La migración de soluciones de computación y ofimática libres más grande de la historia según la prestigiosa revista Wired. Desde principios de la década de 2000, la Gendarmería francesa (uno de los dos cuerpos policiales en Francia, con la condición de militar) tomó la decisión de utilizar software OpenSource masivamente, desde el centro de datos hasta el escritorio. Actualmente la policía francesa utiliza 37.000 ordenadores que se espera serán 72.000 a la finalización de 2015. Los cálculos de lo ahorrado en licencias de software hasta el momento por la Gendarmería son del 40%. Aunque “los beneficios directos del ahorro en licencias son solo la punta del iceberg. Un escritorio Open Source industrializado es un impulso muy potente para la gestión IT“. Autor: Stephane Dumond (Gendarmería Francesa). Librecon.io

1. Gendarmeria Francesa
Linux on desktop : a success story
Comandante Stephane Dumond
stephane.dumond@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr
http://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th

2. ● Some background details
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
● Our main strategy
● The migration to Linux Ubuntu
● The benefits
Contents

3. Some background details
We are 95,000 !
Here
Here
Here
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
Here
Here
HeHreere
Here
Here

4. Each dot = a single police station !
Now let's count (please wait... it may
take a while...)
.
……
..
=> 4,300 LANs
On average, on each LAN :
Local link to the datacenter (located
near Paris) :
=> 1 Mb/s ADSL
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th

5. Some background details
● 2004 : the beginning of a major challenge
– each user must have an access to our private network (and ressources)
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
with a minimal investment
● From 20,000 users to 95,000
● Mail, calendar, internet access, file sharing...
● Thus, the IT is now one of the means to achieve the CEO's goals
● Ever-growing importance of IT on business-cases
● Nonetheless, each euro spent by IT teams must be fully explained

6. French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
● A full centralized system
– Data & business applications
● Access control
● Central management and development
● Knowledge concentration
● Local developments are granted
on specific demand
● A modular approach
– Applications are OS agnostic !
● The use of open standards
… leads to ...
Our main strategy
Paris

7. Our main strategy
… a massive use of Open-Source Softwares and a centralized supervision of the life-cycle of
desktops
● … incited by our Prime Minister (NOR : PRMX1234912C)
● A life-cycle desktops central management
– Centralized purchases
– Limited technical referential
– Tracking and treatment of main & residual constraints
– Choice of Internet technologies (web standards)
– Supervision of a decentralized architecture
– ITIL-based qualifying process
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th

8. The migration to Linux Ubuntu (step 1)
● A progressive migration during several years
– 2004 : the office suite (OpenOffice)
● 20,000 Microsoft Office suites => 90,000
OpenOffice suites
● OpenDocument (XML) became the base for our
internal official reports software
– 2006 : the web browser (Mozilla Firefox) and the mail
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
client (Mozilla Thunderbird)
– 2007 to 2008 : other softwares follows (VLC & Gimp)

9. The migration to Linux Ubuntu (step 2)
● 2008 : the french Gendarmerie is able to deploy Linux on
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
desktops !
– The choice of Ubuntu (8.04 LTS version)
– 5,000 new computers first... (hand-crafted phase)
– Then a large-scale deployment (industrialized phase)
● 2010 : industrialization preparation of the deployment of the
10.04 LTS (no more purchases - « freeze » step)

10. The migration to Linux Ubuntu (step 3)
● 2011, January 2012 December : delivery → of 30,000 new
GendBuntu computers to end-users (35,000 GendBuntu 10.04
LTS)
● 2013, March → 2013 June : WAN migration of GendBuntu 10.04
to 12.04, using the standard CANONICAL Ltd tool
● 2014, January : the last main constraint disapeared
– Beginning of the end of the migration : residual Windows XP
are massively replaced by GendBuntu (with new computers,
but not only!)
● 2014, June : 66,000 GendBuntu computers
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
(and also 10,000 Windows 7)

11. Nota bene : any similarity to the heart rate monitoring of the project leader is entirely coincidental...
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th

12. French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th

13. The benefits
● To stay independent from commercial decisions of software editors is
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
priceless !
● Direct benefits (licence costs) are only the tip of the iceberg :
– An industrialized Open-Source Desktop is a powerfull lever for IT
governance
– The desktop's TCO is lowered :
● By a ratio of 40 % between 2008 and 2014
– Licences cost
– Centralized reduced teams (easier management)
– Huge decrease of local technical interventions on Ubuntu's
desktops (HR savings)

14. The benefits
● « Snowden affair » : the use of open-source softwares is one of the ways to
really control the IT (and not to be controlled by your IT)
– A worldwide community
– The ability to do your own code analysis
● The capability to deploy new technologies with a controled cost
● A controled risk taking counterbalanced by a cheaper and closer premium level
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
of care

15. Finally...
● It is possible to deploy and manage thousands of Linux
computers on desktops (we did it !)
● … but the way to achieve such a goal is quite long and
difficult. And thus, the willpower of the CIO is
needed to lead to success.
● Fortunately, the efforts made for the Desktop
management help the CIO to structurate its IT
organization and by the way save time, HR and money
« What is important is not the choice you
make, but the capability to have the
choice ! »
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th
http://tux.crystalxp.net
The ultimate CIO
(Willpower lvl 60)

16. Gracias por su atención
French « Gendarmerie nationale »
Bilbao, 2014 November 11-12th