“Komatsu Mining Systems Inc. builds mining equipment, such
as dump trucks, tractors and excavators, but the IT managers in the
company’s engineering department didn’t have to dig deep to find
reasons to begin using the Linux operating system for
mission-critical applications. The promise of more control
over their computing environment was all it took to persuade
Komatsu IT managers to use the open-source MySQL database
management system, running on Version 6.2 of Red Hat Inc.’s Red Hat
Linux and servers from Penguin Computing Inc. as the foundation of
a major online, spare-parts cataloging and tracking
application.”
“The application is critical to Komatsu because the mining
equipment it makes typically remains in service for up to 80,000
hours — anywhere from five to 10 years. Even as newer models come
off the assembly line, Komatsu must still be able to locate parts
for older machinery, as well as design-related documents,
blueprints, schematics and analysis documents. The 150 members of
Komatsu’s engineering department, in Peoria, Ill., access the PDF
and PostScript files in the database every day using applications
developed in-house.”
“[Komatsu analyst Jose] Santiago said that, so far, he’s
satisfied with Linux’s scalability. Even with hundreds of thousands
of records generated by his applications, Linux and the MySQL
database can handle them. And, Santiago said, scalability will only
get better as Linux matures. “We’re not doing banking, so if I lose
a transaction, it’s not a showstopper,” Santiago said. “If we were
more transaction-critical, that may cause us to consider something
like Oracle or Informix.”