Interop Ability Customers

Overview

Infracom, an Italian hosting solutions company and Microsoft partner, was looking for a data center solution to streamline the maintenance and management of its environment, reduce the risk of server downtime, and enable a seamless migration to a standard Linux distribution over an extended period of time. Through the Microsoft and Novell interoperability partnership, Infracom saw the value of migrating from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell with Expanded Support. With the Novell solution, Infracom had the peace of mind they needed to begin a migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise, without compromising the uptime and support of their existing RHEL servers. The new solution has created greater reliability and interoperability to better support the company's business-critical operations and make them more scalable for future growth as they move to a single management console. The Microsoft and Novell interoperability partnership provides intellectual property protection to Microsoft Linux support Certificate program customers, allowing Infracom to minimize its IP risk and remain focused on delivering world class products and services to its customers.

Situation

Infracom hosts data and outsources server space to medium-sized business throughout Italy, in a data center consisting of 50 physical servers running on RHEL, and 70 virtualized servers. System uptime and data security are key factors in keeping their business up and running and protecting the important and sensitive data of their clients. To increase the efficiency and security of its data center, and reduce management complexity, Infracom developed a roadmap with a long-term goal of upgrading its hardware and deploying a unified management console. The risk of downtime during migration however, was impacting their progress. The opportunity to migrate the company's Red Hat Linux operating systems over to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was an appealing solution, allowing the company to reap the benefits of the Microsoft and Novell interoperability partnership, and the ongoing support benefits available through SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support.

Solution

Infracom worked with Novell to upgrade its data center infrastructure and to begin standardizing its Linux environment on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. With the new solution, Infracom will eventually be fully migrated to SUSE Linux, and will be able to deploy a unified management console. This will allow IT administrators to manage their physical and virtual infrastructure from one console, reducing complexity and allowing them to manage the mixed environment more efficiently, while increasing productivity and enhancing flexibility.

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support, Infracom benefits from extended support of its new SUSE Linux Enterprise environment, as well as its existing RHEL systems. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support helped Infracom begin a seamless migration from other Linux distributions, and includes technical support for their existing Linux deployments, including RHEL, during a three-year period as they transition from other vendors to SUSE Linux Enterprise. The extended support provides Infracom the peace of mind that the migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise will be seamless, and the company's existing servers will experience no downtime in the interim, ensuring clients' data remains safe and secure.

Benefits

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Sever with Expanded Support, Infracom was able to begin its migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, without compromising the uptime of their existing RHEL servers. With increased operational efficiency and reduced complexity of data center administration, Infracom's IT administrators and staff can save considerable time on maintenance, systems updates, upgrades, and issue resolution.

Expanded support gives Infracom greater confidence in the stability of its data center, reducing the risk of costly downtime and ensuring 24/7 service availability for its customers during their migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The new solution has created greater reliability and interoperability to better support the company's business-critical operations and make them more scalable for future growth. In addition, the single management console will provide benefits for Infracom's IT Administrators, enabling them to manage their infrastructure with one set of tools.

Infracom also benefits from the Microsoft and Novell interoperability partnership, which provides intellectual property (IP) protection and "peace of mind" to Microsoft Linux Support Certificate program customers, allowing Infracom to minimize its IP risk and remain focused on providing safe and secure data hosting solutions. The collaborative interoperability initiatives between Microsoft and Novell simplify complexity, helping Infracom reduce costs, gain new levels of flexibility, streamline operations, and respond to new business challenges. Infracom is looking forward to simplifying its data center while providing 24/7 availability and increasing its ROI as the company continues its migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

"At Infracom, we work in a very competitive and price sensitive market. As part of these industry dynamics, we are constantly looking to streamline our IT operations and realize efficiencies wherever possible. The Expanded Support program by Novell is an example of how we can immediately realize substantial cost savings while maintaining a similar, if not better, level of support for our Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure. The program allowed us to cut our support costs by more than half and the process to make the switch from Red Hat support to Novell support was fast and was achieved with minimal effort," said Aldo Serraglio, Systems Director, Infracom. "In addition, we can benefit from some of the Windows to Linux interoperability solutions developed by Microsoft and Novell in their interoperability lab. Through the companies' agreements around intellectual property protection, we achieve an intellectual property "peace of mind" now and look forward to benefiting further from this unique program in the future."

The Microsoft-Novell Agreement

On Nov. 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability, deliver powerful new virtualization capabilities, make Microsoft and Novell products work better together, and give customers peace of mind that both companies stand behind the products they deliver. More information about the Microsoft and Novell agreement, including other customer announcements, can be found at http://www.moreinterop.com.

About Novell

Novell delivers infrastructure software for the open enterprise. Novell is a leader in enterprise-wide operating systems based on Linux and open source and provides the enterprise management services required to operate mixed IT environments. Novell helps customers minimize cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth. For more information, visit http://www.novell.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Novell and SUSE are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
* Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, press only:
Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for Microsoft, (503) 443-7070, rrt@waggeneredstrom.com
Bruce Lowry, Novell, (415) 383-8408, blowry@novell.com