Efficient platform management
Simplifying and automating its IT environment with a familiar core technology has helped Hotelplan Group adopt a new operating system for its SAP environment without extended onboarding needed to learn optimal management practices. “We found Red Hat Enterprise Linux easy to use because the handling and commands are so similar to CentOS, and it’s not too different from our old operating system. And Red Hat’s support responses have been very fast when we need assistance,” said Kalt.
Managing this new environment with Red Hat Satellite—and support from Red Hat’s technical experts—has helped Hotelplan Group quickly resolve issues and make updates to meet resource needs for business teams.
“With Satellite, we can use one tool to manage patches, licensing, and registration for our entire environment, and it’s compatible with the Puppet modules we use to distribute configuration files,” said Kalt. “Setting up a new server, for example, used to take us two days, and with Satellite it takes only two hours. We can now provide new application servers for the business much more quickly, so they can make changes faster.”
Stable, enterprise-ready technology also helps the company minimize risk of downtime or outages for its internal and customer-facing systems. “We can run the same Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 release, without having to upgrade the Linux kernel, for at least four years,” said Kalt. “The stability from less frequent major updates reduces risk—a really big benefit, because we have to be online 24x7. With the SAP variant of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we also gain access to a repository that ensures we have the right patches for the HANA platform.”
Red Hat Enterprise Linux migration reduces server footprint and optimizes customer applications
By migrating from UNIX to Linux, Hotelplan Group has reduced its SAP servers from 25 to 15—with better performance that supports SAP HANA’s in-memory technology.
“Due to Red Hat, we’ve been able to move to better x86-based hardware. We now have 600% more CPU cores and about 1000% more RAM,” said Kalt.
As a result, users of Hotelplan Group’s applications gain more accurate, up-to-date information on availability and options to inform their travel planning and booking.
“In the travel business, if you do an availability or price request, you often get answers from cached data. The more performance resources we have, the more often we can refresh those caches, improving service quality for the more than 3,300 users between Hotelplan Group and our travel agency partners,” said Kalt.
Lowered licensing and hardware costs with Red Hat software and x86 architecture
Migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux has also helped Hotelplan Group improve its licensing and hardware costs.
“By migrating to SAP HANA and Red Hat software, we save money,” said Kalt. “The HANA licensing cost is included in our main SAP license, with some additional spend.”
The company has also saved by switching to an operating system that is compatible with industry standard hardware. “By moving to Red Hat, we have also been able to move to more cost-effective, x86-based servers,” said Kalt. “We achieve higher performance with fewer servers, reducing our costs for licensing, power, and cooling.”