Tux Watch

According to the Red Hat Website [here], the Swedish Armed Forces have made the decision to migrate their servers from Windows NT to Red Hat Enterprise Linux thus replacing Windows NT with Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its core IT infrastructure. The decision by Swedish authorities is driven by security considerations.

According to the agreement between both parties, the IT department of the Swedish Armed Forces, FMLOG Servicedesk will be offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions to any division or branch of the Swedish military. Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system is already deployed on nearly 200 servers running in-house developed software within the core IT infrastructure of the Forces. The decision to migrate to Red Hat has taken into account security features, support, migration and compatibility with existing in-house software

“There has been a demand for Linux within the Swedish Armed Forces for quite some time, which is why we’ve now decided to enter this deal. The primary reasons for us choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux were the product lifecycle as well as Red Hat’s position as the leading open source provider. What also affected the decision was the fact that Red Hat Enterprise Linux was fairly easy to migrate and is compatible with our in-house-developed programs,” said

According to Jonna Lidman of the Swedish Armed Forces headquarters,there was already a demand for Linux within the Swedish Armed Forces that catalysed the Red Hat and the Forces to enter this deal lead by the fact that Red Hat Enterprise Linux was fairly easy to migrate and is compatible with their in-house-developed programs.

“At a time when there is a lot of hype around new proprietary operating system launches, the decision of the Swedish Army to migrate from Microsoft to open source is a major testament to the flexibility, control and security of open source software,” commented Werner Knoblich, VP, EMEA at Red Hat.

“We are very happy to see that yet another company within the public sector has chosen Red Hat. The fact that the Swedish Armed Forces commit to Red Hat Enterprise Linux shows once again that it is a secure platform with high demands on availability and flexibility. The selection of Red Hat by the Swedish Armed Forces follows a number of public sector Linux projects in Sweden, paving the way for wider adoption within the Swedish government.”

A round of applause for Red Hat Inc from TuxWatch.com!