The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Hannover last year replaced its Sun Microsystems SPARC computers running Sun Solaris by commodity hardware running GNU/Linux, the IT magazine CIO reports.
BGR also moved from Ingres' proprietary to its Open Source database management system.
The geoscience institute uses the system to monitor global seismic activity. The BGR for example is one of several organisations worldwide that operate stations listening for nuclear explosions. This network was created after the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 2006.
According to the case study by CIO, the BGR first considered migration of these systems to Open Source in 2004, when the software giant Computer Associates announced it would spin off its Ingres database management system and release it under an Open Source licence.
Because of his familiarity with other Open Source tools, Markus Dohmann, BGR geophysicist, understood the developers community, CIO writes. "He knew open-source software was secure and robust enough to do the critical work of around-the-clock seismic activity monitoring."
"A highly reliable, stable database is crucial to the BGR. Its contractual obligation to the CTBTO includes a minimum of 98 per cent data availability and uptime, and Dohmann said Ingres worked just fine in that role."
According to CIO, Dohmann is happy with the results of the migration. "We not only benefit from the lower cost of ownership attributed to the Open Source business model, but from the strong community surrounding Open Source as well. The rapid feedback received from the community to queries on specialist topics is a major plus. In our sector in particular, the reliability and availability of data are decisive criteria."
Further information:
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR)