Singapore housing saves money with Linux

To leverage on the existing zSeries platform in HDB, a tender was called for the consolidation effort. IBM proposed the eServer zSeries and xSeries as its main consolidated server platform.

The HDB's business applications on Internet and intranet are supported by IBM Software products such as WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, Lotus Domino, Tivoli Directory Server and CCCMQ 3.6 (former Candle Corp's product). IBM offers a broad selection of Linux-enabled software.

According to Koh Kok Theng, Head, Systems Management Unit, Information Services Department, HDB:

'HDB's existing software profile and licensing model are one of the deciding factors for us to move to Linux. IBM's software is officially supported on Linux and IBM is a strong supporter for Linux. IBM's comprehensive support for Linux has allowed us to move forward on a platform that we trust.'

HDB's infrastructure team led and coordinated the Linux implementation. The road for the whole project to go live is not a simple one. From the proof-of-concept of Linux on zSeries in April 2004, to procurement of the solution, to the final planning and preparation before implementation, the installation and infrastructure testing phase finally took place in July 2004. It took the team another six months to reach the goal of open standards.

'The team from IBM played an important role in making this project a success. IBM team worked hand-in-hand with our infrastructure team on the installation and offered morale support. They were dedicated and committed in working on the recommended software configuration and solving issues faced during installation with their oversea counterparts,' explains Koh.

The fault-tolerant, highly scalable zSeries and xSeries servers with its user-friendly administrative tools, running Suse Enterprise Linux Server 8.1 and z/VM (Virtual Machine) 4.4, provides HDB with a platform for flexible, resilient operations. Within the VM environment, potentially hundreds of Linux images, or virtual servers, can share hardware and software resources and use internal high-speed communications.

Saving with Linux

Adding Linux to its operating environment generated a variety of key efficiencies for HDB, enabling the organisation to expand its system capabilities without increasing its IT budget. As an open source technology, Linux provides a cost-efficient, stable and highly reliable enterprise consolidation platform. By standardizing on Suse Linux, HDB gained the ability to streamline various administrative workflows and tasks.

HDB has benefited since day one from the implementation of Linux. Besides the savings on the startup costs, HDB will have more than 20 percent savings in operating costs over five years. The quantum of savings achieved is close to 40 percent of the cost invested for the new infrastructure over five years.

'With the reduced infrastructure maintenance cost, the savings would go to funding strategic initiatives such as applications that transforms or empower new business processes and infrastructure enhancement to set up high availability clustering,' says Koh.

A growing partnership

HDB's long history on the use of IBM hardware and software has flowered into extensive use of IBM hardware and software for its core Internet and intranet server infrastructure.

Koh concludes, 'HDB is taking advantage of the performance, reliability and stability of Linux on xSeries and zSeries to help cut total costs of ownership and at the same time produce innovative services.'