Why Migrating from Proprietary Software to Linux Is Cutting Costs for Ecommerce

Migrating your eCommerce operation from proprietary software to Linux can reduce costs and provide a stable platform for expansion.

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Migrating your eCommerce operation from proprietary software to Linux can reduce costs and provide a stable platform for expansion.

Proprietary software to Linux Migration

Migrating eCommerce to Linux isn’t new; Amazon did it in 2001. At the time they saved $500 on software for each server, but the real driver was that they could use commodity X86 boxes rather than proprietary UNIX servers, saving around $50k per server.

A lot has changed since then. Commodity servers running Linux are the norm, virtualisation and Cloud services are common, but some organisations are still running UNIX or Windows systems because Linux migration seems like a lot of work and a big risk. It didn’t do Amazon any harm though, did it?

How it’s cutting costs

The first step to making savings is establishing where the money goes at the moment, and this varies from organisation to organisation, so a thorough assessment is needed.

●     Are your developers constantly tinkering trying to keep an old system on the road?

●     Is the operations team always adding new bits of hardware and changing the way things work to accommodate more customers and a wider range of services?

●     Is the whole thing becoming increasingly unstable, potentially costing you sales?

Who is saving?

Many eCommerce retailers have moved to Linux-based systems with great success by working with a Linux and Open Source IT Consultancies like LinuxIT.

NetPlayTV is the UK’s largest interactive TV gaming company developing interactive products people can play on TV, online and on their mobile.

NetPlayTV needed a proactive partner and a safe pair of hands for their Linux server estate working alongside their other technology partners.

NetPlayTV’s transformation

They wanted an organisation that could take over from their incumbent and provide them with a roadmap to transform their environment and move from manual to automated deployment. They also wanted a partnership which could help them grow their business giving them the ability and opportunity to make transformations to take them where they want to go as a business. Through our DevOps approach LinuxIT created a closer relationship as we work with NetPlayTV as part of their internal IT team.

LinuxIT recommended, planned and built Puppet recipes and then deployed replica estates into two new data centres to prove it works. As well as implementing other system management tools, NetPlayTV now has control over patch management because it is de-risked, repeatable and predictable. They now have a truly scalable solution to manage their business with.

LinuxIT managed the current environment, transformed it and managed through the transformation.

It is clear that removing unpredictability and risk, freeing staff from firefighting and allowing them to concentrate on improving operations and growing the business brought real benefits, lowering the TCO and delivering better ROI.