And today, many such groups are rejecting rigid proprietary solutions. In fact, when performance, reliability and world-class support really matter, today's governments are turning to open source solutions. And they rely on SUSE® Linux Enterprise from Novell—which delivers interoperability and mission-critical support for the complete computing environment, to help reduce cost, complexity and risk.
Linux Government Advantage: Saving Money with SUSE Linux Enterprise
Perhaps the best reason for governments to switch to SUSE Linux Enterprise is its incredible potential to reduce costs. Not only will SUSE Linux Enterprise run on cost-effective commodity hardware, but it's also easier and less expensive to support. And a subscription to open source software is far less expensive than buying and licensing proprietary software such as UNIX or Microsoft Windows. As an example, Jefferson County, Colorado, reports hardware cost savings of 50 percent and reduced administrative costs by 30 percent since moving to open source. For most government organizations, proprietary hardware support is the largest expense after labor. With open source, it's realistic to imagine opting for several US$1,000 industry-standard servers to run an enterprise instead of one proprietary server that costs US$10,000 or more.
Adopting an open source strategy based around SUSE Linux Enterprise has reduced software licensing costs by 50 percent for Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, the municipal government of Spain's fifth-largest city. And that's typical. A Linux government solution is as reliable as your constituents expect it to be. High-quality open source applications are freely available, and can run on almost any hardware platform, so the council is able to adopt the most effective solutions without significant further investment. With Novell as a partner, the council's IT department has achieved a high level of flexibility with a minimal degree of risk.
On average, government agencies that have adopted open source solutions report 40–50 percent savings on hardware expenses, while software costs are being driven down by as much as 40 percent. A Linux government solution just makes fiscal sense.
Linux Government Advantage: Relying on SUSE Linux Enterprise
SUSE Linux Enterprise is the only enterprise-class Linux platform on the market today that meets your needs from the desktop to the data center. It's a solution you can rely on because it's been through months of regression testing—including test cases with applications like Oracle and SAP— and hardware tests on all the major architectures. Open source systems in general are more stable and reliable than proprietary operating systems. Indeed, studies and surveys show that LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) software packages, open source servers and open source databases are more resistant to crippling crashes than proprietary solutions.
In the Czech Republic, for example, the government relies on APOST, a customized system used by all 20,000 of its postal employees. To upgrade performance and reliability, Czech Post moved to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system. The transition and rollout happened with zero downtime. And with the system up and running, APOST boasts nearly 100 percent uptime.
And that's typical. An Enterprise Management Associates study from February 2006 showed that 89 percent of open source users reported 99.95 percent uptime. Only 2.5 percent reported less than 98 percent availability. A Linux government solution is as reliable as your constituents expect it to be.
Linux Government Advantage: Government Certifications
IPv6, the next generation of the Internet protocol, offers many advantages, such as quality-of-service (QoS) control and a much larger address space, while mobile IPv6 adds roaming capabilities. On behalf of the US federal government, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a policy mandating all federal government agencies to upgrade their network infrastructure to IPv6 and interface each agency network with this infrastructure.
Being on the the IPv6 Approved Products List (APL) has become a Department of Defense and US federal government equipment purchase requirement. SUSE Linux Enterprise was the first Linux operating system to receive the IPv6 Capable Certification Letter and to be listed on the IPv6 APL. US government agencies can purchase and deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise with confidence, knowing that it fully complies to the latest network infrastructure policies implemented by the US federal government.
Source: Novell
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