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Linux.com : Case Study
Bank group takes Linux migration a step at a time
Metropolitan Bank Group is a large conglomerate in Illinois, comprising 10 banks and $3 billion in assets. As Metropolitan acquired more banking interests, IT Director Tom Johnson needed to find a way to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the face of the company's rapid growth. The solution was a migration from Windows to Linux.
US Navy acquisitions site uses open source CMS
The US Navy's research and development and acquisition policy site at acquisition.navy.mil uses eZ Systems' open source content management system to help civilian and military users access the Navy's myriad policy documents. Before the switch to eZ Publish in November 2003, the site was an unorganized collection of hard-to-navigate static HTML pages. Today, IT project manager Tina Minor, who manages the system for DOD contractor Automation Technologies, says she really likes the customizability and low price of open source software.
LTSP saves old hardware in Brazilian doctor's office
Integrated Neurology Service SINEURO's office, located in São Paulo, Brazil, migrated from various versions of Windows (from 98 to XP) on a network of five computers with eight nonskilled computer users. I was the consultant in charge, and I spent no money on new hardware. Thank to the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), hardware that's too old for new versions of Windows runs Linux applications just fine over a network from a server.
Largo still loves Linux
LARGO, FLA. -- This small city on Florida's Gulf Coast runs one of the most cost-effective municipal IT departments around. I last wrote about Largo's Linux-based client-server network in 2002. A lot has changed for Largo's computer-using city employees since then, and even more changes are in the works.
Internet services entrepreneur uses OSS to "decouple" software and hardware
BinHost, a Web hosting and Internet services company, launched in 2000, "a time when discussion and email lists were not particularly easy to find a home for," says Justin Newman, BinHost's founder. Even back then, Newman built all of his infrastructure and services on open source software. As Newman has expanded his venture into telephony services, he still believes that open source saves business owners time, energy, and money.
An open source "Second Life" for Linden Lab
Linden Lab, the creator of online virtual community Second Life, released its viewer earlier this year with a GPL 2.0 license, adding a clause called the "FLOSS exception," which releases developers using certain open source licenses from the requirement that any derivative works be licensed under the GPL. Linden added the exception to make it possible for many more developers to create new applications from Second Life viewer code. "We had the sense that Second Life has the potential to be much bigger than Linden Lab alone," says Rob Lanphier, Linden's director of open source development. "We needed to figured out a way to let the world build this into a much bigger thing."
Mindbridge switches to Linux, saves "bunches of money"
Mindbridge didn't start out as an open source company -- far from it. "We had a predominantly Microsoft-oriented shop," says David Christian, Mindbridge CTO. But the company, which at the time offered an "intranet in a box" application, began hosting the software for its clients. "That required us to get a good handle on Linux, because Linux was the only inexpensive, cost-efficient way of handling that in a scaled environment," Christian says. "And I didn't want to add Microsoft to our customers' overhead." The more Christian worked with Linux, the more he liked it. And, as they say, the rest is history.
Email marketer harnesses the power of Gentoo
Gold Lasso uses an open source infrastructure to power its email marketing business. Cofounders Elie Ashery and Michael Weisel say open source is the only way to keep prices down and "truly compete in the current marketplace." And, they say, Gentoo Linux is the only way to keep their system truly secure. But finding employees who can manage a system built on Gentoo has been a challenge.
NCSA's CyberCollaboratory community thrives on open source
In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) gave us Mosaic, the first Web browser with a graphical user interface. Today, the NCSA is still innovating, creating a project that monitors how global climate change is affecting plants and wildlife, one that tracks oil spills, and another that predicts the possible effects of seismographic activity on bridges and other structures. To facilitate communication and collaboration between stations, NCSA is making use of the Web infrastructure it helped to launch almost 15 years ago, in a research program called the CyberCollaboratory. Not surprisingly, open source software is an integral part of the Web-based intiative.
Colorado Human Services opens an open source portal
When the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) couldn't depend on a proprietary portal solution to meet its needs any longer, CDHS County Infrastructure Manager Ron Cash turned to open source software, because of the benefits of community development and the flexibility to customize applications for a perfect fit. The financial benefits of open source are nice too, Cash says.
Rosie's blog builders say it's all about community
EchoDitto helps its clients create online communities. It believes in open source software and relies heavily on the Drupal content management system both internally and for its customers. EchoDitto CTO and co-founder Justin Pinder says it's the community that makes open source invaluable.
University finds freedom, flexibility in open source business intelligence
The University of Nebraska was always a Microsoft shop. U of N Data and Internet Specialist Amy Stephen remembers when Windows NT was new, with 27 installation disks. "We went with that because we had every network protocol that had ever been created, and every desktop applications that had ever been invented, right here. MS was the only ones you could have that diversity with." But when all of Microsoft's "natural predators" began to die off, and Microsoft no longer made the university's needs a priority, Stephen found open source solutions a lot more attractive.
Virtualization goes Nationwide
Nationwide Insurance and Financial Services, a $21 billion company with 30,000 employees, has turned to virtual servers running Linux to gain more control over computing power and expenditures.
Open source is the ticket for In Ticketing
Ticket broker In Ticketing is going head to head with Ticketmaster. It's able to offer lower fees for the same services because of open source software, says co-founder and CTO Marc Urbaitel.
Libraries facilitate open access to information with open source software
The open source movement and libraries have a lot in common, not the least of which is the belief in free and open access to ideas and information. Yet, until recently, libraries have been slow to switch to open source software. Libraries have highly specialized software needs because the library community has developed its own complex standards and protocols to facilitate things like interlibrary loan, meta data sharing, and federated searching. Until recently, lack of commercial support made implementing open source unfeasible for libraries without an IT staff. Also, open source alternatives weren't perceived as scalable or feature-rich enough to handle the complex needs of most libraries. Now, commercial support has facilitated new levels of collaboration between libraries through sponsored development.
Sterling PCU's develops customer relationship with Sugar CRM
Sterling PCU sells refrigerant systems to the automotive and appliance industry. It names among its customers Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, General Electric, and many others. Sterling had an extensive collection of customer information, but much of the data was stored in disparate locations: email, spreadsheets, and incompatible databases. When Sterling decided it was time to consolidate, its first choice was Salesforce's customer relationship management (CRM) product. However, high costs and restricted access to the company's own data forced a reassessment, and this time, Sterling chose an open source product.
Manufacturing management company moves to Linux
Hines Corp. is a management company that oversees a conglomerate of manufacturers in the Midwest and Texas, and a distributorship in New York. It has a diverse IT infrastructure that requires attention around the clock. When Hines CIO Ed Harper decided it was time to consolidate and streamline aging legacy systems, he turned from Microsoft to Linux.
Audi's new luxury cars engineered on Linux
For several years, German automobile manufacturer Audi AG, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, has been steadily migrating its engineering systems over to Linux. The company hopes to finish the job in 2007 and have the bulk of its servers and workstations running 64-bit Linux by the end of the year.
Librarians stake their future on open source
A group of librarians at the Georgia Public Library Service has developed an open source, enterprise-class library management system that may revolutionize the way large-scale libraries are run.
College puts KBOX to the test
Oregon's Portland Community College is one of the largest community colleges in the country, with 90,000 students, five campuses, and a huge network to manage. PCC's policy is to use open source software whenever possible because of its enhanced value. When Technology Solutions Services Customer Support Manager Michael Heuer wanted to find a way to streamline network management, he turned to KBOX, an appliance built on an open source foundation.
