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EDS: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable
daria42 writes "Large enterprises should not use Linux because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems and could fork into many different flavours, according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC."
... of losers to Linux. :-)
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
No chance of any anti-linux bias from any of that lot, eh? :)
So.. it has come to this
In relation to the spirit of this article.
In an industry where companies distort facts, thwart community efforts, it can be hard to know who to trust and what to believe. I think it is times like these when we the Open Source/Linux community can compare itself most closely with other changes and booms in society's history.
Think of all the doomsayers who like to say "The sky is falling" around times of economic uncertainty and social change. In the end, the ones who take the risks during those times, usually come out ahead.
I consider the Open Source community to be the "risk takers" per say of our time. I don't think that we'll end up on the wrong side of the fence when all is said and done. But if we do, so be it! At least we tried to make something better of the world. Something that gives rather than takes.
I don't think we should spend so much time reading articles like this that give us the attitude that the sky is falling. We should spend more time celebrating Linux and Open Source and leading the way to what will come next. We need to be leaders not Doomsayers.
If you want to read a good article on why open source is the right way to do things, read this Peruvian Congressman's letter to the manager of Microsoft in Peru. Really great read.
Interesting how all of them just might have a teensy > agenda of their own which is threatened by Linux in its ascendancy, huh?
Yawn.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And in other news, McDonalds sez "Burger King is bad for you! Try our new salads!"
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Why do people mention forking as a problem? If a new version forks off and you don't like it, just don't use it! Why is this a bad thing?
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Who could imagine Sun and Microsoft speaking out against Linux... Just Shocking!
The Answer
Phew! Thanks for telling me. I'll get right on the phone with our MS rep to let them know we'll be renewing that contract...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Naturally EDS has financial interests in saying such things. They're a company that makes millions off of companies by pushing proprietary software.
It's no suprise that Netcraft shows them as being hosted on IRIX, Solaris and now Windows; they just don't know anything else. Stodgy suits making backdoor deals with Microsoft to push MS product into companies they consult to.
If your company uses EDS, be aware that your best interests are not on their radar.
"Those who can, do; those who can't work at EDS."
I think this is a fair summary. But really, Microsoft, I see you listed. Is Windows more secure? Is Windows more scalable? I mean, they know as well as we do about the possibilities of it splitting into multiple varieties, but aside from that...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
In other news:
Democrats advise constituents against voting Republican.
Apple recommends iTunes users to purchase iPod.
McDonald's suggests that Burger King's fries are bad for your heart.
Snowball introduced to hell. Snowball melts.
Sun rises in east for 1,324,408,203rd consecutive day.
Thomas Galvin
If Microsoft were the subject of this, how soon would some sort of slander or liable lawsuit follow?
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Perhaps the key is the company most conspicuous by its absense: IBM, who competes with all of them.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Obviously, I thought the study was biased, looking at the list of supporting companies. But then I RTFA:
The alliance comprises a group of IT hardware and software firms that have combined their expertise and products to help EDS create 'best of breed' solutions and compete with the likes of IBM Global Services and Hewlett-Packard for the most lucrative government and enterprise contracts.
Well, if Microsoft wants a lucrative government contract, clearly the organization that is supporting this move is going to decry the competition to push its own agenda.
Why do people even listen to these organizations? I suppose you know their bias from the outset, rather than having to 'read between the lines' of other organizations.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
From TFH:
From TFA:
Fuji Xerox = Oracle?
and just shook your head and didn't have anything to say?
That article was the worst.
This is just more proof that EDS ain't worth a poop.
"From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment. We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. We are quite cautious about Linux and its deployment," said Rasmussen.
What?
-- Bryan
I would not consider someone who would refer to Linux as a language, as Mr. Rasmussen did, to be terribly knowledgeable about this things.
~*~ Tara
FTA:
"according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Fuji Xerox, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC."
Where did the inclusion of Oracle in the post come from? It is not currently mentioned in the linked article, in either the quote or anywhere else
How long are we gonna let people say things like this before something happens? I'm sure the big corporate Linux distro's like Red Hat, Suse, etc. could possibly be losing a lot of money from these sort of lies. How come none of them are stepping up and putting in a lawsuit or two? Does the entire Linux community need to start taking up donations to defend itself through advertising (something like a SpreadFirefox.com)?
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The top arcticle on Slashdot states:
..and the one below it states:
;)
EDS: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable
Google and Their Server Farm
Google is small, they always get hacked and their search engine doesn't scale. QED.
A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment.
I think that pretty much says it all. This is a quote from one of the people we're to take advice from...
The article, or at least the people putting forth their thesis (I call bullhockey, it's really more of an agenda) do much to discredit themselves with claims such as:
I don't know exactly what they mean by "splintered", but working in the Unix field now for twenty-plus years, I never experienced:
I don't find or see anything enlightening or new in the article, and walk away shaking my head when these kinds of observations get any press at all.
Unlike Windows wich is secure (XP SP1 box is compromised in 18 min when online), scalable (try running ANY version of windows on more then 2 processors), and has never been forked into multiple flavors (NT, 95/98, ME, XP Home/Pro/Corp).
Yawn..
is making it into everyday use!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
the same EDS that charged billions for systems that don't work, and they still get more contracts ?
in todays world incompetance is rewarded and responsibility has all but evaporated in buisness
get rich and fuck over your friends, family,community and society in general cos that 30,000 sqft house is more important
perhaps a sniper rifle and vigilanties would put management and their families into line
Agile for dinosaurs, I guess.
EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, and EMC are not names I associate with agility. It would be like IBM, Exxon-Mobile, GE, and Wal-Mart getting together and calling themselves the "Lightweight League of Business".
That is all.
Back in 1996 EDS declared IE to be the "standard" browser for use on all internal machines. When those of us who were using Sun boxes asked "What about us?", the reply was "We have Sun users?"
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
for doing an extremly lack luster job right? The same EDS that I have had to waste time after time dealing with their 'enterprise' people that have no idea how computers work right? Sheesh Id sooner take advice from Unisys.
I doubt all of the members actually agree on this. Oracle has been pimping their stuff on Linux pretty hard lately, and Linux is what they actually do their development on now.
Cisco has been using linux in several of their products, including the cache engine card that fits in 2600/3600 routers, the WLSE, the Airespace stuff they just bought, and a bunch of other stuff.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I'm not against a study finding faults with Linux. But when you see something like "which includes IT heavyweights...Microsoft" it kind of makes it hard to take seriously.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
There's nothing in Linux except the kernel.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Is this the general opinion of the Alliance, or just the opinion of one clueless spokesperson?
Just do a search on EDS and "NMCI" - the Navy - Marine Corps Intranet. Fucked up (and is still fucking up) big on that.
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I'll really glad such a magnanimous and unbiased group of companies were nice enough to let me know to stay away from Linux. I might have made a bad mistake and started using Linux. I guess I'll just have to stick with FreeBSD.
This is hardly a unbiased group. They all are joining together to fight Linux. Not that they like each other. Solaris 10 have more functionality than Linux? That's a laugh. Why is Sun borrowing ideas from Open Source and Linux?
How elegant. Linux is the kernel, so claiming that Sun forked "everything in Linux but the kernel" reduces to "Sun forked everything in Linux but Linux" and thus "Sun forked nothing." This is entirely true, but it still manages to perpetuate the myth that Sun is damaging Linux. Simply masterful. I think you have a future, perhaps in the PR department of a major political party.
No chance of the reverse from this crowd?
Each claim should be evaluated regardless of messenger. If the claims don't make sense, there's no reason to immediately dismiss them because you know you're right. Instead, address them. Yes, there are cases where Linux is insecure and unscalable. There are cases where it is more secure and more scalable.
We should adopt more balanced opinions around here. Unfortunately, what will happen is that people will counter the article's reactionary opinion with an opposite reactionary opinion.
It's like hearing what the leader of China thinks about Democracy as a competing form of nation-state rule.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Did George W. Bush take a job with their speech writing lackeys?
"Powers. I have them."
This is just more proof that Linux has arrived on the scene as a real contender in the IT world. I remember when I first heard of Linux, there were literally daily changes being released for the kernel and things were seemingly in a constant state of flux. At the time I was using OS/2, but I was curious enough to keep an eye on Linux and where it was going. Years later, when it really mattered, the choice was simple, Linux. Why? I work in an environment where I'm an army of one and costs and security are very important. Windows just wasn't the best choice for what I needed to build and the budget I had. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought that way! So called studies that refute what frontline IT people see everyday in the field just prove the desperation of those threatened by Linux and the overall free open source movement. If they're smart, eventually they'll learn to live with and perhaps profit from it, but right now they seem more interested in stopping it through FUD and legislation.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
..that Linux is unscalable.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
I was just reading about Orion Multisystem's cluster desktops. These have from 12 to 96 CPUs clustered in one easy to use desktop system. Of course they run Linux.
Then I click over here and learn that Linux has "scalability problems."
I've yet to see any version of Windows scale to 96 processors in a single desktop! Not that it'd be worth it anyway, as the cost for Windows alone would probably exceed $20,000!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Was there a preliminary report to this one that studied how Linux affected/eroded their business models? Perhaps they saw that Linux provided a very powerful base for NEW technologies to leverage it as a great springboard for potentially competing products. This report didn't make it out, but now they are on this bandwagon.
Do they cite an alternative that is better? I guess since Windows XP supports two processors (wow) they must be. Microsoft is also renowned for security (e.g. IIS, IE, Word, Exchange) so this MUST be what they are getting at.
I have to add that this comes across as a bit of a surprise from an Oracle backed group after seeing 5 years of Oracle adds on the back of the Economist magazine:
"Unbreakable Linux"
"Powerful Linux" - ok I made that one up
"Unbeatable Linux" - and that one but you get the point
I guess now we can look forward to Oracle adds reading:
"Unscalable Lnx"
"Breakable Li n - u x"
"Beatable linux"
And in other news, IBM disagrees.
Hunger is the best sauce.
Apache is a fork from NCSA.
Firefox is a fork from Mozilla.
Cinepaint is a fork from Gimp.
What do these have in common?
They are all successful forks because they are all OSS and that they share code/ideas.
In contrast, the Unixes are good examples of code that started open, but was closed. Upon doing so, each fork of ideas,API was bad news. A better one is SMB. It was developed by IBM, IIRC. Yet, MS forked it and created network neighborhood. Doing samba and other apps to interoperate with it, is very difficult.
So no. Forking in OSS is not bad. Forking closed source, or forking and then closing it (as would happen with BSD) does cause problems
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Its amazing how many misinterpretations of posts there are from people here.
I bet that if Obi Wan Kenobi posted a comment on slashdot like:
"Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Luke Skywalker's father"
10 people would reply to his post saying that he is using the wrong wording because he didn't actually murder him. Then Obi Wan would have to qualify his wording by saying "Its true, from a certain point of view."
Sheesh. Give me a break people.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1732672,00.as p
Most of the desktop computers in the UK's Department for Work and Pensions were paralyzed for four days on Monday, when a failed upgrade took them offline. The outage, covering 75 percent to 80 percent of the DWP's 80,000 PCs, is one of the largest in the UK government's not entirely impressive IT history.
And possibly one of the most costly. According to staff reports, the outage occurred on Monday afternoon, disconnecting staff e-mail, benefits processing, and Internet and intranet connectivity. According to one, a limited network upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP was taking place, but instead of this taking place on only a small number of the target machines, all the clients connected to the network received a partial, but fatal, "upgrade."
Another source says that the DWP was trialing Windows XP on a small number ("about seven") of machines. "EDS was going to apply a patch to these. Unfortunately the request was made to apply it live and it was rolled out across the estate, which hit around 80 percent of the Win2K desktops. This patch caused the desktops to BSOD and made recovery rather tricky as they couldn't boot to pick any further patches or recalls. I gather that [Microsoft Corp.] consultants have been flown in from the U.S. to clear up the mess." EDS is also thought to be flying in fire brigades.
Jason Lotito
Microsoft has a whold department dedicated to securification and other securifying type stuff.
I'm pretty sure they're using Linux in the context of GNU/Linux in this case. As in Linux distributions, not specifically and entirely the kernel.
"You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
And now a message from the national apple society:
FUCK PEARS!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Oracle is NOT mentioned in the actual article. Oracle is part of all this in some fantasy world, called Slashdot.
NOT mentioned in the actual article. Remember? You're reading Slashdot...
http://grids.itmanagersjournal.com/article.pl?s
"More than half of the [world's] fastest supercomputers -- which recently might be more accurately described as super clusters that are assemblies of many lower-power processors -- run on Linux, and Top 500 super list co-compiler and original editor Erich Strohmaier does not foresee any change in the open source operating system's dominance anytime soon."
charlie harvey's website
Anybody want to buy a used Linux license?
Isn't this more or less precisely what the Linux community has been saying about Windows?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Just wondering...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Rick Inatome (CompUSA founder) soundly lost a debate to a Honeywell and an IBM jurassic defenders I attended back in the 1980's at WSU with the conclusion being that microcomputers (not really called PC's yet) were amateur level while big iron will be needed to run important business matters into the forceeable future. Well that was one version of myopia and Sun/EDS suffer from another.
A consortium of companies competing with Linux said don't use Linux. There's a surprise.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
... when they say "Linux", do they mean any particular distribution, or is it a total generalization about the whole subject?
.. I dare say that the NSA's work on Linux has resulted in quite a secure operating system, were one to use their distribution.
.. none whatsoever. No point arguing, it will not change 30 years of experience with reality. Every Sysadmin/Unix Guru/Linux type I've met, who was able to think in terms of "de-tar -> working system", was a guaranteed viable hire, while those who parrot the distro 'truths' are generally junior-qualified, at best, and will probably need to be watched..
I think its that latter, which is interesting, because it belies a weakness in one of Linux' primary strengths: poor brand control.
Let me explain: In fact, 'some' distributions of "Linux" are very insecure, and forked, and quite bogus when it comes to Enterprise computing.
However, we all know this doesn't apply to "All if Linux"
It is interesting, however, that the argument is being made on "Enterprise" buttons.. the "insecurity of some distributions of Linux" is being used as a straw-man to divert managers' attention away from the very powerful fact of Linux in the Enterprise: any Enterprise which rolls its own Linux is going to have a superlative installation of the operating system.
As I have stated before, to me "Enterprise Linux" means rolling your own, plain and simple. Dufus admins may complaing "but this is too hard for us poor lowly administrators", but as I cut my teeth in big-iron Unix computing environments in the 70's, 80's, 90's and naughties, I have seen one kind of sysadmin to treasure and one to 'train', and the difference is on whether they can, in fact, assemble their own working installation/build from scratch, on a virgin disk/hardware configuration.
Whether or not a 'roll your own' is even 'thinkable' in a circumstance of computing use is, to me (and every Enterprise I've worked for/in) the standard which defines "enterprise" versus "personal/artistic" computing.
So, attacking Linux on its 'brand reality' and making overly generalized statements on 'the whole Linux scene' is to me a curious tactic, overlooking entirely that the best OS install for Enterprise is one hand-assembled by competent systems administrators.
(No, I do not personally think there is any argument for "competent systems administrator" not to include in its definition 'able to assemble and consequently administer own OS build'
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
about google's server farm - one of the biggest linux server parks and argueable the most famous search engine with incredibly great overall-performance.
*rofl*
... bullshit! As well all the other major enterprises that have many thousants of deployed Linux boxen running business-critical software. These folks use Linux because 1) it's much more secure and securable than the competition, 2) it scales massively, 3) they can have their own fork (e.g. apply security patches, performance changes, etc. to the current production kernel version on their schedule, not some vendor's). Isn't it ironic how some of the uses of having your own "fork" improve scalability and security. 8-)
Let's not forget that it's far cheaper than the proprietary competition even for all of those benefits.
The management console on the switches use linux to configure the switch. So if it is so insecure, why would they use linux?
The company that I work for, is currently moving everything they can over to smaller faster machines running linux instead of the larger more expensive and slower Sun equipment.
Didn't you know that Linux is the word of God? Linus and RMS are holy angels and we must worship their likeness in temples all over the world! If you don't use Linux YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!! A little man at a gas station in Kansas told all this too me, but I kept it secret until now. I wasn't sure if people would think I was crazy, but there is no doubt now. Anything that is not Linux is a false OS, and anyone worshipping false idols will be turned into salt! If you use Linux you will be given 20 virgins, not in the afterlife, but RIGHT NOW in your basement while your mom is at work! That's right! Use Linux and get saved and laid! Okay, I'll stop now.
I disagree...
...
According to a friend of mine, Fedora Core already comes with SElinux.
People who take any pride in using their boxes properly tend to use SElinux or GRsecurity already.
Mail-servers, web-servers, browsers, and name-servers all come in multiple-process priv-dropping forms. (Or, better: don't bother fork()ing all over the place, just setuid() where you need to, to isolate modules of code in-process, for speed.) We have far more than just priv-dropping protections up our sleeve, too: propolice patches to GCC, kernel patches for virtualization (ctx, xen, UML),
So quit pontificating and apply pressure on your favourite distribution purveyor(s) to include these things by default and get out and educate the mass of people who'll only turn GNU/Linux into the next Windoze yourself!
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
is full of horsesh!t,
/ 15/cz_dl_0315linux.html
s ID=3295
this is exactly what makes Linux so great, you can install & run Linux on anything from imbedded devices as small as wristwatchs & PDAs to IBMs Big Blue, Linux can scale just fine if Big Blue can run it..
http://www.forbes.com/home/enterprisetech/2005/03
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?New
and secureing Linux is not a problem...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Big Iron:
BigTux Shows Linux Scales To 64-Way
My current test system has 16 CPUS:
zeus0:~ # tail -15 /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 15
vendor : GenuineIntel
arch : IA-64
family : Itanium 2
(yes, it is Itanium!! Anyone got a 16-way Opteron box? Anyone? Buhler? I thought not...)
And, of course, we all know about Linux clustering:
Beowulf Clusters
Single System Image Clusters for Linux
Ignoring the oddity of Oracle being in that group, none of the rest of the members actually make a scaleable Linux box, just ones that compete with them. The slant is obvious.
- Necron69
What do those "IT heavyweights" know about "agility"? They're giant, ancient monolithic dinosaurs, threatened by the vastly more agile little mammal Linux.
--
make install -not war
Now THIS was the most insightful post in this thread.
Although what I'm gonna do with 20 Virginians in my basement, I've not figured out quite completely.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
It's true, Linux isn't really scalable.
And that's exactly why it's being used in several top SuperComputers/Clusters, including (but not limited to) NCSA's Tungsten, IBM BlueGene/L, LLNL's Thunder, BSC's MareNostrum and NASA/Ames' Columbia.
Count them, that's 4 out of the 5 fastest [publicly known] SuperComputing clusters.
I was trying to debug a program that ran as a subprocess. The program would crash, so I attached a gdb session to the process to watch it. When the access violation happened, I tried to print the pointer which caused the crash. I was not trying to print the contents of the pointer, just the value the pointer contained. When I typed "print p", not only did the gdb session lock up, the entire kernel locked up, to the point that the computer wouldn't even respond to pings, or to the keyboard on the console.
Now, granted maybe the choice of RedHat as the distro was flawed (the customer requires it). Maybe there is some problem with using that particular version of Electric Fence with that particular version of gdb, after using that particular version of gcc to build the software, and a problem with that particular version of the kernel. But I'm sorry, Operating Systems 101 says "user programs must not crash the kernel." And as a software developer, I should not have to worry about it happening. I never had that kind of problem with Solaris, SunOS, HP/UX, AIX, or even A/UX, and certainly never with VAX/VMS. Why do I have the problem with user programs crashing the kernel in Linux, MacOS X, and Windows?
If Linux is going to be the "secure, reliable" standard in the future, it's going to have to stop being prone to these kinds of problems. The applications that support Linux are going to have to be built with more discipline, and rigidly and thoroughly tested. Why would a utility like "up2date" need to be "patched" since it's been around so long? Why are there "security holes" in ssh? Why is it a requirement to sign on to an endless daily stream of patches to be applied to so many critical parts of an operating system?
At any rate, the bloom is off the Linux rose for me, I've been touting it as a valid alternative for Windows, and I will continue to do so, but with caveats and with less enthusiasm. I also fully expect to be moderated "Troll" or "Flamebait" which bothers me not in the least.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The claims can be easily disproven. Unfortunately, while companies enjoy First Amendment protections, they are virtually immune to slander/libel. A pity, as there'd otherwise likely be enough money to be made from such a suit to keep every Linux user and developer fed and housed for the rest of their lives.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
These entrenched companies, led by Microsoft, have a particular blind spot when it comes to recognizing the damage they are doing to their own reputations and public image by continually and obviously lying to the public.
Microsoft has already damaged their reputation to the point that MOST IT professionals understand that anything MS says to them is most likely a lie. They may buy MS products for other compelling reasons, but always with the understanding that MS is a sneaky company.
Aren't they apprehensive, even a little, of having NO goodwill among their customers? If the technology competitive landscape changes (eg: the power of the monopoly weakens) their customers will be eager to jump ship.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
If there is one misconception about GNU/Linux that should be easily buried it is that GNU/Linux will fork into incompatible variants as Unix did. This ignores four very import points.
1) Unix forked in large part because every vendor had their own proprietary hardware which required that every application be ported and tested on each platform and that end uses had to buy and support the applications that they used on each flavor of Unix that they used. For better or worse, there are essentially only three Enterprise ISA's now for Linux, x86-32, x86-64 and Power. Instead of splintering, in two or three years, there will be only two, X86-64 and Power. Applications that run on one Vendors GNU/Linux/x86-64 box will run on every vendors box.
2) Unix vendors introduced unique product differentiation and because the source was not licensed under the GPL, each vendor was forced to implement features their own way, usually in a way that was incompatible with every other vendors implementation. Because GNU/Linux software is licensed under the GPL, that simply can't happen. If one vendor has a feature, they can all have it, and since it is the same source, it will run the same way.
3) This is a corallary to point 2, but in the past, not only did all Unix vendors have their own window system, they didn't support the other systems, so if you had a Motif application, it wouldn't run on a Sun system unless you bundled Motif with your app. In Linux, if you install all the window system toolkits, and given the cost of disks and memorythere is no reason not to, every windowing application you buy will run. In addition, since Linux is Unix, in the Enterprise, there is no real reason to install desktop apps on the client. Install them on App servers, and make them available to clients using NFS. This is vastly preferable to the Windows install everywhere approach.
4)Finally, if it were not enough that GNU/Linux/x86-64 is becoming a single platform, a huge number of Enterprise applications are written in Java so underlying architectural differences simply don't matter anyway.
In summary, the Linux will fragment like Unix did is a truly stupid argument that ignores that fact the Linux bears no similarity to traditional Unix other than supporting the same API's.
the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC.
Trust us, youz don' wanna use Linux, or else YOUZ MIGHT FIND YA SECURIDY SEVEEEALY THREATENED. Aight? Capisce? Good. I'm glad we seem ta have come to a undastandin' hea.
Suppose these name-brand purveyors of enterprise solutions were right. Who are they talking to anyway? I aint the bank of america or general motors. god hasten the day I need hugely redundant server farms and lightning fast SQL service. I know because I have done it that it is possible to transition a complex realtime system with SQL usage, threads and forks from, for instance, a solaris platform to a Red Hat linux platform...so I doubt like hell it could be that hard to go the other way unless I had a stupid system design based on linux hacks.
What I know is that the next Google or Amazon is at least as likely to start in a garage as it is in the chilled and cavernous server rooms of a large corporation. All the arguments, right or wrong about TCO and scalability don't cut it with a guy who has almost $2500 in his budget for "servers"...gimme linux NOW and ask me next year if I need Cadillac Computing Configurations...scalability is the LAST problem you solve. Cost of entry is the FIRST problem.
BTW, haven't these guys at Agility Aliance noticed how much press Google gets for its massively scaled production systems? How much work did EDS do for google?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Quick, somebody tell Google that Linux doesn't scale so that they can switch to Windows! It would also be a good idea to notify Amazon of the same thing.
EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC
0 24 3&tid=198&tid=99&tid=126
Wasn't it EDS the large corporation that allowed 60,000 or so computers to crash in the UK gouvernment because they didn't do the required Windows Update awhile back... also see:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/01/172
Kinda makes you wonder if they are fit to comment on this sort of thing.
Microsoft says Linux sucks? Say it ain't so... Could it be that they are in DIRECT compatition with them... News at 11... according to MS the TOC is also higher on linux nm linux is FREE... yadda yadda support... ever try to get MS support or any real support? Oh look dell is next how appropiate...
Dell, ok they aren't the ones to really comment either. They are so in MS pocket it just isn't funny. Dell is basically just a dilivery service for Intel and MS. They think Linux is no good either eh... well go figure. They also say AMD is no good. Well we all know that is true. They are much slower, more expensive, and consume more energy... oh wait...
Oracle... all I know is they make DBMS systems. While a good portion of their systems probably run on some flavor of unix/linux/bsd/vms/etc... all the clients (ie buisness) will be Windows, which is MS, which is probably 80-90% of their buisness, so again go figure. (I may be full of crap on this one, I am just making stuff up now...:)
Cisco... don't they make networks and cables and such? wtf does their opinion matter about linux and its scaleability and security... What OS do they use. How SPECIFIC is it? how USELESS would it be to a general user... so who cares what Cisco says.
Sun. Well much like microsoft they make their own OS and systems.... so yeah direct compitition may say the other guys product sucks... Everyone go out and buy Solarius NOW! right....
EMC? who the f#@k are EMC? Ok I googled them, and if it is the same one as www.emc.com then I still don't know wtf they do! Though by the looks of it they dabble in a bit of everything corporate or enterprise (Much like EDS, btw whats with 3 letter names starting with "E" anyway). So maybe they might be able to make a semi useful comment. Then again Bah! Never heard of 'em so who cares!
In conclusion: This is a stupid statement and/or article to make. News is "supposed" to be unbiased. To make a big anouncement, to discover, that linux is not scaleable nor secure, is hardly believable (true or not) if it comes from the mouth of those that are in direct compitition, have a lot to gain or lose by the addmission. In other words, Lame.
and no I didn't RTFA.
My 2 cents, enjoy!
DarthVain
I use Linux on a regular basis across many many machines of different sizes. Their maybe some truth in the article saying that Linux does not scale well. Firstly the whole thing of security is over rated. It is a corporate fudge factor, things are as secure as the apps that you use and you make your system. Linux does have a strange threading model but it works and does 99% of jobs with out issues.
I run linux on SMP boxes ( more than 8 processors a machine) and their are some problems. Usually with network device drivers or some watchdog card. But otherwise it works. The most important thing is to learn how to get the job done.
I have not used Solaris 10 thus I don't know what the new features are. The closed UNIX systems "seem" more robust because they sell the hardware with the software and ( example AIX with IBM POWER boxes ) and they have some major, major, major testing.
Now the article says using Linux on mainframes is concering, well it sure is. Because why pay for a iSeries OS/400 license when Linux runs on the box rock solid. Linux on iSeries is amazing, it is a piece of art in itself.
This was nothing but some technical jargon by soem companies that have outdated security procedures and they don't even have any facts. This is not news this is gossip.
Also another thing Linux is a far more versatile system than people acknowledge it to be.
I am just amazed that an industry alliance group with both Sun and MicroSoft in it would have reservations about Linux.
I guess we should feel reassured that they have only our best interests heart.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Good article from all the way back in 2004 regarding where this is actually pointed. http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=510 00391&flatPage=true
e x.html. Guess not.
m l
s p
Would Sun rather see Linux go away? Sure, but they also believe in it enough to sell it. http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v20z/index.jsp
These are quotes directly from they guy heading up EDS's strategic alliances. Not from members of the strategic alliance - has anyone asked Ellison if he thinks Linux is insecure, prone to unfriendly forking? Guess not. http://www.oracle.com/events/unbreakablelinux/ind
Cisco? Well lets see they have linux running on some of their hardware, and apparently its good enough for their engineers to run http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0216cislinux.ht
So lets round out the list...
EMC - http://www.emc.com/products/systems/linux/index.j
Dell - http://linux.dell.com/
Microsoft - http://www.mslinux.org/ Err, umm - ok maybe not.
http://windows.scares.us
That EDS is a "Microsoft Partner" (Windows whores) and they haven't even managed to impelement single-sign-on for all the apps on their corporate network yet. And Windows has really taken them a long way with that US Navy contract. Maybe if they'd gone with a UNIX based solution, they wouldn't be years late and unpaid for that thing...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Maybe they should ask Google how Insecure and Unscalable Linux is.
They say linux doesn't scale well. SGI has Linux systems with 256 cpus in a node. http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/ Microsoft is only now getting a cluster version of their OS http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0 3/04/2134229&tid=201&tid=231&tid=156
would highly resent having to replace all it's fine work on NMCI with a new technology. Even if it would be an improvement.
-- Improve Windows - Buy a Mac!
Cisco.. Dell.. Microsoft.. Oracle.. EDS!
:-))
These guys epitomize the "steamroll iteration N+.001 to the suck^H^H^H^Hcustomers for big bucks and do it again next year" business plan. They couldn't innovate their way out of the stone age.
And they call themselves AGILITY alliance, "solution for the Agile business"!?!
Aah, yeees, it's the Rational RUP thing again: we can't make it work for us, that's why we can tell you how to do it right
I better run into the datacenter and unplug all the Linux-powered EMC control stations and NAS heads we just bought! And they told us that they take security seriously! LIARS!
It may not be mentioned in the article, but Oracle are mentioned on the Ability Alliance's membership page. The Slashdot summary is completely correct.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
And this was deemed "informative" ? For crying out loud: the author hasn't even bothered to check that his point is moot. Even if not mentioned in the article, Oracle is still a member of EDS.
Surely Microsoft would feel ashamed of stating something like that? Considering that Windows won't run for much longer than a couple of days on a uniprocessor PC while just having to keep explorer running, it's funny that they are trying to attack Linux on SMP platforms. But then again, M$ is the one with the "Copyright 1981.." lines all over their binaries. Same for Sun, whose screenshots boldly display KDE and a host of other interfaces commonly associated with Linux. What's really disturbing is not that they're calling the competition bad but that they're doing it while at the same time relying on the system they're just attacking.
Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great man. Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man... That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don't we try that?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Large enterprises shouldn't use Windows, because it isn't secure enough, has scalability problems, and is only available in one flavor, according to slashdot user arodland, which includes such IT heavyweights as me.
Oh Please. More 'Security through Obscurity' FUD. I work in a data center with about 8000 Linux server and around 200 Windows servers. The windows boxes get hacked 3 times more often than the Linux boxes. Of course these are just web servers. We all know the real hackers are going after desktops and cracking your pron collection. right?
UNIX: A set of Linux-like operating systems that grew out of an original version written by some guys at a phone company
It sounds like another smear campaign. It sounds to me like the ones that used to be the big boys are now throwing a fit, because they are not the big man on campus anymore. What do we expect? They are trying to save their reputations and sources of income. They obviously see Linux as a threat, otherwise, why bother??? The funny thing is that it is now taking an angry mob, to take on the Linus and his following.... People want Linux, it's apparent. Nobody said it was perfect. I think less than perfect is not so bad, when you look start weighing the possibilites and your wallet!
If you check the Alliance's web site (http://www.eds.com/services/alliances/agility/) you will see that Oracle is indeed a member of that group. As is SAP and Siebel, but, they aren't mentioned in the article either.
The poster is correct.
...and it also, erm, eats into our profits. So, um, don't use Linux because, it's evil, eeeeeeeevil!
Proverbs 21:19
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.oracl e.com
Hi,
I am the Linux systems specialist at Welchs. yes...
the company that brings you that awesome purple grape juice. We are in the middle of an ambitious
ERP project migrating from a Mainframe/AS400 to a
Linux / Oracle RAC solution. We are running Linux Clusters and Oracle RAC. We've got connectivity to our EMC SAN. I've got a development, QA, and Production landscape. Here's our PROD landscape layout, 2 Oracle Database RAC Nodes, 4 application servers loadbalanced with F5 load balancers, and we seperated out the concurrent managers and have
2 concurrent managers (oracle cluster manager controls those nodes). Linux is highly scalable.
I'm also implementing Linux HA to deliver some
highly available filesystems to our cluster.
No, it means they are concerned about the fact that such an environment will be secure. Otherwise they'd have to be concerned about insecurity ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
At the end of the day competition is good. Look what competition has done for microsoft in recent years. Many people dispute that linux/open source software has any affect on the big MS however its clearly not the case.
Over recent years windows has gone from 95 (super super crap) to 98 ( super crap ) to windows me ( ok but still crap) to XP on the desktop market. XP maybe slow in some situations but it works pretty well. There are still all the issues with worms and other issues with stupid users but at the end of the day windows has improved significantly and thats not going into the server market where its improved even more.
I personally see linux as a better server operating system than a desktop system even though I use it every day as my desktop at both work and home. Taking that into account its still a rock solid stable desktop (Slackware current) and I dont have any problems running it on my laptop.
So often there are big projects in the opensource community that fill real gaps but the lead programmers get to a point where they are happy and leave it at that. Its then taken up by other coders and the project is dead in few months or years because its become a mess, people have not realised how much time is involved in writing good efficient, secure code.. they got to the point where they are happy with it and so on..
One of the problems with where things are going with linux is that we will have redhat/suse and a few other distributions all running corporate level software.. and then there will be distributions like slackware, gentoo and others that will be used more in the technical enthusiest market. All of the different distributions have their place.. so do the different versions of windows.
At the end of the day you can have a secure user level windows box and linux / open source box with a web browser and you can almost bet that the windows box will be trojaned before the linux/open source one..
If I were SAP etc I would be annoyed. SAP and Oracle are both pushing Linux to their customers. All those companies have dozens of other partners as well.
In fact if I were EDS I would be worried. In order to maintain 20% growth Microsoft will eventually have to move heavily into consulting (copying IBMs old form).
My guess is by speaking about Linux he immediately gets better press coverage.
I worked on a product in the early 90's running on Unix. We supported a large number of different unixii, placing an enormous build, test, develop load that just should not have been there.
Our build script would test the version of unix for all sorts of bugs unique to each type (being system s/w, these bugs impacted us hugely). Our source and makefiles where littered with ifdefs to get around them on different systems.
We are well on the way to heading down the same path now. Release systems are different (.rpm?, .deb? etc), OS's are subtly different - system files move, boot scripts are organised differently.
Windows isn't perfect - there have been lots of changes as time moved on (e.g. registry, APIs, MSIs etc) but my app written for 9x still installs and runs on XP. Thats pretty impressive.
Forking is bad, bad, bad. It might not be the death of linux (there's always geeks like us who run it, and solid use cases in corporates) but its an impediment to development, to products, to consumer acceptance.
For example - I was just on a group where VIA were lambasted for only releasing some drivers for about a dozen varieties/versions/installers of linux. Cmon - thats a major effort and I take my hat off to them. But its no-where good enough to cover the broad scope that you need, and indeed my FC3 machine was not in the list.
Dont fork.
I use Office 2000, which uses normal looking widgets. However, I have seen Office XP/2003, which uses the exact same widgets Windows has, but with some outlines drawn around them.
Visual Studio? The same. And it didn't even do it before Visual Studio 2003.
Internet Explorer? Here, you're either trolling or confused because Internet Explorer uses native Windows widgets.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Windows apps all use the same native widgets. And by the way, even the apps that draw their own widgets aren't loading entire GUI libraries into memory to do it, like in the OSS world, which was another part of my point. Why do I have to load up four ways to manage button widgets in RAM just to get work done because people want "choice"? I just want to get my work done without losing all my memory to the reinvented (and reinvented, and reinvented) wheel.
Windows 9x and Windows NT "forked" in the early 90's. MS hasn't devoted serious resources to the 9x codebase since Win 98. Virtually all of their new development has been on the NT codebase for many years now.
This is important because the real problem with forks is resource contention. Suppose there are 1000 competent Windows OS developers in the world. If Windows is forked then only a fraction of these developers will work on each branch. Neither fragment will be able to accomplish as much as the entire unified team.
Gnome and KDE are an excellent example. There are active development teams working on both systems, and there are application developers that have to choose one platform or the other. Neither desktop gets the full support of the community. I don't see how half the developers are going to be more than twice as productive in order to accelerate the rate of positive change for either desktop.
PS: Are you really complaining about the layout of the Start menu? I'm surprised that you managed to successfully install Linux if you can't figure out how to fix such a basic GUI element. I stumbled onto the Classic switch pretty quickly during my first session on XP.
I am currently moving a user from one machine to the other. The user is running Windoze 2K professional. The reason for the move is that the motherboard on the first machine is a bit otl because somebody kicked the keyboard connector and loostened it. Ok. Neat. Take the disk out of machine 1 and put it into machine 2? Not on your life buddy. They are different mobos. You get nice things like; 1) A boot for a bit and then BSOD of "inaccessable boot device". Try to come up in safe and fix it? Not on your life. 2) Partial boots and then death plus a reboot. And on and on and on.
What I am not going to have to do is to do a total re-install. Do the 4 hours of connecting to M$ to get up to rev. Attempt to move over her software by moving the old boot disk over the new one and hacking at a low level in the registry. The alternative to to re-install everything from install disks that she probably has long since lost.
Contrast that with moving a disk between two macs and or two linux machines. Unless I have done a gen on a kernel that is pretty weird. Its a piece of cake.
If you hate to edit conf files, why do you put up with the registry? Its a single path fault that is a resting place for the vermin and problems of the world. I will take the odd conf file any time.