Czech Post Turns to SUSE Linux

ssbljk writes "Czech Post is the second largest employer in the Czech Republic with nearly 3,400 post offices and 40,000 employees. The company delivers nearly a billion letters and receives more than 100 million postal orders each year. Czech Post relies on APOST, a customized system used by 20,000 employees for all postal operations. APOST had been running on a range of operating systems including DOS and Microsoft Windows NT, but reached a point where running in a proprietary environment was proving too costly. With a disparate environment across 3,400 locations, Czech Post was experiencing increased administration costs, as well as downtime and security issues. In just 10 months, Czech Post installed the new SUSE LINUX-based APOST system on 4,000 servers at 3,400 post offices across the country, as well as at 12,000 client terminals used by 20,000 employees. The company now has a centralized infrastructure with support for remote monitoring that will significantly reduce administration costs. "

Not on the front page?

[Pan T. Hose]

First of all, the parent first post would be +5, Funny if it was "First post turns to Linux." Second of all, why this story is not on the front page? This is a very important news. Does the Slashdot editors think that the Czech Post is less important than Munich with its weekly front page news [slashdot.org]? Hint: "Czech Post is the second largest employer in the Czech Republic with nearly 3,400 post offices and 40,000 employees." Don't the editors read even the first line of the stories they submit?

Excellent news...

[advocate_one]

yet more ammo to use when people make claims that Linux isn't good enough for the business desktop.

Re:Excellent news...

[DikSeaCup]

See, what gets me is that businesses have many reasons, other than stability, possible lower costs, and the avoidance of viruses and worms, to switch to a Linux desktop ...

If you can get everything you need for your business to run under Linux, the productivity time you'll save due to the prevention of people downloading games, demos, and possibly other movies to their desktop will no doubt be significant.

And the fact that your average user probably wouldn't know how to get a program like a movie viewer

File this

[AtariAmarok]

File this in the "The Czech is In the Mail, Susie!" department.

Re:File this

[jo42]

At least it isn't the banks bouncing the Czech's...

A New Hope?

[Maljin Jolt]

Since the Czech Post is a state controlled company, it is a significant breakthrough against Microsoft's traditionally strong position inside czech government.

In a wider context, unfortunately Ministery of Education [www.msmt.cz] is still under heavy M$ lobby influence and a bilions of CZK costly Internet for schools [indos.cz] project is still chained to Windows, no open data formats for documents available but the IE's nonstandard HTML dialect (generated by winword) and only Windows applications could apply for the project.

As a result, typical czech school network is a paradise tool for spammers.

In a related story...

[AtariAmarok]

In a related story, the United States Postal Service is considering implementing this. In keeping with current standards, it will run on IBM XTs that will be programmed to reboot at random intervals. This way, the Postal Service's reputation for extreme slowness and inexplicable loss will be maintained. The XT's will be purchased from vendors using prices found in issues of "Byte" magazine from 1983, in order to help justify recent stamp price increases. Plans are also underway to enable postal workers to store computers containing valuable data under their porches and forget about them in case they feel overworked.

Frontpage

[fredan]

This news should be on the frontpage, so everybody can see this!

So what do they use?

[mandreiana]

Postfix or Sendmail? :-)

More of this to come

[Stevyn]

The argument brought up that even though linux is free, the cost of supporting it and switching over from windows is higher. However, in countries where even the price of windows is hugely discounted, it's still more than most people make in a week. Therefor, the relative cost of supporting it is less than in the US. I think linux and other OSS is going to gain popularity faster outside the US because of this.

Re:More of this to come

[superpulpsicle]

I am a little confused on this. I thought the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Program expires after 12 months. Then they end up paying. Well I am happy either way since M$ lost a deal.

Ah, I get it.

[Sierpinski]

Maybe they misunderstood someone talking about SuSe, and thought they said 'Sue Z'. In today's litigious society, who wouldn't be interested in that?

Web Server

[flood6]

Interestingly, their website [ceskaposta.cz] is hosted on a Windows box [delorie.com].

Re:Web Server

[mattyrobinson69]

I haven't looked, but theyre probably running Windows XP on the gateway machine to keep their network secure.

The webserver's probably running on openBSD

Re:Web Server

[flood6]

Well, in addition to the http headers, it is an .asp site, so I'm thinking it's on a Windows machine.

Re:Web Server

[mattyrobinson69]

it was a joke, who runs windows on anything to keep it secure? unless you mean secure from performance and stability.

Re:Web Server

[flood6]

It's funny how when I read it now, the ironic tone seems painfully obvious...

Well Done ...

[Damhna]

I am impressed by the scope of the project and the apparent ease with which it has been pulled off.

I've worked in and with several eastern european state sponsored organisations and it was the most godawful experience. Tenured civil servants with little impetues or motivation to change the status quo just love to block or ignore change until it either goes away or they retire. Co-ordinating between the number of people who need to sign off on even the most mundane aspects of organising just an infrastucture review can be one of the most challenging aspects to pulling this sort of project off.

Given that backround and the horrendously splintered and fractured set-up they appear to have had this project is nothing short of fantastic. It's the kind of thing we all read about in the text books and can make the correct arguements for. While switching an entire orgnaisation across is something we know to be possible and advantageous there are precious few opportunities for it to be implemented in the world.

So Bravo to the team , moving from fractured to streamlined centralised management , fine tuning processes and and trimming operations down is no small feat , particularly in the state environment.

On the Tech side , Bravo too , I would have stayed with the MS side but that's because it's my forte and I know I could have reduced costs in a comporable fashion. Hat's off though , such a shift in logic and thinking shows real .....em... balls!

Novell making good progress

[aldridge]

I am very happy with the progress Novell has been making with SuSE. More then a few people were worried about the takeover but it seems to only be getting better and better for SuSE. Novell seems to be doing a good job of marketing SuSE to businesses small, medium, and large.

Definitely front page material.