Deutsche Bahn

Success Story

Deutsche Bahn AG (www.bahn.de) is the largest rail transportation company in Germany, employing some 222,000 people. Privatized in 1994, it now manages more than 35,000 kilometres of track, transporting both passengers and commercial goods.

Challenge

Deutsche Bahn facilitated more than 1.6 billion passenger-journeys in 2004, and transported around 280 million tons of freight. In doing so, the company relied heavily on its IT systems to provide reliable ticketing, timetabling, logistics planning, maintenance scheduling, purchasing and business management services. Many of the systems that are developed and maintained by Deutsche Bahn's IT-service provider DB Systems are operational 24 hours a day. For instance, international customers can plan and purchase complex multi-stage journeys online, for which ticketing, sales and timetabling systems must function in perfect synchronization.

With dozens of business-critical applications and more than 80,000 internal users to support, controlling costs is a constant challenge for DB Systems. Given the complexity and scale of the company's rail services, it is vital to maintain availability and performance throughout any cost-saving initiatives.

In order to reduce operational costs while maintaining reliability, DB Systems set out to refresh its entire system infrastructure. "In addition to delivering a sustainable reduction in IT costs, we aimed to boost the robustness of internal and external systems, for improved customer service," said Ingo Schwarzer, Chief Technology Architect at DB Systems.

Novell solution

"SUSE Linux is a true enterprise-class operating system ... the reliability and performance are outstanding."

Ingo Schwarzer
Chief Technology Architect
DB Systems

Following a comprehensive analysis of various options, DB Systems selected Novell's SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server as its new strategic environment for business-critical systems. The company plans to run SUSE Linux on more than 300 Intel- and AMD-based servers, and also on four IBM eServer zSeries 990 mainframes.

"Moving from UNIX* to Linux has not only reduced our operating system licensing costs, but has also enabled us to use lower-cost generic servers for many applications," said Schwarzer. "We anticipate major savings on hardware expenditure. What's more, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is more stable and easier to administer, which means improved availability and lower operational costs. Security is also equally good with an open source operating system."

DB Systems has migrated systems that require especially high availability to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on the IBM mainframes. Two IBM zSeries host 32 Lotus Domino mail servers for almost 55,000 users, alongside nearly 5,000 Domino databases containing 6.5TB of data. DB Systems plans to use the other two zSeries to run all other applications, partly under SUSE Linux.

"The key argument for SUSE Linux was that, in our opinion, it runs more software than any other distribution of Linux, giving us more options for the future," said Schwarzer. "Another important factor was support, where we always aim to resolve issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. Novell provides excellent local support, with access to a team of global experts, so we can be sure of rapid solutions to any problems."

By deploying Linux* on zSeries, DB Systems has created a highly-resilient, low-cost environment for some of its most important applications. The company now has the flexibility to take advantage of a vast range of open source applications, and has a standardized skill-set across its mainframe and other hardware platforms.

"SUSE Linux is a true enterprise-class operating system," said Schwarzer. "The reliability and performance are outstanding, and we are confident that the system can scale to meet our needs in the future."

Results

"We rely on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to run our core business systems and our customer Web site, and we are confident that it is the best choice for delivering efficient service at low costs."

Ingo Schwarzer
Chief Technology Architect
DB Systems

By selecting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as one strategic operating system, DB Systems anticipates significant long-term benefits. The company has already seen an estimated 50 percent reduction in software licensing costs and in hardware costs as it is no longer tied to expensive proprietary hardware.

Availability and performance for business-critical systems such as timetabling and the customer information system (www.bahn.de) has increased, ensuring that DB Systems's systems are ready for business around the clock. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, DB Systems has a stable, flexible and secure platform for the future, which has delivered an estimated 25 percent reduction in maintenance costs.

"SUSE Linux has delivered enterprise-class computing at a lower cost than we could have achieved with a proprietary operating system," said Schwarzer. "It's also important to point out the security advantages: the open source community is continually reviewing and refining the software, so any vulnerabilities can be identified and resolved rapidly. We rely on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to run our core business systems and our customer Web site, and we are confident that it is the best choice for delivering efficient service at low costs."