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The FAA Saves $15 Million by Migrating to Linux
Neopallium writes "Red Hat has announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) saved the federal government more than $15 million in datacenter operating and upgrading costs by migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The FAA executed a major systems migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one-third of the original scheduled time and with 30 percent more operational efficiency than the previous system."
Disclaimer: I love Linux (and Un*x), and I hope someday Linux (and Un*x) becomes a majority player in the computing world. But, ...
The article paints a rosy success story, but consider the source. This is a Red Hat press release. While it all may be completely true with no misdirection, I put little stock in self-congratulation, especially after an amazing experience with a similar Microsoft claim.
I worked for a major Telcom years ago and we merged with a smaller firm... Shortly after the merger, Microsoft put a full page ad in Time magazine describing an enourmous success story of how our new company now comprised of two previous companies combined the two companies' IT systems and integrated them seamlessly with Micosoft's then new .NET
platform.
This would have been an amazing success story except for the fact that:
For those who doubt, I can provide the digital photograph of the ad, I was so amazed I actually took a picture of it (I will have to dig it out, but I know I have it.)
I know many would not be surprised by a bogus claim from a Microsoft, but I don't trust that any company providing a press release to be providing real news (or trustworthy, or balanced, etc.).
This whole "press release" presented as "news" would be more honest if they placed the disclaimer information up front. (If you don't read all the way to the VERY LAST LINE of the article, you won't know the source is Red Hat.
"The FAA's successful and impressive migration truly exemplifies the value, performance and security
of Red Hat Enterprise Linux,"
All the stories talks about is how they came in under budget. Another reason for saving 15 million
could be that someone simply budgeted too much money. Much like when your wife spends $200 on a pocket
book that normally cost $250, and then she tells you that she saved $50!.
D*mn women.. oh wait.. what was I talking about again?
What OS did they migrate from? NetWare? SCO? FreeBSD? Windows 98? TFA says nothing about their previous platform.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
..not a surprise that they'd move to Linux, given their recent bad experience with Windows.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
I think lift has more to do with keeping planes in the sky. Otherwise the FAA coud declare gravity a terrorist "force"
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Umm...you didn't read TFA, did you? This is a Unix->Linus transition. Microsoft wasn't involved in the case at all.
2. noone in our IT knew of this stunning success effort
3. our "integrated" systems weren't
The real question here, at least to me: Was Microsoft ever punished by your company for running this false ad?
Or did Microsoft pay for the privilege by giving you discounted software or something else of value. Something else, besides a nice lunch for the VP of MIS, I mean.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"So, airlines are going bankrupt all over the place, ticket sales are down, and we're still in no position to catch terrorists."
"That sounds bad."
"But there is good news."
"What's that?"
"I just saved a bunch of money on datacenter operating and upgrading costs by switching to Linux."
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
For all of those who are curious as to what was there before. I worked on this project and was incharge of automating the installation process on the integration side and was part of the integration team for this project. The old system were old HP C360's running HPUX 10.20. The whole TFMI system has been ported and updated since the early 90's. Before they were running on the 360s the system was running on Apollo's before. Of course this refresh was way cheaper in '05 than the earlier refresh because in the '98 refresh they had to swap out thinnet for CAT 5. And if you ever seen some of the cable trays at some of these TRACONS on Towers.... some aren't pretty, espically at BWI. Since the CAT 5 was in place it was as simple as swapping out the machines and putting in the new routers when we got on site. And yes for a govement project this went realitivly smoothly. Once I set up the kickstart server and scripted the install for the ETMS software, intergrating the HP XW8000 workstations was as easy as just hitting F12, so even our warehouse logistic's person could integrate the machines.
Let's say you're this telco giant. Microsoft releases the ad (with approval from the telco's PR people, of course). Now, are you going to admit to your shareholders that the ad was, in fact, not true at all? No.
Microsoft was never punished because the telco couldn't admit that it wasn't true.
Behold the glorious bragging rights
Back in 1992 I got a tour of the Atlas Computing Centre in the UK (I was doing a particle physics course at nearby RAL). We got to touch the Cray. Ooh geek heaven. Anyway, in the foyer was part of one of their first computers, the Atlas 1. It looked like a modular synth, all cables and patch leads. The guide then told us there were only three of these left - this one here, one behind glass in the Science Museum in London, and one other... ...currently doing Air Traffic Control for Heathrow Airport. He wasn't joking.