About City of Assen
The City of Assen, capital of the Province of Drenthe in the northeast Netherlands, is one of the country’s fastest growing areas in terms of population. Assen has a population of 65,000, and provides employment, shopping and recreational facilities for around 200,000 people from the surrounding area. It is home to the headquarters of NAM, the country’s largest producer of natural gas and oil.
Challenge
Each year, Assen’s population increases by an estimated 1,000 people–a growth rate of around 1.5 percent. In addition, the city is successfully creating new employment opportunities, with an expected increase of 10,000 jobs over the next 10 years. To support this rapid growth, the City's planning department is responsible for developing the urban infrastructure and housing resources while ensuring that the city remains easily accessible.
As data volumes grew and the scope of services increased, Assen’s existing IT infrastructure could no longer offer the required levels of performance or reliability. Server hardware was reaching the end of its useful life, and the centralised storage system could not be expanded any further.
To ensure that it could continue to foster economic growth for its citizens, the City of Assen needed to provide faster and more stable e-mail and file/print services to its civil servants. Like many public sector organizations in the Netherlands, Assen wanted an open source solution, in order to avoid vendor lock-in and proprietary technologies.
Novell Solution
The City of Assen opted to implement Novell Open Enterprise Server with SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server, running on new server hardware, as the basis for its open source infrastructure.
"The City of Assen has a clear strategy: we use open source software whenever we can," said Richard van der Weerd, Head of ICT for the City of Assen. "It was time to upgrade from our existing operating system, and Novell Open Enterprise Server was the ideal replacement, giving us full backwards compatibility with our previous environment while opening up new possibilities."
Following a pilot phase and rigorous functional testing, Assen worked closely with Novell and KMC Solutions BV, a Novell Platinum Partner, to migrate existing data and applications–and approximately 650 users–to the new environment. Where appropriate, Assen migrated its applications to Linux, yet was able to re-use its existing Novell Cluster Services technology with Novell Open Enterprise Server, employing the same names and network addresses for its new five-node cluster to minimise disruption.
"Novell provided excellent support during the implementation, helping us to achieve our ambitious target of completing the new environment before the end of the year," said Cor Hardebil, System Engineer and Project Leader for the City of Assen. "The enthusiasm, professionalism and technical skills of the Novell team were essential factors in the overall success of the project–the collaboration between Novell and Assen was perfect. We also received excellent service from our specialist Novell partner, KMC Solutions."
The new environment is linked to a recently implemented central storage solution, which provides ample capacity, security and performance for Assen’s fast growing store of data.
Results
With Novell Open Enterprise Server running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the City of Assen has the best of both worlds with the ability to seamlessly combine tools and technologies from its previous environment with the latest Linux technologies. For example, Assen is using its tried-and-trusted Novell Cluster Services on Novell Open Enterprise Server to assure high availability for its new Linux-based servers.
By migrating to Novell GroupWise running under Linux on Novell Open Enterprise Server, the City of Assen has seen a dramatic increase in the performance of its e-mail systems. "In our previous environment, e-mail was relatively slow, particularly when all 650 users were active simultaneously," said Hardebil. "In my opinion, Novell GroupWise has already reached at least twice the speed of the previous system, and we have enjoyed 100 percent uptime since the migration."
The Novell solution has also improved the capacity and future scalability of the City of Assen’s infrastructure, helping the organisation to plan for continued future growth without the prospect of needing to "rip and replace" its systems.
"With Novell Open Enterprise Server, we have given the infrastructure a significant boost in terms of capacity and performance," said van der Weerd. "Our services are now always available when users need them, and feedback from users is extremely positive. The Novell solution also keeps us free from the restrictions of closed source software, increasing our options for the future."