Mapping The Route To A Better Product

Article Supplied by Red Hat Inc. - success.redhat.com

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How do you find your way to making a good product even better? Make it with Red Hat Linux.

That's what Gena Warehouse did. And the GenaMap software package is now the first product of its kind to be designed for Red Hat Linux -- on Red Hat Linux.


Genawarehouse website www.genawarehouse.com

Marketing manager Sara Thompson says Gena's developers enjoy working with Red Hat Linux. "Because the system's so stable," Sara says, "we find that we can get the work done much more quickly and efficiently. Stability and reliability is our number one priority."

GenaMap is open, full-function Geographical Information System software, and is used widely by the military, in industry, in urban and municipal planning, in any situation where extremely detailed mapping is necessary. It's a powerful tool -- and it needs an operating system that's just as powerful. In Red Hat Linux, GenaMap has found an ideal platform.

"Our customers really like the speed and stability of running our software on Red Hat Linux," says Sara. "One customer reported running up an extremely complicated map in fifteen seconds -- and he just couldn't believe it worked that fast."

"Topological processing and verifying of 25,000 detailed topographic maps of varying scale was 7 and 1/2 times faster on a Pentium III 450mhz PC using Red Hat Linux than on a Unix Workstation," Sara says. "We've run general timing tests in our offices processing complex raster maps containing satellite imagery using NT and Red Hat Linux on similar PC's and have found that Red Hat is between 5 and 7 times faster."

One satisfied customer is the city of Bloomington, Indiana. "We've made a strategic commitment to open source platforms and solutions for our IT infrastructure," says Michael Chui, Bloomington's Chief Information Officer, "and GenaMap works great for us. It's the only GIS out there that's designed for Linux." An efficient, affordable GIS package is becoming an essential tool for city governments, helping officials keep track of zoning, of urban planning, of infrastructure issues.

In these days of tight city budgets, the system must provide top value, and cost is one important factor that drew Michael's attention. "With the savings we're attaining with Red Hat Linux and our use of Linux-compatible software like GenaWare, we're able to deploy more redundant hardware. It's extremely cost-effective -- and it really works for us." GenaMap 7.2 is the first Red Hat Linux-compatible release for GenaWare -- and all future versions will be available for Linux users as well.

Mapping a better product today, to build a better future for tomorrow.

Red Hat maintains a collection of stories of customers whose success depends on Red Hat's products and services. This article and many others are available at success.redhat.com