0 applications and collaborative communities. With offices in Reston, Virginia and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rivet Logic serves clients across a wide range of industries. Rivet Logic-Artisans of Open Source.

FAST FACTS

Company: North American Non-profit Medical Research Organization; Vizuri, a Red Hat Advanced Business Partner

Industry: Healthcare: Biomedical Research and science education

Geography: US

Business Challenge: Aggregate critical information, reduce operational costs, and increase performance to internal and external users, and increase availability of research to a wider audience, through the use of a foundational portal platform.

Software: JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform (32-cpu), JBoss Rules (32-cpu), JBoss jBPM (32-cpu), Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, JBoss Developer Studio, Alfresco ECM, Alfresco WCM

Benefits: The Red Hat and Vizuri partnership helped a non-profit medical research organization complete a side-by-side evaluation and selection process that compared the solution benefits of open source software to proprietary software. Through customer experiences, JBoss and Vizuri were able to outline to the customer that the cost savings provided by the selecting an open source solution would allow the customer to leverage Alfresco Enterprise Content Management.

Download the case study [PDF]

BACKGROUND:
Vizuri is a Red Hat Advanced Business Partner and Preferred JBoss Certified Systems Integrator that specializes in advanced technology and business solutions. The consulting firm has experience with implementation spanning Identity Management (IdM), Business Process Management (BPM) , Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Enterprise Messaging, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Portal, Web 2.0, Seam, and RichFaces. Vizuri is a consulting firm committed to delivering innovation by utilizing open source solutions to provide cost-effective, enterprise solutions for strategic client initiatives.

OPPORTUNITY
The Red Hat and Vizuri partnership helped a non-profit medical research organization complete a side-by-side evaluation and selection process that compared the benefits of open source software to proprietary software. Together, JBoss and Vizuri were able to deliver substantial cost savings to the customer which allowed them to leverage Alfresco Enterprise Content Management.

The Red Hat and Vizuri solution was selected as a finalist against IBM Websphere and BEA Weblogic. Vizuri hosted a proof-of-concepof the JBoss Portal Platform, to showcase real world business situations that included many third-party applications to be integrated into the customer’s unique environment.

During the proof-of-concept , Red Hat and Vizuri simulated Integrated Single-Sign-On (SSO) leveraging Oracle Identity Management (IdM) with PKI, and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) from Alfresco that met the customer’s requirements.

By presenting related customer experiences, Vizuri was able to show how the JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform with Single Sign-On integrated with Oracle and Alfresco ECM.

SOLUTION
Ultimately the non-profit medical research organization selected the JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform, JBoss Rules, and JBoss jBPM, to deliver an integrated technology platform that will increase the customers ability to aggregate information, increase performance and meet the needs of its internal and external customers and also bring significant cost savings to the company.

Moving to the JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform was an essential first step in implementing the non-profit medical research organization’s initiative, as multiple diverse systems and data sets needed to be integrated to collect, process, and disseminate all the relevant customer and operational information.

Because the integrated solution is based on open source industry standards, the customer was able to leverage legacy and custom developed applications that were integrated seamlessly as part of the overall solution.

The Red Hat and Vizuri team identified work flow and rules management gaps due to the different types of research grant application processes and the complex rules for awards. JBoss Rules, JBoss jBPM, and Alfresco Enterprise Content Management (WCM) capabilities were presented in a similar business case scenario that met the stringent requirements and customer needs.

Displaying the impact and value of open source relationships, Red Hat and Vizuri worked with Alfresco, to provide Alfresco Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Web Content Management (WCM). Two solutions that positioned the customer for growth that would not have been able to be considered due to limited financial resources, if the customer selected proprietary solutions.

“Our ability to provide a robust Portal Platform capable of complex technology integrations coupled with proven client solutions, enabled the non-profit medical research organization to trust that professional open source was strategic to their organization,” said Joe Dickman, Managing Director, Vizuri.

BENEFITS
The non-profit medical research organization needed to modernize its infrastructure, and put a plan in place to build next-generation systems that would allow for agility, growth, and efficient daily operations.

From the very beginning of the project, the partnerships between Vizuri, Red Hat and Alfresco were vital to the success of the deployment. “Through the value of open source, we were able to work effectively and with a strategic mission to standardize and enable next-generation systems, that were positioned for growth,” said Dickman.

“With the costs saved from selecting the open source solution JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform, the customer had the ability to purchase the Alfresco solutions,” said Dickman, “The functional advantages and the value of open source software, gave the customer more options than the customer would have had available with a proprietary solution.”

The company did not want to implement legacy and complex custom development projects in a non-standard environment. Te JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform delivered the tools to develop and establish a solid portal reference architecture that simplifies the integration of disparate systems and data.

“The JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform comes with everything we need to enable simplified integration of disparate systems and data. This platform serves as the foundation for many of our client solutions and we trust Red Hat to align with our future objectives and customer needs, and to deliver solutions for innovation,” said Dickman.

The company is also very pleased with the partnership it has forged with Red Hat. Other Red Hat clients can now leverage the experience Vizuri gained during its work with the company, “It’s a win-win situation for both of us,” said Dickman.

FAST FACTS

Partner: Tapasol Solutions

Customer: ServusNet Informatics

Industry: Technology

Geography: Cork, Ireland

Business Challenge: Simplify the deployment of ServusNet Informatics’ Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based Process Driven Operations & Maintenance solution at remote customer sites using Tapasol’s provisioning engine based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Migration Path: Solaris to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization on Dell x86 servers

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with built-in virtualization, JBoss Application Server, Liferay Portal, Oracle DB

Hardware: Dell x86 servers

Benefits: Increased deployment speed of ServusNet Informatics’ Process Driven Operations & Maintenance solution; reduced costs of implementing virtualization technology; continuing enhancement to the productivity of developers working on leading-edge Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based software products

“Red Hat Enterprise Linux with integrated virtualization capabilities was easy and more cost-effective to implement than other solutions on the market. We reduced the effort it took to provision a server by 92 percent. As the engine underlying both our and Tapasol’s solutions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is making a significant contribution to our ability to offer a competitive product.””
-Sean Condon, Director of Product Development, ServusNet Informatics

Download the case study [PDF]

BACKGROUND
ServusNet Informatics is an innovative Irish company delivering a Process Driven Operations & Maintenance solutions for the Distributed Generation industry. ServusNet believes that a tipping point has been reached for a broad range of enabling technologies for management solutions. This will allow more sophisticated, targeted, and cost-effective solutions to be delivered to a wide range of customers. ServusNet’s flagship product applies a process-driven approach to operations and maintenance, giving companies a way to improve operational efficiency of Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation assets as well as diagnose and identify bottlenecks and inconsistencies in their existing processes.

Tapasol is a Red Hat ISV partner and leading provider of automated software provisioning solutions, for both the Solaris and Linux server markets. Created in 2007, specifically with the goal of helping customers reduce their costs when deploying software solutions on Solaris and Linux servers, Tapasol’s innovative provisioning framework enables customers to build and provision servers with software – including operating systems, databases, and other third-party products – from a single media source, with minimal operator interaction.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE
ServusNet Informatics was founded with the belief that huge productivity gains are possible by guiding Operations & Maintenance tasks with well-defined processes, and ensuring that those processes are consistently followed by all stakeholders. In late 2008, the company planned to release its first product – a Linux- and J2EE-based process management system – but senior managers became concerned about the complexity of installing the application at remote customer sites.

“We have to balance the technical support team between building servers out and further development of the support services,” said Sean Condon, director of product development for ServusNet Informatics. The company had two basic choices: either send highly technical personnel out to client sites to install the software – a costly proposition – or hope that customers could do it themselves if guided by comprehensive documentation. “Neither solution was optimal,” said Condon.

SOLUTION
Hoping to automate the deployment process, ServusNet Informatics examined the market for available third-party provisioning solutions. “We’re a software development house, and we did not want to invest resources in configuring boxes,” said Condon. “Our talent and skills are best served concentrating on our core business.”

Given that ServusNet Informatics had built its software using JBoss Application Server, Liferay Portal and Oracle DB running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, the Tapasol solution was the perfect match.

Tapasol soon discovered that demand for its Linux-based product was much stronger than for its Solaris one, and “of all the Linux distributions out there, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is by far the most popular,” said Brendan Fidgeon, chief technology officer at Tapasol. “At least 70 percent of our Linux customers use Red Hat Enterprise Linux,” he said.

For ServusNet Informatics, using Red Hat Enterprise Linux was not a choice, but an imperative given technological as well as market conditions. “Coming from the telecom world, most of our experience and previous work had been on Solaris,” said Condon. “But after thinking about it long and hard, we realized that in our market there was greater recognition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux than other UNIX systems, like Solaris.”

What clinched the Red Hat decision: the fact that it supported so many third-party products. “When we started building our software, we knew we would use three major components: the Liferay Web-based portal; JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, and a mediation framework that we’d brought over from the telecom world,” said Condon.

“Liferay supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux; all the scripts in the mediation framework ran on Red Hat Enterprise Linux; and of course JBoss is a division of Red Hat, and so there was a synergy there, that we hope to capitalize on too,” said Condon, “A nice side effect is that Dell Open Manage application which we use for monitoring the Dell servers we recommend is fully supported on Red Hat. We just put everything on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and the decision, in retrospect, has worked out well.”

Another of ServusNet Informatics’ requirements was support for virtualized hosting of their product – and Tapasol was able to support this need. “Since so many of our customers possess virtualized servers, we needed to be able to set up our product on both bare metal and on virtualized systems,” said Fidgeon. Because the Tapasol solution leverages the para-virtualization capabilities available with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, this was a major selling point for that product from ServusNet Informatics’ perspective.

BENEFITS
Both ServusNet Informatics and Tapasol reaped significant benefits from building their products using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For ServusNet, the benefits came down to ease of use and cost. “Running our Solaris solution on the SPARC architecture is complex, and support of Solaris on the Dell x86 systems we use is sometimes less than 100 percent,” said Condon. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux runs flawlessly on these Dell x86 servers, and the support is excellent.” One of the reasons most of its customers had standardized on Red Hat Enterprise Linux was that more hardware and software vendors supported it, and the development environment itself was so rich that they didn’t have buy supplemental compilers and other tools to make it work. Plus, “our people found the Red Hat professionals very easy to get along with – it is a very compatible culture to ours,” he said.

According to Tapasol, one of the key benefits of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that it delivers a completely integrated virtualized environment, including features like Live Migration and Resource Management, at no added cost. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization capabilities was much easier and more cost-effective to implement than the other virtualization solutions on the market,” said Fidgeon.

ServusNet Informatics, which had itself considered using VMware to host its virtualized solution in its own labs, estimated that it reduced virtualization costs by 75 percent by selecting with Red Hat’s leading open virtualization solution. “We’re talking significant savings for the same or even better functionality and performance,” said Condon.

By utilizing the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based Tapasol provisioning engine, ServusNet Informatics no longer needs to worry about sending engineers onsite, or about customers’ technical capabilities.

“We reduced the effort it took to provision a server by 92 percent,” said Condon. “This is a real advantage, because we need to get machines up and running very quickly when we sign on a new customer. As the engine underlying both our and Tapasol’s solutions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is making a significant contribution to our ability to offer a competitive product.”

FAST FACTS

Company: DICE Corporation

Industry: Security monitoring technology

Geography: Bay City, Michigan

Opportunity: Create a more stable and cost-effective portfolio of software products for security firms and expand its client base by migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SteelEye high-availability solutions.

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SteelEye LifeKeeper for Linux.

Benefits: Reduced costs and shorter IT support time to keep servers patched and available. Higher revenues due to client demand for a higher performing and more stable portfolio of applications.

“Not only is Red Hat Enterprise Linux affordable, but it is utterly reliable and stable compared to other versions of Linux.”
– Steve Senk, hardware support manager, DICE Corporation.”

Download the case study [PDF]

BACKGROUND
DICE Corporation specializes in creating integrated central station monitoring software for the security industry. DICE’s clients protect residences and businesses against intrusion, fire, flooding, and other manmade and natural disasters, and DICE’s fully integrated software allows them to facilitate communications between their central station operators, billing personnel, service technicians, and salespeople. By leveraging the very latest technologies to build its products and services, DICE helps its clients generate new sources of recurring monthly revenue and optimize their businesses to run more efficiently and cost effectively. Founded in 1983, and based in Bay City, Michigan, DICE Corporation is privately held and global in scale, with clients on six continents.

OPPORTUNITY
Security companies typically monitor their clients’ homes and businesses electronically by wiring the premises for intruders, fire, or other problems that could impact the safety of the inhabitants or property. When an alarm is triggered, the signal is relayed to the security company’s central station operator, which immediately communicates the problem to local police, fire department, or other authorities. DICE Corp.’s on-premise software products – including its Central Station Automation, Backoffice Utilities, and Service Management applications – enable security companies’ call centers and monitoring facilities to run smoothly and efficiently, and ensure that when a security problem is detected, that the correct action can be taken swiftly and effectively. DICE also provides full-time hosting of its applications for security firms that don’t want to invest in or maintain their own IT infrastructure.

No matter whether a security firm owns its own DICE software, or has chosen to host its applications with DICE, the reliability of the applications is of utmost importance. “Uptime is key to our clients. They need to be up 24/7,” said Steve Senk, hardware support manager for DICE Corporation. “If someone’s house or business is on fire, our clients need to know about it and respond to it right away.” DICE’s ability to ensure that its software – both on-premise and Web-based – runs reliably is thus critical to both its clients’ businesses as well as its own ability to be competitive in a tough market.

Prior to 2006, DICE’s core software product ran on SCO Unix. But SCO’s legal woes coupled with reliability and performance concerns motivated Senk’s team to explore other options. Specifically, they wanted to move to Linux because of its promise of lower cost and higher stability. DICE began evaluating different versions of Linux to determine the best fit for its applications.

Complicating this process, however, was the fact that the high-availability solution that DICE used was not compatible with Linux. At the same time DICE was searching for a Linux platform, it also needed a high-availability provider that would work with Linux, and which could provide consulting and systems integration services to ensure the implementation was successful.

SOLUTION
After an exhaustive evaluation process, DICE decided to migrate its core applications to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The primary reasons to choose Red Hat: cost and reliability.
“SCO Unix required a five-user license. If we had more users to add, the cost really escalated,” said Senk. Also, because of redundancy issues, this would have meant buying licenses for two systems “which was quite expensive,” he said. The legendary reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux was another reason to go that route, he said. “The stability of the Red Hat platform made it the obvious choice,” he said.

To solve its high-availability challenge and help with the migration from SCO Unix to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, DICE turned to SteelEye Technology Inc., a Menlo Park, California-based provider of business continuity solutions that focus on data protection, data replication, and disaster recovery. SteelEye’s products and professional services are designed to easily integrate into the most complex IT infrastructures on both a local and global scale. In particular, SteelEye’s LifeKeeper for Linux is a software application that provides high-availability of clustered Linux systems by monitoring system and application health, client connectivity and delivering uninterrupted data access regardless of where clients reside – on the Internet, or a company’s own intranet, or extranet.

BENEFITS
Since switching to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and adding LifeKeeper support, hundreds of clients have signed on for DICE’s failover service, with more than 50 installations in place within DICE’s facilities. “A really critical part of the success of the implementation came from being able to offer 24/7 uptime, 365 days a year,” said Senk. Moreover, he said, the performance of the system has “accelerated significantly” since moving to Red Hat Enterprise Linux from SCO Unix.

On the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Platform, DICE’s internal IT support team is also able to be much more efficient at patching. “With SCO Unix, we had to go out and download all the patches, upload them to our systems, re-link the kernel and reboot,” said Senk. “And due to system redundancy, we had to multiply this by two for every server.” With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, all this is eliminated. DICE estimates that DICE saves four man hours per server pair – and his team supports in the neighborhood of 300 servers. “This obviously saves us a great deal of time and money on support,” said Senk.

Red Hat support has been exemplary. “We’ve called at odd hours, and still gotten excellent help with any issues,” said Senk. Additionally, DICE runs a help desk for its clients. Not only have the support calls from clients has gone down, but fixing any issues that do arise is “much easier,” said Senk.

Best of all, DICE’s client base didn’t experience any disruption. “For our clients, the transition to SteelEye was completely transparent,” said Senk. “Performance improved, they appreciated that, and it was business as usual for them.”

Still, the biggest benefit by far has been the stability of the platform. “We had problems in the past with the SCO kernel locking up,” he said. “The fact that I can completely depend on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is huge. And since we’re the ones who get the phone calls when things go wrong, that means we sleep better at night.”

Industry: Hosting services

Geography: St. Louis, MO

Opportunity: Build a hosting business providing excellent value, support, and low prices; implement scalable backup and restoration solution that could support phenomenal growth rates

Migration Path: Novell Linux Enterprise SUSE to Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux; Red Hat Global File System and Cluster Suite; Red Hat Network; JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and Hibernate; MySQL, Oracle, and Postgres databases; BakBone NetVault: Backup

Hardware: Dell PowerEdge Series servers

Benefits: Helped achieve phenomenal customer growth rates by facilitating sales and customer support and supporting scalability of new backup and restoration system

Opportunity

When Contegix decided to offer hosting services in 2003, the company required an enterprise-class, affordable Linux solution from the right vendor. “Hosting customers expect the utmost network reliability and protection from their service providers, and we wanted to create a completely worry-free data center experience for them. The operating system we chose would play a key role in that experience,” said Matthew Porter, CEO of Contegix. Within a few years of deploying Red Hat, the company is now growing between 300 and 400% annually. To provide continued reliability and uptime for its quickly expanding customer base, Contegix required a more scalable backup and recovery solution. “Although we were running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on 99% of our servers, our backup solution ran on Novell’s Linux Enterprise SUSE, which was difficult to administer. We knew we needed to find a backup solution that ran on Red Hat,” said Porter.

Solution

To help build its hosting business initially, Contegix chose Red Hat for its expert Linux knowledge and responsiveness to customer needs. “Red Hat really understands the hosting market and meets our customers’ needs for specific services such as indemnification protection. In addition, Red Hat’s subscription model is based on number of servers not license fees, enabling us to offer the best pricing to our customers,” said Porter. When it was time to find a new backup solution earlier this year, Red Hat played a huge role in the decision. “We chose BakBone because it enabled maximum scalability, provided excellent support, and offered Red Hat ready software,” he said.

BakBone worked closely with Contegix to design and implement a backup and restoration solution around its NetVault: Backup software, ensuring the new deployment was up and running within ten days. The choice to use BakBone enabled Contegix to transition its backup servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and improve system administration. “By implementing Red Hat Global File System and Cluster Suite we were able to overcome the clustering and file system issues we experienced with SUSE. Plus, Red Hat supports SAN as well as Fibre Channel SCSI devices, simplifying our backup processes even further,” said Porter.

Contegix operates thousands of Dell PowerEdge Series servers running RHEL 3, 4, and 5 and a variety of MySQL, Oracle, and Postgres databases. Three backup servers run the BakBone NetVault: Backup solution. Many customers also run a range of JBoss solutions including JBoss 3 and up and Hibernate on Contegix managed servers.

In addition, Contegix fully utilizes all Red Hat services including Red Hat Network, Red Hat Exchange, and the Red Hat Hosting Program. Red Hat Network notifies Contegix of new RHEL updates and patches and facilitates managing upgrades and configuration changes to customer servers. “Red Hat Exchange informs us of new applications tested on RHEL and delivers them through Red Hat Network. We then offer those applications to our customers as part of their fixed monthly cost. Thanks to the Red Hat Hosting Program, which specifically designed a subscription model for our needs, our customers pay a low price, yet receive extra value,” said Porter.

Benefits

Red Hat has helped Contegix cultivate its commitment to excellent customer support since the start of the company. “We answer every support ticket in five minutes, so it’s critical that the vendors we choose have the same level of commitment to us. Red Hat has always provided the support we needed when we needed it,” said Porter. With the company’s rapid growth, Red Hat’s understanding of the hosting business has proven even more essential. “Every one of our customers is unique, so the support experience of our vendors has to be very broad. Red Hat and BakBone are not only responsive, but also have a deep understanding of a wide variety of user environments, helping us resolve even the most difficult technical issues,” he said.

Red Hat plays a significant role in expediting the Contegix sales process. Most engineers are familiar with the reliability and support benefits of working with Red Hat, alleviating any concerns they might have regarding the management of their infrastructures. In addition, Red Hat’s wide network of certified vendors reassures customers that their applications will work smoothly with RHEL. Red Hat also provides ready-made FAQs and RFPs, which Contegix uses in its sales process when necessary. “Showing customers we use Red Hat makes for an easy sale. They know Red Hat means lower costs and better solutions for them,” he said.

Over the last four years, Red Hat has helped Contegix grow its customer base at phenomenal rates. “Red Hat enabled us to grow unbelievably fast by providing customers continuously with new solutions at low prices. We couldn’t have achieved our 400% annual growth rate without Red Hat,” said Porter. Today, the new backup system deployment provides Contegix with the scalability it needs to support continued growth. “Before our Red Hat-BakBone implementation, we were spending more than 40 hours per week managing backups and recoveries. The new system speeded restoration time by five times and eliminated the need to hire an additional engineer,” he said. In the future, Contegix plans to open its first data center outside of St. Louis, populating its servers with Red Hat and BakBone solutions. “We love Red Hat and BakBone,” said Porter.

Industry: Digital advertising
Challenge: DoubleClick faced the challenge of developing an infrastructure that is reliable, cost-effective, and most importantly, flexible, in providing choice with hardware vendors in order to avoid vendor lock-in.
Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, Red Hat Network, Acronis True Image Server for Linux, Solaris, Windows, Red Hat Global Learning Services – Red Hat Certified Engineer training
Hardware: AMD, Intel, HP
Benefits:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux provided DoubleClick with flexibility and power of choice in selecting a hardware vendor to avoid lock-in.
• Using Red Hat solutions helped DoubleClick save over $500,000 in hardware costs. DoubleClick now has the ability to handle more work load with fewer CPUs, as it ported 112 CPUs to 64 CPUs.
• With the help of Acronis solutions, DoubleClick enjoyed an easy and quick migration from RHEL 3 to RHEL 4 in one hour.

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Background
DoubleClick is a provider of digital marketing technology and services. Many of the world’s top marketers, publishers and agencies utilize DoubleClick’s expertise in ad serving, rich media, video, search and affiliate marketing to help them make the most of the digital medium. From its position at the nerve center of digital marketing, DoubleClick provides superior insights and insider knowledge to its customers. Headquartered in New York, and with 17 offices and development hubs and 15 data centers worldwide, the company employs more than 1200 people and delivers billions of digital communications every day. Learn more at www.doubleclick.com.Recently, DoubleClick partnered with Acronis, a leading storage management solution provider, to aid in its migration to Red Hat solutions. DoubleClick deployed Acronis’ Linux data migration solution on Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one of the first examples of imaging solutions based on Linux. Together, Red Hat and Acronis made DoubleClick’s migration from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 seamless

Challenge
DoubleClick offers a suite of products to meet customer’s digital marketing needs. Serving customers ranging from agencies, advertisers and marketers to web publishers, networks and media websites, DoubleClick is responsible for delivering advertisements and providing management technology that measures the effectiveness of online campaigns.

With the need to consistently serve ads and provide data access, downtime is not an option for DoubleClick. “Uptime is based on millisecond delay and if a server is lost, it must be replaced within an hour,” said Derrick Colon, director of Assistance Infrastructure at DoubleClick. “If we don’t deliver the reports we promise on time each day, our customers will be rightfully upset. That’s why our solutions must be up and available at all times.”

Solution
In the face of these high client expectations, DoubleClick needed an infrastructure that would be reliable, cost-effective and – most importantly – flexible. The company was interested in high-level support for its solutions and the ability to choose and easily switch hardware vendors in order to avoid lock-in. With Red Hat, DoubleClick found the flexibility it was looking for, and an opportunity for high-quality support.

Until 2004, DoubleClick ran an ETL-based application on a Sun Solaris platform. Realizing that the platform offered limited vendor choices, the company decided to investigate alternative platforms that would offer greater flexibility in vendors. As DoubleClick explored potential operating systems for their infrastructure, support also became a large factor in the selection process. DoubleClick did not want to be forced into large modifications, but wanted a functional system, an easy migration and a comfortable support service in which they could have confidence.

DoubleClick narrowed its options to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise, both open source solutions. Ultimately, DoubleClick chose the industry leader, Red Hat. “We decided Red Hat was the best way to go because of its strong position in the United States and the fact that it is well supported by HP, IBM and other major players,” said Colon. “We were also very impressed by their flexibility and the big company support that came with the Red Hat solution.”

By choosing Red Hat, DoubleClick was able to work with the hardware vendor and support provider of their choice, Hewlett Packard, which offered DoubleClick the opportunity for cost-savings through hardware.

After choosing Red Hat, DoubleClick ported an equivalent of 112 CPUs on Sun servers running Solaris to 64 Intel and AMD CPUs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, cutting the hardware cost more than half. The current environment is a mix of Red Hat, Solaris and Windows, with Red Hat playing a significant role. Originally running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, DoubleClick upgraded to Red Hat Enterprise 3 and most recently Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 with the help of Acronis True Image Server for Linux.

Acronis, the only company with a cloning method certified to work on Linux, uses its solutions to create an exact copy of a company’s hard disk that allows for an instant restoration of the entire machine including operating system, applications and all data in the event of a fatal system crash, virus attack or other problem. DoubleClick chose Acronis for its cloning ability to aid its migration from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 to 4. By cloning the image of one upgrade and using it for other server migrations, the process is considerably expedited. As a result, DoubleClick was able to migrate its servers from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 seamlessly.

While preparing for the upgrade to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, DoubleClick wanted to ensure that should any problems arise, it could revert back to its earlier version of the operating system within two hours. Although the operating system upgrades were executed without a hitch, DoubleClick was protected against unforeseen circumstances. Had there been any unanticipated problems, DoubleClick could have reverted to the old operating system within its required timeframe. This added protection made it easier for the company to decide to upgrade.

Also aiding in the ease of migration were the Red Hat certifications that the DoubleClick team obtained during the original Red Hat implementation. The Red Hat Certified Engineer certification proves an individual’s ability to configure networking services and security on servers running a Red Hat operating system. “When we first migrated to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, we taught ourselves from the ground up,” said Colon. “The existing team went through Red Hat certification training, and today we have about five Red Hat Certified Engineers on our staff who facilitated our migration.”

Benefits

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been an integral part of DoubleClick’s infrastructure for three years. From the start, Red Hat has provided DoubleClick with a reliable and dynamic solution that keeps its technology performing in line with demand. With Red Hat and its partners, the company exercised the power of choice, achieved over half a million dollars worth of cost-savings through commodity hardware, enjoyed reliable support and experienced a scalable solution.

“The flexibility in deciding which hardware vendor I want to work with gives me more choices and more control,” said Colon.

Additionally, DoubleClick has benefited from the scalability that Red Hat Enterprise Linux presents. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has provided DoubleClick with a scalable solution. “Essentially, this solution has enabled me to do more with less,” said Colon. “Thanks to the tools at our disposal, we are more than able to handle the needs of the company, while enhancing efficiency and productivity.”

“The combination of Red Hat, HP and Acronis is a strong one,” said Colon. “All three organizations bring valuable expertise and resources to the table – HP from a hardware perspective, Acronis in terms of the ease of getting systems up quickly with the option to roll out or back, and Red Hat for maintaining an environment without having to buy thousands of servers with reporting structure.”

Looking forward, DoubleClick plans to upgrade to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and is anticipating working with the virtualization features that were incorporated in the latest release. Virtualization, via Xen, enables customers using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 to run multiple operating system instances on a single physical system and isolate the application stack from the hardware.

Web hosting company improves quality of service

Industry: Website hosting

Geography: Austin, Texas

Opportunity: To gain better control over system availability and provide consistently high quality of service to a growing customer base.

Solution: 150 Dell servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Software: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Applications: Roaring Penguin CanIt-PRO
Hardware: Dell 860s to Dell 2950s

Download the pdf

“We’ve been up and running with Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2004, and we’ve received absolutely no complaints. Thanks to Red Hat, uptime is 99.999%.” – Don Mcleman, Vice President of Operations, Apollo Hosting

Background

Founded in 1999 by Tamara and Martin Field, Apollo Hosting is an award winning web hosting company whose services and packages consistently receive the highest rankings in the industry. The company uniquely offers total hosting solutions that enable customers to build, market, and maintain their websites, whether they contain a few simple informational pages or require the most complex e-commerce capabilities. Dedicated to providing the best levels of support to its customers, Apollo was one of the first hosting companies to offer 24/7/365 Live Technical Support Chat and toll-free phone support. With so much to offer, it’s no surprise that this privately-owned, Austin-based company began turning a profit since its inception. Today, Apollo Hosting services 30,000 customers worldwide.

Opportunity

For a growing web hosting company like Apollo Hosting, providing stable servers is critical to business success. As a young enterprise, Apollo first relied on other companies’ datacenters for its servers. We worked with Alabanza in Baltimore and then with another company in Canada, said Don McLeman, Vice President of Operations for Apollo Hosting. To better control the quality of service it could provide to its rapidly growing customer base, Apollo decided it needed to host its own servers. “Downtime is a web host’s worst enemy. When a server experiences downtime in a shared environment, several hundred users can be affected instantly. We wanted more control over server reliability, so we began to look for our own solution,” said McLeman. Apollo required a highly stable platform that could support a datacenter running a large number of websites.

Solution

To find the right server solution, Apollo evaluated several Linux platforms. According to McLeman, “We tried Slackware, Debian, and Fedora, and also looked at running Windows 2003 with Apache. But driver support was lacking, and Apollo realized that none of the solutions offered the type of support Red Hat could provide. We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the simple fact that it is the most thoroughly developed and widely supported Linux brand available.” In addition to Red Hat’s unmatched support, Apollo chose the solution for its stability and ease of implementation.

With little training, Apollo was able get its new Red Hat system up and running within a month. “Red Hat was really easy to implement and most of our engineers are self-taught on the system. Red Hat support responds to our questions quickly, offering us several variations to look for when problems occur. Plus, there is such a large online knowledge base for Red Hat that we can always find the solutions ourselves,” McLeman said. Today, 150 Dell servers run Red Hat Enterprise Linux to service 9,000 customers and 25,000 accounts. “We’ve been up and running with Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2004, and we’ve received absolutely no complaints. Thanks to Red Hat, uptime is 99.999%,” said McLeman.

To provide spam and virus protection to its customers, Apollo chose to work with Red Hat Ready ISV partner, Roaring Penguin. “After trying other vendors, who had trouble understanding the security and load requirements of a web hosting company, we stumbled across Roaring Penguin in an email message we’d received,” said McLeman. Roaring Penguin’s antispam software is fully customizable and runs seamlessly on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.

Benefits

Red Hat provided Apollo Hosting with the availability it requires to provide consistently high quality of service to its growing customer base. “Our customers range from ‘mom and pop’ businesses to large companies, and they all need high availability. No one can afford downtime,” said McLeman. Using Red Hat has also given the company a competitive edge in the market. “With Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, there are significantly less operating system issues. Nine times out of ten, the problems we encounter are at the hardware level, such as a memory issue we can easily resolve. Greater uptime puts us ahead of our competitors,” he said.

Apollo can best measure its system performance, sales, and resource savings when comparing Red Hat to Microsoft. The company recently added a Windows platform to expand its offerings and accommodate those customers specifically requesting the system. Within five months of offering the platform, however, Apollo has only opened 150 accounts on the Windows server. “Red Hat outperforms Windows hands down. When we tested the load capabilities of Windows against Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we found that the Red Hat server could handle 1,000 clients easily and with 99.999% uptime. The Windows server, on the other hand, performed significantly worse, supporting half the number of clients. And it was nowhere near as stable as Red Hat,” said McLeman.

“As a result of implementing Red Hat, Apollo optimized its resources significantly, streamlining system administration and programming time. Now we install Red Hat from a Flash USB drive and have it up and running within 30 minutes. We no longer need to have system engineers working 24/7. Red Hat has made maintenance really easy, decreasing the need to interface with customers on technical issues,” said McLeman. The company is also in the process of developing a centralized id system that automatically serves customers the right level of support according to their account types.

“It’s taken us less than a month to program this database on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform. It would take six months to a year to program the same system on a Windows platform. Plus we’d need to find one or several people who have specialized Windows knowledge, costing between $150,000 and $300,000,” said McLeman. Apollo plans to continue using Red Hat applications and support to continue improving its systems and service offerings in the future. As a result of the platform’s excellent performance, the company intends to add 30 more Red Hat servers by the end of Q2 2007.

“These days, hosting companies are a dime-a-dozen. We’ve been in this business eight years, and it’s nice to work with a company like Red Hat that enables us to provide outstanding service to all of our customers,” McLeman said.