Microsoft Customer Solution Case Study

Leading Automotive Company Utilizes Microsoft and Novell Technology

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Automotive

Customer ProfileA leading automotive company serving the premium sector of the international automobile market that has operations in more than 150 countries supporting its three brands.

Business SituationWith the challenging situation in the automobile industry, BMW Group was seeking to lower the operating costs of its HPC environment and get improved technical support for its infrastructure.

SolutionNovell supported the standardization of BMW Group’s HPC platform on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and complemented this with additional Windows HPC Server 2008 licenses.

Benefits Improved ROI Lower subscription costs Flexible licensing Improved technical support

A leading automotive company serving the premium sector of the international automobile market has operations in more 150 countries supporting its three brands. The company was seeking to do more with its IT investments, get improved technical support for its high performance computing (HPC) Linux infrastructure, and simultaneously lower operating costs across its computing environment. To address these challenges, they standardized their HPC Linux platform on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.

SituationTo stay competitive in today’s challenging automobile industry, this leading automotive company focuses on a strategy of operating with cost efficiency while maintaining flexibility to address the evolving needs of the business. IT administrators manage a heterogeneous environment that includes both Windows Server and Linux. The company previously ran multiple distributions of Linux in the data center until two years ago when administrators standardized on SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell as the single Linux distribution. Considering the benefits the company achieved across its data centers in the two years since then, they were now seeking to lower the costs of maintenance and operational expenses across their HPC environment with the goal of doing more with less.

SolutionThe standardization of its HPC platform on Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server enabled the BMW Group to access an enhanced Linux support and to lower licensing and support costs. The Microsoft Certificate Program allowed them to more rapidly execute a strategy to standardize on a single Linux distribution and to acquire SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers for HPC at a much lower cost than Red Hat Linux. They also acquired Windows HPC Server 2008 licenses in the same purchase agreement, which allows the company to run several HPC applications in a Windows HPC Server 2008 environment. For example, these applications include an electromagnetic (EM) analysis software suite and some data conversion applications that convert data

collected during car driving experiments or documents in controller description formats into human readable PDF format.

BenefitsBy replacing Red Hat and standardizing its HPC Linux platform on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the leading automotive company has realized significant cost savings, and also benefits from the higher quality of Novell support. With improved support for its HPC Linux infrastructure, the company has simplified administration and maintenance and IT administrators have improved ROI because of the lower subscription costs and more flexible licensing of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. With Windows HPC Server 2008, the company also has the future potential to shift to dual-boot nodes of SUSE Linux Enterprise and Windows HPC Server 2008, so one cluster could be used for both operating systems.

By standardizing its HPC Linux infrastructure on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, this leading automotive company continues to stay competitive in today’s challenging automobile industry. By doing more with less, they have lowered the costs of maintenance and operational expenses across their computing environment.The Microsoft-Novell AgreementOn November 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market, and support new solutions to improve interoperability, deliver powerful new virtualization capabilities, make Microsoft and Novell products work better together, and give customers peace of mind that

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Novell products and services, visit the Web site at: www.novell.com

For more information about BMW Group products and services, visit the Web site at: www.bmwgroup.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April 2010

Software and Services − Windows HPC Server 2008

both companies stand behind the products they deliver. More information about the Microsoft and Novell agreement, including other customer announcements, can be found at http://www.moreinterop.com.

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