Overview
The Challenge
With business-support systems running on a mixture of Microsoft Windows and various Linux distributions, the lack of standardization and common management tools made it difficult for the IT department to ensure high levels of availability and performance. As data volumes grew, the IT department had deployed a number of new middleware products and databases, putting additional strain on servers and network resources.
Equally, management costs were high, with four or five full-time employees typically committed to server management tasks. Maintaining software and applying frequent security patches was a particular challenge.
SUSE Solution
“Linux draws on the heritage of UNIX, so it’s more stable and scalable by design—and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is backed by excellent support in China.”
CNCA IT Centre has implemented SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on a number of different servers in its headquarters and regional offices to support a variety of in-house applications based on IBM DB2 and Oracle databases. The resilience, security and high availability of the operating system have reduced the server management workload at CNCA IT Centre, freeing up skilled staff to focus on new software development and direct support for the business applications and users.
“We provide a comprehensive range of services to business users around the country; SUSE Linux Enterprise Server gives us a platform that is both stable enough to support the business and flexible enough to permit the rapid development and deployment of new services,” said Liu. “In the past, our staff would spend a lot of time fixing unexpected problems with servers or installing software patches. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, we have a single set of efficient server management tools, so we can focus instead on business software development.”
CNCA IT Centre was formerly compelled to work in a reactive manner, responding to security and performance problems on servers as and when they became apparent. With the autonomic optimization features of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and easy access to the SUSE knowledge base, the organization can now solve issues before they have any detrimental effect on live systems.
The Results
The SUSE solution offers better availability and security than the previous mixed infrastructure, helping CNCA IT Centre to support growing demand from Chinese businesses for certification and accreditation services. Using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has also reduced the total cost of ownership by an estimated 15 percent for CNCA IT Centre, both by freeing up skilled employees from routine server administration and by cutting software licensing costs.
“SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has given us a stable, secure and highly reliable platform that will support us as we provide more services to a larger number of businesses,” said Liu. “With strong support from SUSE technicians, we are able to achieve high service levels with much less effort than before.”