eBucks going open-source

2007-04-05 13:07

Staff writer

Johannesburg - eBucks, the rewards programme offered by First National Bank (FNB), is the latest South African business to turn its back on traditional software platforms such as Microsoft in favour of an open-source platform.

This comes after government announced in late February that all government departments would switch from Microsoft to the open-source Linux operating system in a bid to lower administration costs and enhance local IT skills.

eBucks is now being run on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and open-source servers in the form of Apache Tomcat and PostgreSQL. Local IT firm Obsidian Systems is providing the solution.

'Able to better serve'

"eBucks originally used a shared environment with FNB Internet Banking," said eBucks CIO Benjamin Marais in a statment. "However, as the business grew it became apparent that eBucks would have to move its applications onto separate software platforms and hardware.

"eBucks is able to better serve its hundreds of thousands of online users. Furthermore, the solution is saving the company money and time in terms of maintenance."

Obsidian worked closely with the eBucks team in planning and implementing the system, under the supervision of an in-house architect, and continues to provide live support. "The system was transitioned overnight," says Strauss. "This took place without any problems and no disruption to eBucks' users."

Marais says the system has been stable with minimum downtime since it went live in October 2006. "However, if were to go down, our back-up systems are up to date and will take over with minimum to no disruptions."

Housed at the FNB data centre in Johannesburg, eBucks' new systems have more than enough capacity to accommodate the company's growing user base for years to come, says Marais.

- Finance24