[dylug] China's biggest bank makes switch to Linux

China's biggest bank makes switch to Linux
Other banks expected to follow suit
 
SHANGHAI -- China's biggest bank plans to deploy Linux
on servers across its network of 20,000 national
branches in a project that may be the biggest Linux
deployment yet seen in China, according to an
executive involved with the deal.

Under the terms of an agreement announced yesterday,
the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
plans to gradually roll out Turbolinux Inc.'s
Turbolinux 7 DataServer operating system for all of
its front-end banking operations over a three-year
period. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

What makes this deal special is its size. With $640
billion in total assets, ICBC is China's biggest bank,
serving 100 million individuals and 8.1 million
corporate accounts at more than 20,000 branch offices
across China. When the project is completed, many of
ICBC's 390,000 employees will be accessing
applications hosted on Linux servers on a daily basis.

ICBC chose Linux in part because its existing
front-end applications, which were developed in-house,
run on The SCO Group Inc.'s SCO Unix, and migrating
them to Linux was determined to be an easier upgrade
path than switching the applications to Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows operating system, according to Claude
Zhou, general manager of Turbolinux China.

ICBC has been granted a site license, and front-end
applications based on Turbolinux 7 DataServer will be
rolled out on a "step-by-step" basis to all of ICBC's
20,000 offices, Zhou said. ICBC employees will access
the applications from terminals. "This is the biggest
Linux implementation in China," according to Zhou.

ICBC is in the process of choosing a systems
integrator to handle the project. Bank executives are
expected to announce their decision soon, Zhou said.
Officials from ICBC weren't available this week to
discuss the project.

ICBC isn't the only one of China's four main banks to
have decided to deploy Linux. For example, Bank of
China has deployed Linux distributions from Turbolinux
and Red Hat Inc. in regional projects.

More banks are expected to follow ICBC's lead with
large-scale Linux deployments, according to Zhou.
Agricultural Bank of China, another of the country's
top four banks, is expected to announce within the
next month a tender for a Linux site license that is
similar to the ICBC project, he said.

The fourth major bank, China Construction Bank, is
also expected to announce sometime this year plans to
move its IT systems to Linux, according to China's
state-run media.

The shift to Linux is driven by the banks' need for
better software performance and better vendor support,
said Nielse Jiang, an analyst at IDC in Beijing.
Currently, most of these banks are running their
applications on SCO Unix and they are looking to
upgrade their systems. "In China, SCO Unix offers very
weak support for customers; they have so few
employees," he said.

The banks have also opted for Linux because of lower
operating costs and the relative ease of porting their
applications from Unix to Linux, Jiang said. They also
pay close attention to what the other banks are doing.
"If one successful case has been implemented, the
other banks will consider doing that," he said.


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