Open Source in the Enterprise Datacenter

At the start of BTR Services the core focus was on “Flexible staffing” to support customers with people and their knowledge. Common examples are profiles such as System engineers (Windows, Unix, Linux, Storage), Solution & Technical Architects, Infrastructure project managers, Service Managers …

With the financial crisis of 2008 up till now all financial institutions are facing more than ever the one problem of “doing more with less”. How to grow the business while decreasing costs but still minimizing risks? In these IT organizations more and more a transversal portfolio management is put in place in order to select and prioritize those projects that effectively will drive the business while adhering to existing and new compliance regulations.

Every IT manager today needs to focus on a timely execution of those projects and to ensure that the ROI (Return On Investment) goals are reached. As BTR Services is assisting Banks on their Transformation Road the Infrastructure division started two years ago to investigate how Open Source solutions could contribute to a lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and be implemented in large datacenters. 

Infrastructure Division of BTR Services tried to get answer to questions like: 

• Is open source ready for the Enterprise?
• How should it be implemented in large datacenters?
• What about high availability (HA) or management of hundreds of Linux servers?
• Is it really free?

A study of IDC (April 2011) reveals that not the (lower) cost of open source software is driving TCO but rather it is IT labor cost: better productivity and more flexibility, faster development.

Initially our Linux gurus explored the features and the limitations of Linux operating systems. They even discovered that virtualization is much more than just VMWare, there are alternatives out there …

In order to support our customers in their journey to Open source for the Enterprise we have developed the Information Management Maturity Model in order to implement and support Open source solution in large datacenters. This model is the foundation to build Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Backup/Restore, Identity management, security, middleware and Cloud Services.

In the solutions portfolio of this Information Management Maturity model you will find services like Assessment services, Architecture design services, Optimization services, Operational Management services, Subscription services, Maintenance and Upgrade services, Migration services …