A revolution of choice

Geert Jansen on the factors that have prompted companies to migrate their mission-critical applications to open source software platforms.

In today's tough economic climate IT departments are being tasked with finding ways to squeeze more value out of already stretched budgets. The prospect of lower software acquisition and operational costs means companies are turning to open source software as the alternative to proprietary products, such as Microsoft Windows. As IDC has noted, "Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost-competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends".

Open source offers significant savings at the point of purchase and over the lifetime of the software. Technology-neutral, it gives users the freedom to run their software on low-cost hardware platforms and to switch provider at any time. It's also licence-free, with a pay-as-you-go subscription model replacing traditional upfront licensing costs. No wonder the migration to open source has been one of the last decade's unstoppable technology trends.

Support and stability

In taking the strategic decision to adopt open source, companies naturally put a high value on support and stability, both of the underlying technology and the provider behind it. Red Hat, which has a strong 15-year track record in the industry, has emerged with a winning formula of outstanding technology back by professional, real-time operational support. While cost-cutting is undoubted a key motivator, moving to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the world's leading platform for open source computing, brings other advantages:

It is easy purchase, deploy and manage. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a robust, commercially viable solution that comes with lower acquisition and on-going costs. World-class training and support ensure fast ROI, while Red Hat Network, an easy-to-use, web-based systems management platform, provides effective infrastructure management.

It delivers record-breaking performance. Day-to-day data centre operation and industry-standard benchmarks prove that the most demanding, mission-critical applications run better on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Security is improved. Red Hat solutions operate in some of the world's most exacting, security-driven environments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has also been rigorously tested and certified by the US government's National Security Agency. The Red Hat partner ecosystem offers a huge range of choice. Companies seeking to maximise hard-pressed budgets can choose from well over 1000 hardware platforms, while over 3500 software products are certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Some of the most successful and most ambitious companies in Europe are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. NYSE Euronext, operator of the world's leading and most liquid exchange group, safeguards the reliability, performance and security of its mission-critical financial trading platform, having migrated 830 of its European stores from Microsoft Windows, Specsavers, the UK's most trusted optician, enjoys freedom from vendor lock-in and simpler application maintenance. SNCF, the national railway of France, benefits from a secure standards-based platform, capable of adapting with great flexibility to regional requirements. ImmobilienScout24, one of Europe's most successful real estate listing companies, with over three million visitors a month, dramatically reduced energy consumption and operating costs.

Statoil, one of the world's largest operators of offshore oil and gas activities, has achieved more efficient management of IT operations and strengthened its bottom line.

 

Find out more, please contact 00800 7334 2835 or visit www.europe.redhat.com. 

Geert Jansen, Product Marketing Manager EMEA at Red Hat, is responsible for product marketing of Red Hat's infrastructure products in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Before joining Red Hat, he spent five years at Royal Dutch Shell and prior to this he was software engineer at an internet search engine company.