Manufacturers of self-adhesive tape, double-coated tape mainly and high-performance specially tape for various industries.

We began to seek for possible solutions about 2 years ago as we felt the great load of Windows user license fee we need to bear each time for adding additional users.

We chose Linux over other platforms in comparable to security, stablility and most of all a very economical investment. Linux was a conceivable substitute.

At the same time we would like to have the Linux server as a fax server to automate some of the manual document delivery in order to streamline business process.

We have one office in Hong Kong and a factory in China with a total of 48 employees.

The scale of Linux implementation vs. Windows in our back-end infrastructure is 50% in hong Kong office, where there is a total of 2 servers with 1 running on Linux. And in our China office, there is only 1 Windows file server.

The type of services provided by ThizLinux server in Hong Kong is file with faxing capability.

With the fax application, users can respond promptly to customers and suppliers by a click of a button on their desktop. There is no need to print out the document and traveling to the fax machine. On the contrary, incoming fax can now directly accessed from users' desktops. This has reduced the degree of missing faxes.

This fax application is deployed company-wide. That means 100% deployment scope.

As for the Windows NT application server, since administrative jobs mainly are done by our colleagues in Hong Kong, there is the server with our accounting / ERP system.

Each office has its LAN. The two offices communicate with each other through VPN.

Since the backend operation of server is transparent to end users, therefore, users' interfaces to backend servers transition is minimal. As a matter of fact, users did not even realize they had already been switched to accessing their files from the Linux server. Therefore, the project planning was rather easy.

When we first deployed the Linux file server, we moved 30% of the users' data onto the Linux server for testing. The piloting period lasted for a month and afterward we transferred all users' data to the new server.

Only in the beginning after the fax server was implemented, some faxes did not successfully go through to the other sides. And the problem was because of the external modem. After the external modem replacement, the operation has been running smoothly ever since.

For the fax server, there were some trainings involved since users need to learn how to use the computer to send fax instead of the fax machine. Nevertheless, all colleagues were very fond of the new system and so the users' acceptance was very ideal.

Implemetation Process

For File Server
Step 1: ThizLinux Installation
Step 2: Samba configuration to setup users account on server
Step 3: Users' data migration

Samba is an open source suite that provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients (windows)

For Fax Server
Step 1: Hylafax (Linux based fax application) and modem configuration on server side
Step 2: Fax client software installation
Step 3: External modem hardware testing

In our cases, we did not have any major integration within the Linux architecture and with Window platform because the three servers each takes on different task and purpose. There was not concern with inter-opera ability.

As for hardware compatibility was not our major concern since we used a lot of generic hardware parts. Our disaster recovery plan is to make a ghost image of the current hard disk and backup all users data from all server with CD-R and place them in a different location.

Initially we thought of implementing a fax server was because we saw the business need of adopting a paperless environment to increase work efficiency. We also wanted to ensure no missing fax to avoid any loss of business opportunities, and to facilitate fast response to requests and inquiries. We are very satisfied with the delivered results. Staff are happy on saving time running between fax machine and their desks. Better still, there is no fixing machine problems such as paper jam and change of fax paper. Not to mention the saving on purchasing fax paper. More importantly, fax management is better and in a more orderly manner.

The fax server even greatly improves security while cutting the cost of manual document delivery.

Since have adopted the new ThizLinux server for about 2 years now. We are very pleased that our upfront investment on hardware and software saving was about 80%.

Castelle which is a third party fax application together with Windows server and users licensing fee for 13 users could have cost us about $30,000. However, it was about $3000 only for the total Linux solution. We now are not restricted to whether Microsoft supporting certain Windows version anymore.

In addition, there was saving on hardware as well because Linux doesn't require as much CPU power as Windows. A Celeron CPU was sufficient whereas with Windows, a intel PIII CPU would have been required.

Another benefit with Linux-based application is that we don't have to bear any mandatory third party software maintenance and upgrade. Third party fax application upgrade cost can be ranged from HK$8000 to HK$10000. It is hard to predict. We estimated the on-going maintenance fee over the 5 years period; we would have a saving of 65% on cost with Linux comparing to Windows with Castelle.

We are anticipating to extend the usage of Linux having our own email server and switching the China file server into Linux platform as well. We are even thinking to eliminate the Windows NT server and seeking for an accounting system running on Linux platform.