Novell has announced The Burton Corporation moved its mission-critical applications from UNIX* to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server from Novell to improve system uptime and reduce overall server-related costs by 80 percent.

Burton migrated to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in 2008. Burton's previous operating platform had experienced frequent downtime, putting a strain on all aspects of the business. After determining a UNIX upgrade would be cost-prohibitive, the company chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as a stable, reliable platform for its SAP- and Oracle-based IT environments.

"It was important for us to have a SAP-certified Linux platform, which was one of the compelling factors that led us to choose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server," said Bill York, senior Linux administrator at Burton. "While snowboarders are not averse to risk, as a business, we can't afford to take risks when it comes to our business-critical systems that need to be available at all times. Since moving to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, our uptime has been insane."

Burton migrated all of its mission-critical systems to Dell* servers running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including SAP* ERP, Business Intelligence, CRM, Enterprise Portal, as well as its Oracle* applications. The company plans to use the built-in Xen* virtualization to reduce its number of physical servers and adapt quickly to changing workloads. The ability to quickly deploy virtual servers will greatly improve the IT staff's ability to add new applications as needed. Virtual servers will also help the team create better development and testing environments on existing hardware.

"The migration went even more smoothly than we expected," York said. "We had very few implementation issues. Our entire IT staff made a smooth transition from our UNIX environment, with no need for additional training. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is so much simpler to administer through YaST®, and we can now easily keep pace with new security enhancements."

By moving from HP-UX* and proprietary hardware to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server running on commodity hardware, Burton has greatly reduced its server-related costs which it can now re-invest in other parts of the business. The ability to leverage open source applications is helping the company to further reduce software costs.

Moving its mission-critical SAP and Oracle environments to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has helped Burton reduce overall server-related costs by over 80 percent compared to its previous proprietary solution. The ability to use commodity servers has not only significantly reduced the company's hardware costs, but also reduced its power consumption by 30 percent.

In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has helped the global company reduce administrative time and costs by 40 percent. Simplified administration and consistent uptime has also lowered the time spent supporting users by 25 percent. While downtime was common with Burton's previous ERP environment, the new implementation consistently hits the company's goal of 99.999 percent uptime.