FAA saves $15 million by migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux
[Posted April 28, 2006 by cook]
               
               
 
| From: |  | "John Terrill" <JTerrill-AT-SHEAHEDGES.com> | 
| To: |  | <lwn-AT-lwn.net> | 
| Subject: |  | FAA saves $15 million by migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 
| Date: |  | Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:30:41 -0400 | 
Caroline Kazmierski
Red Hat
919-754-4369
carolinek@redhat.com
Stephanie Stadler
SheaHedges Group
703-287-7819
sstadler@sheahedges.com
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION SAVES $15 MILLION BY MIGRATING TO RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX
FAA achieves 30 percent more operational efficiency for 50 percent less cost 
RALEIGH, NC - April 26, 2006 - Red Hat (NASDAQ: RHAT), the world's leading provider of open source
to the enterprise, today announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) saved the federal government more than $15 million in datacenter operating and
upgrading costs by migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The FAA executed a major systems
migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one-third of the original scheduled time and with 30
percent more operational efficiency than the previous system. In addition, by switching to Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, the FAA realized 50 percent savings and spent less than $10 million on a project
initially estimated at $25 million.
The FAA accommodates more than two million passengers on domestic airlines every day. With roughly
8,000 airplanes in the air at any given time, the successful execution of the FAA's mission largely
depends on the highly complex Traffic Flow Management (TFM) infrastructure and its real-time
Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS). When the administration embarked on a technical refresh
effort for the TFM and ETMS, the FAA faced significant implementation time along with a high price
tag.  
"There is no room for error or down time in our systems," said Joshua Gustin, TFM-Modernization
program manager, FAA. "When we first considered  refreshing our entire system, we were looking at
$25 million in costs and 18 months to full deployment. By switching to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we
were able to spend less than $10 million and accomplish a major system modernization in one-third
that time.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux fixed our problems of reliability and scalability, and gives
us the support we need to reduce our risk."
The FAA deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux first in its remote computing locations and later moved
Red Hat Enterprise Linuxto its central processing facility located at the Department of
Transportation's Volpe Center.  By migrating from a costly UNIX platform to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux on its workstations, servers and at the hub site, the FAA was able  to eliminate costs and
ineffective systems, while creating a scalable architecture that met their high-demand environment
today and for the future.
The FAA also used Red Hat onsite training during the modernization project to effectively
transition  engineers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux through the Red Hat Certified Engineer program.
"For training, we decided more was better, particularly with the developers," said Gustin.  "As a
result, we made training a priority, and it has really paid off."  
"The FAA's successful and impressive migration truly exemplifies the value, performance and
security of Red Hat Enterprise Linux," said Paul Smith, vice president of government sales
operations, Red Hat.  "There are scores of agencies across the entire federal government, as well
as state and local governments in all 50 states that are moving Unix-like capabilities to Linux on
commodity hardware.  The fact that Red Hat delivers a platform for better total cost of ownership,
throughput, and credentials for strong security makes it the obvious choice when agencies look at
either a technical refresh or infrastructure modernization." 
To learn more about the FAA's migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, read the case study and view
the video testimonial, please visit http://www.redhat.com/.
### 
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John Terrill
SheaHedges Group
703.287.7825 (Direct)
570.772.3286 (Cell)
jterrill@sheahedges.com
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Suite T410
McLean, VA 22102
703.287.7800 (Main)
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