A Linux installation in the retail industry A large Linux installation of approximately 5000 machines, installed in over 1000 sites, remotely maintained, for a Group of retail chains. Typically each site has one Linux server, and 4 diskless Linux PCs (booting Linux via bootROMs from the server). In addition, there are 50 central/distribution/merchadising servers running Linux, many SMP boxes, eg. dual PPro or dual P-II. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From evan@sr.co.za Wed Mar 11 14:57:38 1998 Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:05:09 +0200 (SAT) From: Evan Summers To: Bernard Lang Cc: linux-biz@lege.com, Alex Harin Subject: A Linux installation in the retail industry This client is a retail group of companies with a number of retail chains in furniture (3 chains, approximately 560 stores in total), fashion (2 chains, 365 stores) and building supplies (1 chain, 80 stores), approximately 1000 stores and 5,000 users. All stores have a Linux server (Intel-based) and on average 4 diskless PCs booting Linux via bootROMs off the server, for cashiers, debtors' clerks, etcetera. The in-store servers have a modem for comms, where we support UUCP and demand-dial PPP. Linux is used exclusively by all these chains for their mission-critical transaction processing systems, including in the central environment (with Intel-based servers, many of them SMP) and warehouse/distribution centers, right down to in-store servers and point-of-sale terminals as I've mentioned. An interesting point is that if SCO was used, the client really would have been forced to consider character-based terminals (because of cost of licenses per CPU), whereas Linux gave them the option of the diskless PCs, i.e. Network Computers, which will afford them flexibility in future. Windows was not even an option because all software support is provided by ourselves (remotely via dialup comms), and using Windows would have made remote support an impossible task. Besides these issues, Linux realised a significant cost saving for the client, where at least 1000 licenses otherwise would have been required for the in-store servers alone (not counting the 4000 additional workstations, which might have been terminals, network computers, or diskless networked PCs, also requiring licenses). However, the main reason for our proposing Linux in the first place, is that we find that we are able to offer the client excellent support on the Linux platform, more so than if we were liaising with SCO or Microsoft say to resolve problems. Where we aren't able to fix problems ourselves in a day, we consult the Linux developers, and problems are resolved in a matter of hours, not weeks... The first chain of 150 stores was deployed in September 1995 with the others coming on-stream at various intevals since then. In fact, the newer ones have continued with Linux precisely because the earlier chains have been running so successfully with Linux. Another client's 600 stores which were deployed before Linux was a twinkle in Linus' eye, are using SCO, and we compare our experiences with supporting Linux sites to those of the sites running SCO. Based on our experiences, we would recommend Linux even if it cost more than SCO and NT... Incidently our application is written in our own 4GL, and porting the application from SCO to Linux was trivial, since it required only porting our 4GL runtime engine, which is written in C. Kind regards Evan ______________________Evan Summers PhD * New Product Development Manager ________________Universal Computer Services * Johannesburg, South Africa ____________ebs@ucs.co.za * telephone +27 11 339-6111 * http://ucs.co.za