Success Story SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension SUSE Manager LOT Polish Airlines

With passenger numbers growing by almost 30 percent annually, LOT Polish Airlines needed to ensure its systems could support rapidly expanding business. To gain flexibility and break the linear relationship between business growth and IT costs, LOT migrated

from Red Hat Enterprise Support to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support, reducing OS subscription fees by 50 percent and cutting long- term TCO by an estimated 30 percent. Introducing SUSE Manager also helped cut administration workload.

Overview and economical, LOT must also scale up LOT Polish Airlines is the flag-carrier air- its IT systems. line for Poland, connecting Central and Eastern Europe to 90 destinations world- With infrastructure growing at around 30 wide. As the only airline in the region to percent annually, LOT faced rising costs in offer direct long-haul flights to New York, both software licensing and operational Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Singapore, management. The company runs practi- Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul, LOT operates all cally all key systems—scheduling, ticket- long-haul flights with the latest Boeing 787 ing, navigation planning, budgeting, and Dreamliner aircraft. so on—on Linux, and it approached its existing OS vendor to negotiate a simpler, LOT Polish Airlines at a Glance: Challenge more scalable subscription model. The national airline of Poland, LOT currently flies 7 million passengers to 90 destinations LOT is enjoying rapid growth: over the Marek Truszkowski, IT Systems Admini­ worldwide, and is the leading long-haul airline past year, passenger numbers jumped stra­tor at LOT Polish Airlines, said: “Our in Central and Eastern Europe. from 5 million to 7 million, and the next sup­port costs for Red Hat Enterprise target is 9 million. To ensure that travel Industry and Location Linux were rising rapidly, and the model on LOT remains safe, punctual, convenient Aviation, Poland was complex and inflexible. We also had concerns about the quality of vendor sup- Product and Services port available in Poland.” SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with “Our initial migration from Expanded Support Red Hat Enterprise Support Solution SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability to SUSE Expanded Support Working with its partner SoftGen, LOT set Extension SUSE Manager produced 50 percent savings out to reduce TCO and gain a flexible plat- form for ongoing growth. SUSE offered Results in subscription costs.” lower subscription fees and no restric- + Cut annual OS subscription fees by 50 percent tions on the number of virtual instances, Marek Truszkowski + Simplified management, releasing IT personnel plus full support for LOT’s existing Red Hat to focus on value-add tasks IT Systems Administrator Enterprise Linux instances at a lower fee + Reduced long-term TCO by an estimated LOT Polish Airlines than Red Hat itself was offering. 30 percent “It took just two weeks to deploy SUSE Manager, and we are now saving significant time and effort in patch management and reporting.”

Marek Truszkowski IT Systems Administrator LOT Polish Airlines

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“Our initial migration from Red Hat Enter­ ­ wanted a way to reduce IT administra- “We are delighted with the flexibility and prise Support to SUSE Expanded Support tion workload. The airline selected SUSE pro-client approach of both SUSE and produced 50 percent savings in subscrip- Manager for its ability to handle both SUSE SoftGen,”­ said Marek Truszkowski. “In tion costs,” said Marek Truszkowski. “The and Red Hat distributions. particular,­ the speed of access to local- SUSE pricing model is straightforward and language support helps us diagnose and clear, and we can run an unlimited num- “It took just two weeks to deploy SUSE resolve potential issues much faster. In our ber of virtual machines, so our costs will Manager, and we are now saving signifi- safety-critical industry, this is an impor- no longer increase in direct proportion to cant time and effort in patch management tant benefit.” our growth.” and reporting,” said Marek Truszkowski.

Some of the aviation applications LOT uses Results are supported only on Red Hat Enterprise Since implementing SUSE Linux Enterprise Linux, so the ability to have full support Server with Expanded Support, LOT has from SUSE for the entire Linux landscape halved its subscription fees and gained the was vital. Marek Truszkowski said: “We now flexibility to run unlimited virtual instances have Polish-speaking L1 and L2 support in- of the OS. As the business grows—without country, which gives us additional assur- needing to pay higher OS fees—LOT esti- ance that we can keep our Linux-based mates that its total cost of ownership for systems in perfect condition at all times.” Linux will be 30 percent lower.

Aided by SoftGen, LOT transitioned the “The SUSE licensing model will definitely majority­ of its systems to being based on help us achieve our growth goals,” said SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including­ SAP Marek Truszkowski. “The flexibility of the ERP and a number of databases: Postgre­ OS is a major benefit. We also appreci- SQL, Oracle, MongoDB, and MySQL. LOT ate the YaST graphical management tool, added the SUSE Linux Enterprise High which makes it clear and easy to configure Availability Extension to cluster critical in- services.” stances of PostgreSQL. Using SUSE Manager saves time and ef- “The migration was smooth and fast thanks fort in patching, which is particularly valu- to excellent work by SoftGen,” said Marek able for systems that require PCI-DSS Truszkowski. “A couple of minor issues compliance. The solution also makes OS were quickly ironed out by the outstand- upgrades easier across the large virtual ing SUSE support services.” landscape, and enables administrators to manage both distributions of Linux from With two data centers and 500 servers— a single console. physical and virtual—to manage, LOT also

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