Johannesburg, 04 Aug 2004
Novell has not only become the biggest thing in Linux lately, but the company has taken the decision to implement open source solutions on its internal systems. Novell SA, however, is pioneering this worldwide decision by being the first to implement total wall-to-wall Linux and open source solutions from servers to desktops.
The global company recently passed a mandate whereby the company would have to pursue the adoption of OpenOffice across all of its regions. Novell SA, under the leadership of Stafford Masie, has taken it a step further and has decided to implement Linux and open source software across its entire enterprise.
Allison Singh, systems engineering manager at Novell SA, is leading the taskforce and says: "It is very important that we are 100% aware of all of the potential steps our customers will go through should they pursue a wall-to-wall adoption of Linux. In essence, we see the implementation not only as a means to `practise what we preach`, but also as a means to build a stable migration path as a benchmark for our customers."
With most of the legwork behind them, the local team is excited about the new found freedom open source software gives them, not forgetting the saving it will be making on licence fees, previously pumped into proprietary software. Singh says the move has so far been seamless and the staff are already quite comfortable with their new software.
Masie, MD of Novell SA, was one of the first to be migrated completely to a Linux desktop. "There has been absolutely no drop in available desktop functionality relative to my responsibility and role to the organisation. The SUSE Linux desktop, Ximian and OpenOffice combination is ready for the enterprise today. I`ve been using it, without any training, for several months and it`s been fun not having to reboot often, not having the usual desktop GPF `freezes`, and have the applications perform better on my same hardware. If I can do this on a SuSE desktop, 90% of the users out there can, for a great deal less than their current desktop software expense," says Masie.
"We will be running OpenOffice as our office environment and have loaded all the filters needed to ensure that people can still access and open Microsoft documents. With OpenOffice they can even save these documents as a .doc. We have also implemented SuSE 9 desktops on a Ximian desktop environment and the Evolution e-mail client," states Singh.
But Novell is not oblivious to the fact that open source will require support, and to curb any eventualities, internal technicians have spent time training users. They have also opened up the internal Web site for community support and prompted people to make inquiries to technical staff through their Groupwise Messenger. Singh says these factors have been put down as a crutch, but he has been amazed at how easily the team has embraced the Linux environment and how few real issues have surfaced.
"We want companies throughout SA to know that Linux is not a headache, it is a solid mature platform ready for the enterprise. This best practice migration path exercise is designed to give customers the peace of mind that their technology partner not only has the ability but the experience and partners in place to help them make the move to Linux and open source when the time comes.
"We have signed up excellent local support and training partners which, among others, include Smartsource, Obsidian Systems, Inobits and EpiUse, all of which have experience with and an understanding of all of the Linux distributions," says Singh.
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