Guangdong Mobile

Success Story

With subscriber numbers growing fast, Guangdong Mobile needed to ease the mounting pressure on its IT infrastructure and staff. Migrating to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server enabled the company to improve system security, reduce downtime and system maintenance requirements, and cut its operating expenditures significantly.

Overview

Guangdong Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile Limited – one of the biggest players in China’s telecommunications industry, with 343 million customers and 115 thousand employees. Guangdong Mobile is the largest mobile telephone operator in Guangdong Province.

Challenge

As a telecommunications company with more than 50 million customers, Guangdong Mobile relies heavily on its IT systems to help manage its complex business operations. The company’s 200 IBM* servers, located in several sites across the province, support hundreds of millions of transactions each month. Ensuring stability, reliability and 100 percent uptime for these servers is a critical factor in keeping the business running efficiently.

Guangdong Mobile’s previous Microsoft* Windows* environment could not provide the levels of stability and security that the company needed. The system was vulnerable to viruses, and the resulting downtime could potentially have caused inaccuracies in recording subscribers’ costs for calls, SMS and MMS. Internally, problems with stability and security were putting a strain on the company’s IT staff, who struggled to manage the growing maintenance workload.

The Windows servers also lacked comprehensive remote management capabilities, forcing the IT staff to spend considerable time and money travelling between sites to resolve problems.

Novell Solution

"We are confident in entrusting our mission-critical applications for banking, CRM and billing to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server."

Zhuang Zhaowen
Senior Administrator, Billing Centre
Guangdong Mobile

Guangdong Mobile tested a variety of alternative solutions before opting to replace its Windows operating systems with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

“Compared to the other solutions we considered, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offered better security and stability, while providing convenient remote management options,” said Zhuang Zhaowen, Senior Administrator of the Billing Centre at Guangdong Mobile. “With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the threat from viruses and other malware is, in practical terms, non-existent.”

With the integrated AppArmor® security framework, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers enterprise-level application security to protect against viruses, malware and network-borne attacks.

“We are confident in entrusting our mission-critical applications for banking, CRM and billing to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,” said Zhuang. “The security is very strong, and we have had no problems at all since we implemented the solution. We have also increased availability significantly, which supports us both in providing first-class services to our customers and in building better relationships with our financial partners.”

With 24/7 availability delivered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Guangdong Mobile has eliminated the delays and inefficiencies previously caused by unscheduled downtime – which would often require billing to be re-run or manually checked by staff.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server includes management tools that enable Guangdong Mobile to install, configure, protect and update Linux* servers located anywhere on the network, greatly reducing the time and costs dedicated to management and maintenance. In particular, the remote management capabilities of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server have all but eliminated the need for IT staff to travel to different office locations, cutting costs and accelerating problem resolution. This also means that staff can work more efficiently, since their applications and e-mail are always available for use.

“The unique open management tools in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server enable us to manage the network efficiently and with very little administrative effort,” said Zhuang. “The solution keeps our skilled IT staff free to focus on higher-value work. In the past, they were frequently required to travel between sites, applying patches and updates that are now easily managed from a central point of control.”

Results

"The improved uptime and security delivered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server translates into greater productivity and, ultimately, better customer service."

Zhuang Zhaowen
Senior Administrator, Billing Centre
Guangdong Mobile

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has given Guangdong Mobile a secure, stable and easy-to-manage platform for business-critical systems. By practically eliminating the threat of viruses and other malware, the Novell® solution keeps confidential customer information secure and ensures that Guangdong Mobile’s systems are always available to process financial transactions.

“Security measures must evolve constantly to track the changing risk, and no system is 100 percent secure,” said Zhuang. “Nevertheless, we feel that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers a major advantage over Microsoft Windows, giving us great confidence that we are building on a solid platform for security.”

With the remote management capabilities of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Guangdong Mobile’s IT staff now manage all 200 servers from a central point of control. The company has reduced travel costs, freed up skilled staff from routine maintenance, and accelerated problem resolution. Guangdong Mobile has lowered IT administration costs by 30 percent and can now easily support its expanding operations without needing to employ additional IT support staff and without any degradation in service levels.

“The Novell solution has helped us to significantly reduce our workload and cut labour and travel costs,” said Zhuang. “In addition, the improved uptime and security delivered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server translates into greater productivity and, ultimately, better customer service.”

Novell, the Novell logo, the N logo, AppArmor, and SUSE are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.