Success stories

The main problem is that applying system patches inside a same service and among environments takes too much time, that is, since the beginning of a patch applying cycle in the development environment till the reaching of the production environment, weeks and almost months have gone by, which makes it impossible to maintain the same level of versions if the Internet repositories of the Linux distribution -RedHat Network in this case- are being used.

Inside BU we studied deeply this particular case and the needs of our client and we presented our proposal, which consisted in implementing RedHat Satellite 6 so the versions lifecycle could be managed and controlled in a centralized way for all the services and environments. That resulted in an implementation in different locations of Satellite Capsules in order to guarantee the availability of the service as well as an optimum performance for all of their worldwide data centers.

We decided to go for the version 6 of Satellite even though it was released in those dates (version 6.0.0), assuming the problems and errors that always go with totally fresh releases. During the project implementation, the platform was being updated and stabilized, as long as issues were being solved until we had it fully implemented and deployed in all of the systems in a stable way as we committed.

Nowadays the lifecycle of Grifols GNU/Linux operating systems is being managed with Satellite 6 in all of their data centers, reducing the amount of time needed in patch applying, incrementing the security and minimizing the maintenance windows, with a more accurate control of all of their GNU/Linux machines.

“The implementation of RedHat Satellite 6 allowed us to achieve balanced and maintained landscapes among time, guaranteeing updates in a totally controlled, centralized and safe manner all along our worldwide GNU/Linux machines.
Its implementation, along with BU team, has been successful and the results show us that the decision of implementing the 6th release has been appropriate.”
- Fabio Ferraro (Business Platforms Area Manager)

“Our Linux platform was beginning to take flight, and the applications installed on it increased in criticality. It was essential to had a tool that allows a quick and effective recovery of our equipment, especially in an environment controlled and validated such as pharmaceuticals. The DRLM implementation have completely covered the requirements.”
- Fabio Ferraro (SAP/UNIX Project Manager at Grifols)

Grifols already had a solution to restore the system in case of disaster for their proprietary Unix systems, but could not find a solution that meets the expectations for the new projects in GNU/Linux.
We did a study of Grifols needs and we presented the proposal that best fits their expectations. After passing all required validations by the customer testing phase, DRLM was implemented as GNU/Linux Disaster Recovery tool in all their Datacenters.

“While we were in the middle of a pharmacy industry validation process the decision to migrate linux backup to DRLM was taken because our previous linux backup/restore solution was not working as expected. We needed to get DRLM implemented and with no delay start the DRLM validation. I was afraid that all the effort to keep the project scheduling could be jeopardized by the decision to change the linux backup/restore solution to DRLM but it was set-up on time and we could finish the validation process on time. This was our first success with DRLM.”
- Ernest París (Infrastructure Administrator at Grifols)

Currently DRLM ensures the recovery of the Grifols GNU/Linux operating system giving forntend, middleware (Weblogic / JBOSS) and backend services (Oracle Database, Oracle RAC, SAP HANA) in all its data centers.

“GRIFOLS has always relied on proprietary UNIX systems for critical production systems, also implementing proprietary solutions for managing backup and effective disaster recovery.
Those proprietary systems are expensive, and going to OpenSource solution systems like Linux, could not be addressed without the same levels of management and administration that a company like Grifols requires for critical processes, since the quality is not negotiable.
Grifols has enjoyed the experience and professionalism of BU to find quality solutions for Linux systems and design an architecture of confidence with the same or better levels of management and administration than which they were using with proprietary systems.
Therefore, to manage backups of operating systems was implemented the DRLM tool to centrally perform backups, also ensuring quick recovery of these DR backups with the required flexibly. All with a high level of automation, allowing to reduce the administration costs.”
- Lluís Florido Robert (Corporate Applications Infrastructure Manager at Grifols)

“After a period of research in a Linux disaster recovery solution that covers all our needs, having tested several proprietary alternatives, we see clearly that our solution was DRLM.
Besides being the only solution that has proven to cover all our requirements in terms of technology, DRLM is a fully standards-based solution, this ensures unrivaled flexibility to adapt to the environment and facilitates product management vs. proprietary solutions.
For us DRLM has proved to be: Robust, flexible, standard, ultimately a success.”
- Salvador Muntané Sanegre (Unix Systems Administrator at Grifols)

They contacted us because it required a team with solid knowledge of both, Solaris and GNU/Linux, to ensure a smooth migration.
BU team proposed them migrate to RedHat Linux systems with Cluster Suite on x86 platform. We implemented 2 cluster of 2 nodes, one for the SAP service and the other for the InterSystems Caché service who passed the tests of availability and performance established within the project.

Currently They have the required availability needs, better performance and lower costs towards propietary systems that had before.

We offered them an Open Source solution that would maintain the existing UPS, greatly reducing costs.
The implemented solution was NUT (Network UPS Tools) and was integrated with the existing monitoring system based on Nagios, which allowed an immediate benefit on the incidents administration and management.

They currently have an orderly automated shutdown of its data center in case of electrical system fall, significantly reducing the risk of data loss and corruption and can detect any UPS problem their from its monitoring tool.