Linux goes mission-critical for Danish government
The Ministry of Finance in Denmark has implemented an open-source project to simplify data exchange between systems. The data-exchange system uses open-source application server JBoss running on Red Hat Linux. It transmits 1.5 megabits of data per second between around 400 public institutions and the ministry, according to a Computer Science Corporation (CSC) report on open source.
Peter Henningsen, the data-exchange project manager at the Ministry of Finance, said the open-source combination was chosen over Microsoft's systems integration application BizTalk Server.
The main reason for the choice was cost -- the project budget was only two million Danish Kroner (around £183,800). Henningsen pointed out that JBoss is a stable platform, which was essential for the mission-critical application.
Prior to the project, a range of technologies were used for data exchange: CD-ROMs, FTP to a mainframe computer and replication between Microsoft SQL server databases. The purpose of the project was to unify the data-exchange systems and enable the exchange of XML formatted data.
