Open-Source Migration at the Federal Cartel Office

 

s+c migrates Windows server to Linux

It was a unique pilot project. In line with the anti-terror pact passed by the German government, the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (BSI) examined the possibilities of implementing open-source solutions at federal offices. In addition to two further institutions, the Federal Cartel Office was selected in 2002 to begin migrating to Linux and free software. With the science + computing ag acting as project manager and as head of the joint venture with the univention_GmbH and the Linux Information Systems AG, the open source project was completed within a three months project time span. Creative pragmatism characterized the teamwork from the very beginning. "When for example one of the print servers quit on us at the beginning of the project, our partners simply installed a Samba server overnight", so Stephan Orti von Havranek, IT manager in the Federal Cartel Office.

 

Secure and Robust IT Environment

From a migration to open-source software Christel Marquardt, project manager at BSI, expected "a more secure and robust IT environment". Moreover, it was intended to simplify administration, reduce the dependence on proprietary software, and last but not least cut down on the costs. To achieve this, the Windows NT domain was substituted by the OpenLDAP directory services and Samba, to begin with. Next, several proprietary data bases, the content management system, and other software were replaced by open software solutions.

 

Improvement by Reduction

The number of servers could be reduced from 17 to seven through consolidation while no new hardware had to be acquired. At the same time the performance, stability and availability were improved. The newly developed server migration concept provided some pleasant surprises, too. Almost no modifications had to be made on the client side. The users immediately benefited from the advantages of the server migration, while being able to continue their work undisturbed. "When the project was almost completed, a staff member asked me, when the migration was to take place", remembers Stephan Orti von Havranek.

 

Well Prepared

The server migration naturally also involved preparing for a medium term client side migration from Windows to Linux. Therefore, many platform independent interfaces were established on the server side, like PostgreSQL, SAP DB and MySQL. MS Access 2000 and the applications developed with Visual Basic by the Federal Cartel Office itself remained in use as front-ends for the time being and were simply adapted to the new back-end interfaces.

 

Exemplary

Although the administrators of the Federal Cartel Office were familiar with Linux and the open-source concept, the migration brought a considerable amount of work along. Efficient trainings and extensive support from the consortium were particularly important, so IT manager Havranek. Not only the frictionless operation of the new server environment was guaranteed, attention was also paid to qualifying the administrators of the Federal Cartel Office to independent Linux experts, so they could eventually take matters into their own hands. By now the positive experiences of the open-source migration have been included in a migration guide written by the BSI. The guide informs interested institutions in detail about the advantages of such a migration and lets them draw inspiration from this exemplary pilot project.