Siemens Business Services, the IT service provider unit
of Germany's Siemens, has completed the migration of its payroll
system to a platform using the open-source Linux operating
system.
The human resource application, SAP's mySAP HR, is now running
on the Linux Enterprise Server 8 software supplied by SuSE
Linux.
"This is the largest server farm to run a high-priority business
application on Linux software," said Christian Egle, a SuSE Linux
spokesman.
"Until now, we've seen companies deploy Linux for web services
and file transfer, but they've had their doubts about using the
software for mission-critical applications, such as payroll."
For the payroll application, serving 170,000 employees
worldwide, SBS has replaced server technology and Unix software
developed in the Siemens group with servers equipped with
processors from Intel running Linux software.
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 software will be the first
enterprise Linux platform to be certified by SAP for its mySAP.com
technology.
John Blau writes for IDG News Service
