Using Open Source software has helped the German air traffic control service provider, Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) to lower its costs, while maintaining high quality IT services.
Alexander Schanz, head of the Linux Competence and Service Center at the DFS, in January presented on the DFS' use of GNU/Linux and other Open Source applications at the Open Source Meets Business conference in Nürnberg. The DFS is already running 1030 applications on GNU/Linux, says Schanz: "All future systems will be based on GNU/Linux."
Operation at the DFS are regulated by strict European and national air traffic rules. The controllers need their IT systems, such as those for flight plan data processing or radar data processing, to be available more than 99.9 percent of the time.
The DFS started investigating a switch to Open Source because versions or parts of the proprietary operating systems it used are no longer being supported by their manufacturers or are running on hardware that is no longer being made.
While switching to Novell's Suse GNU/Linux, the company is phasing out several other Unix distributions. With the migration not yet complete, DFS continues to support some of its older applications, even though this meant it had to purchase source code for applications that ran on computer systems now obsolete.
The company reasoned that switching to running GNU/Linux on low cost PC hardware would be a good way to reduce costs. Porting applications from Unix to GNU/Linux should be relatively easy and bringing all Unix applications to the GNU/Linux platform should simplify IT management.
Schanz also explained that DFS is developing its own radar data processing system. This system, called Phoenix, is being used in all air traffic towers and will gradually replace the proprietary systems.
The Linux Competence and Service centre is in charge of the GNU/Linux based application development, explains Schanz. "By using GNU/Linux we were able to save costs, without reducing the systems availability. Our development and service centre reduces the cost for consulting and increases our in-house expertise. The centre results in fewer errors in the decision making process and accelerates our development."
© European Communities 2008
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
The views expressed are not an official position of the European Commission.
Disclaimer
Further information: