By running Linux as a virtual machine on the zSeries 900, which has the capability to divide a single server into multiple logical servers, Roberts leverages the resources of a single management environment, reducing the costs compared to running Linux on separate boxes.
"We expect to reduce the maintenance cost of our servers, reduce the number of technicians we need to manage and administer our computing infrastructure, decrease the complexity and cost of disaster recovery, improve scalability and reliability of our computing environment, and be able to handle spikes quickly," says Roberts. He expects to see a total savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"We had a growing transaction base and saw the continued growth and expense as an opportunity to look around for a system upgrade," Roberts says.
What ultimately turned Roberts around when it came to Linux was the swell of industry support around the OS in terms of applications, technology, and services from Linux vendors, independent software vendors, and major systems vendors such as IBM, HP, and Compaq.
ared to running Linux on separate boxes.
"We expect to reduce the maintenance cost of our servers, reduce the number of technicians we need to manage and administer our computing infrastructure, decrease the complexity and cost of disaster recovery, improve scalability and reliability of our computing environment, and be able to handle spikes quickly," says Roberts. He expects to see a total savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"We had a growing transaction base and saw the continued growth and expense as an opportunity to look around for a system upgrade," Roberts says.
What ultimately turned Roberts around when it came to Linux was the swell of industry support around the OS in terms of applications, technology, and services from Linux vendors, independent software vendors, and major systems vendors such as IBM, HP, and Compaq.
IBM in particular embraced Linux as a core piece of its strategy. IBM said it would devote millions of dollars to Linux initiatives, run it on all four server platforms, and provide equal support to Linux as it did to its other OSes.
After a lengthy talk with IBM, Roberts was sold on the possibilities of Linux for enterprise computing and, in June 2001, the company purchased a zSeries 900 from the vendor. Boscov's is in the final stage of testing one of its major applications, invoice processing, on the mainframe. The department store processes 1.6 million invoices per year. "This application has every issue--resource connectivity to the host, lots of calculations, it requires dedicated I/O, and is one of our mission critical applications," says Roberts, adding that if his IT team gets this application to work, the rest will be easy.
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