UAE Exchange says it has created a high-performance and scalable data centre environment after consolidating its IT infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The money transfer company, which has more than 600 branches across 30 countries, had been relying on distributed IT systems, comprised of servers running various versions of UNIX, before wanting a single system that would scale its operations and open new branches.

In particular, it needed a system that would support web-based applications for news services such as payment for credit cards, utility bills, subscriptions and airline tickets.

UAE plumped for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which was installed onto its servers in less than a week with the help of Red HAT Satellite.

"The value of Red Hat Consulting lies in the team’s ability to expertly aid the implementation while conveying best practices," Sarath Chandra, the CIO of UAE Exchange, said.

"Despite our own team being very technically proficient, their exposure was limited to working within our environment. So the additional knowledge provided by Red Hat’s industry experts helped us in a number of areas such as configuration, fine tuning, performance management and security. It was also a pride point for us as we could then match our systems to global benchmarks."

As a result of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server environment, UAE Exchange’s new branches can now simply ‘plug and play’ to the IT infrastructure to get their services up and running.

The system’s scalability and reliability are also proven as it allows up to 90,000 users to connect at any given time, according to UAE Exchange.

By using Red Hat Satellite with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the IT team can also control the system with ease, with provisioning, configuration and the automation of routine tasks, such as patch management, simplified.

Jim Totton, VP of Red Hat’s Platform Business Unit, said: "UAE Exchange’s success is a perfect example of how the right IT investments can be turned into a platform for business development and innovation. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has offered the stability, flexibility, security and performance necessary to power UAE Exchange’s aggressive expansion."

As an added benefit, the security benchmarking and hardening of the operating system conducted by Red Hat Consulting helped the exchange to meet the stringent requirements of the ISO 27001 certification,