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January 19, 2009

Novell announces that independent home builder Keller Homes has consolidated its Linux servers and eliminated some downtime with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Keller Homes has a variety of mission-critical Web sites, including its public site and a user extranet used by hundreds of vendors to track materials, schedules and payments associated with customized home projects.

After Keller Homes participated on the makeover, its Web servers received an exponential increase in activity, averaging 3,000 hits per hour, with a peak of more than 6,000 hits in a single hour.

“The reliability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server kept our website from going down and allowed us to take advantage of tremendous marketing exposure. Our national name recognition shot through the roof,” said Lance Hill, IT manager at Keller Homes.

Working with Common Knowledge Technology Inc., Keller Homes upgraded its Web servers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for 65 percent less than the cost of an alternative solution.

The company consolidated its Web servers by nearly 80 percent and was able to re-use its existing hardware, achieving a 60 percent cost reduction in TCO (total cost of ownership).

It also eliminated some downtime and reduced some administration time by about 80 percent. The company estimates that its Linux solution paid for itself in just four months.

Keller Homes evaluated some other operating systems before selecting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, recommended by Common Knowledge Technology. Keller Homes moved its Web servers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server running on existing Dell hardware.

Keller Homes also consolidated its Web servers to just two physical Web servers running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Eventually, it plans to consolidate the rest of its data center servers using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and its built-in Xen server virtualization software.

When the company was chosen as a home builder for the television show "Extreme Makeover Home Edition", it had two months to ensure its Web servers could withstand an enormous increase in volume. Previously, unpredictable downtime had been frustrating for users and some created business delays.

Additionally, Keller Homes was running its Web servers on both Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux and wanted to consolidate to a single, more reliable operating system, IE: Linux.

Justin Steinman, v.p. of Solution and Product Marketing at Novell says “overall, server consolidation on the Linux platform can result in enormous cost savings and other advantages for businesses, such as streamlining various workloads which enables companies to benefit from reduced capital and management costs."

He added "and by using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, customers such as Keller Homes are greatly benefiting from a more reliable, open, flexible and cost-effective operating system for mission-critical computing.”

“SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was the perfect fit for Keller Homes,” said Luke Wignall, managing partner at Common Knowledge Technology. “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a more stable platform and provides a better ROI (return on investment) than other competing OSs. It also comes with Novell’s enterprise Linux support, which is certainly an added bonus.”

Overall, SUSE Linux Enterprise is an interoperable platform for mission-critical computing, from the desktop to the data center.

Source: Novell SUSE Linux.

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