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Windows Drives Company To OpenBSD
Barry Lyndon writes "Computerworld reports that the nightmare of windows is driving PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's largest accountancy and business consulting companies, to OpenBSD and open source in general." From the article: "'My predecessor spent too much [so] I was told not to spend any money.' When asked what argument he used to convince management to use an open source solution, Uemura said: 'They didn't have an argument because they said don't spend any money.' 'They trusted me,' he said. 'The whole office was relying on one domain controller which was dying.' Uemura said a lot of work was done 'behind the scenes'. 'My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it - don't ask! They will thank you later,' he said."
Hurray!! BSD is alive and kicking again!!
Even if the software is free it seems to me that the most expensive thing is always the developers, training, implementation, etc.
~S
My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it - don't ask! They will thank you later
- Famous last words?
... not the entire company. That would've been big news. Still good though :)
From TFA:
IT managers who want to deploy an open source solution but are worried about company politics should go ahead and do it without asking, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan IT manager Mark Uemura.
That sounds like a FANTASTIC idea. Just come in one weekend and change the entire network over to BSD without running it by anyone. Why bother with the pesky work of drawing up a well-structured arguement for what you want, and then run it by the people who sign your check? That would be highly irrational IMO...Screw politics, they'll thank you when it's done - With a nice pink check.
Seriously the Just Do It type attitude will more often than not lead to an IT disaster and subsequent loss of job scenario. Adding or changing architectures needs to be managed and approved. It just isn't smart not to go through the entire development lifecycle and not to get senior leadership involved right off the bat. You may think that implementing this new, cool architecture will be great for the company, but you might not know you are breaking something in the process. What about legal issues? You might think oh I will just install X copies of freeware Y and then it turns out that the software isn't free to corporate users... Stick with a lifecycle set of processes, good change management and make corporate leadership get involved so they semi-understand the possible pro's and con's of what will be done... Otherwise be prepared to get slammed if something goes wrong and you didnt do due diligence up front...
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it - don't ask! They will thank you later,' he said."
yeah, that's also a good way to get fired.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
From the article it seems to me that they are mainly moving the servers to OpenBSD, not the actual workstations. From a user point of view this should be seamless, with their existing programs still working for the large part. As for the retraining cost; it seems the guys in charge already are fairly well versed in the OS, so retraining cost should be minimal.
Right, now thats said lets have no more of this "what about the hidden training costs?" and "will the programs still work" which seems to be the ususal comments for any switching to Open Source solutions.
Why would they do their taxes on a firewall?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
So they replaced some (not all) of their backend systems with OpenBSD systems. Primarly security systems (firewalls) because Checkpoint on the windows systems was not working real well.
There is a significant DUH factor there.
Now it would have been real news if they had replaced all their backend systems as well as their desktop systems with open source alternatives. That is serious news. But no, like most companies out there they just have a mix of unix like systems along with their Windows based servers. It would be interesting to know if there is any company at all that runs purely Windows systems (or for that matter purely unix like systems). I doubt there are any. So running a mix of systems is pretty much standard. Sure the percentages will vary. As such this is not really big news.
Wake me up again when they have switched all their clients or even a significant portion of their clients to open source alternatives. That will be real news.
(And believe me, you wouldn't just switch a bunch of employees over to BSD on a shoot-first basis without having your ass mailed to you with the personal belongings in your desk.)
From the article:
2) This is a firewall in Japan.
3) What PricewaterhouseCoopers uses for tax accounting is not something you want to be doing your taxes with.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
'My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it - don't ask! They will thank you later,' he said.
It's easier to get forgiveness than to get permission.
Perhaps you could if you took a more professional approach. Have you performed any serious analysis regarding such a transition? Can you show that there would be definite savings? Don't forget to cover non-technical issues, such as how long it will take for users to adjust, and how easy the adjustment period will be.
/. gUy said it K00! leTz switcH 2day!1!@!!" Instead, provide them with an analysis that focuses on how the transition will benefit them directly, be it in increased productivity or decreased expenses.
Often times managers are more than willing to consider improvements, just as long as you're providing solid, reputable evidence to back up your claims. Don't waste their time by saying "Omg Linux oR 0p3nbSD is SOOOO rOx beKuz sUm
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
What does Linux has to do with this? He uses OpenBSD. If you read the article you would know that they still use Windows on their workstations so they can still use what ever tax software they used earlier.
The really fun part of this article is that they need to put an OpenBSD firewall in front of their checkpoint firewall to keep it safe.
Hardly - you've mixed them up with Arthur Andersen.
PwC actually benefited from the Enron scandle, in that it picked up some of the now defunct Andersen's practice. Furthur, PwC split off their consulting biz and sold it to IBM. http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outs ourcing/story/0,10801,70769,00.html
Have you ever actually used OpenBSD? If you have, then you would know that it's a massive time and money saver. Why is that? Because it just works. It's a well-engineered product. Your risk of security issues is virtually nil, and the support from the mailing lists often rivals that of anything from Microsoft or Red Hat.
.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
And that's great! Since a financial company did it, large software houses can no longer say "Yes, it's free (as in beer) to use, but eventually you'll have to pay more to get competent Open-source techies and invest in more/different hardvare that if you just went with Our Solution(tm) all the way."
And that is how you gain mindshare - not by making a bunch of extremenly technical reports saying how it's better then everything else, but by hitting them on the wallet.
The downside is that because of using such "cheap" software, some other techies working for large software houses can get underpayed or sacked. We'll just have to see what the net balance gets to be.
-- Sig down
I recall a couple of similar situations where switching the server to and OS/OS was the best answer. The first time, it was a startup ISP (back when everyone dreamed of starting an ISP) who suffered the same problems as described in the article. The problems were limited to the mail server and it was simply unable to keep up with the load it was given. I took a machine of far more modest capacity, installed Slackware on it, set up mail, ported over the user list and it all became quiet almost suddenly.
Another case was when I took a job as SystemsAdmin for an ATM service company... similar situation except a bit worse... they had this bizarre mail server/proxy server thing running on a Win95 box. I almost wet my pants when I saw it. I built another handy-dandy linux box, updated everyone's proxy settings to "off" and set them up with NAT and everything was running smoothe as a baby's butt... again, almost completely sudden quiet. It was very rewarding.
These were all back-end systems that people don't see but use frequently. And only when the stuff you've got ain't workin' is when this sort of strategy (as described in the article) is a good idea. I think it would be a completely different story if they took something that worked and made this tremendous change... that'd be noticably stupid.
Ok, I don't as a general rule respond to these Windows vs Linux in the back end stories, but I have to on this one. The line in the first page says it all: 'The whole office was relying on one domain controller which was dying.'
This has *nothing* to do with Windows being teh suq. Rather, this has everything to do with the previous admin not knowing what he was doing. You don't run an enterprise shop with one DC (be that either NT4 or AD.) You have numerous DCs, and leverage this new fangled concept called redundancy. AD in a large scale corperate environment works just fine, I've seen 200k+ user networks using AD, and it scales fine. Many of these shops also use Exchange for their mail, and with a proper (and not disproportionately high, I might add) number of servers, everything runs smooth as silk.
This sounds like far less a case of the Apps being responsible, and more like a case of some "admin" who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground being put in charge of a system far larger than he could handle. If I ever see anyone pull out this site as a case study in FOSS/Windows, I'm going to laugh in the presenters face, as they clearly don't understand the software.
For this guy, things worked out. Maybe it's more like "just do it if you know what needs to be done and are sure of your success".
Then again, there are some managers who dislike anything that's not their idea or at least didn't require their blessing. If that's who you work for, though, I'd say get the hell out and find someone who rewards productive risk-taking and successful initiative. If you're the *head* of your IT department, you should be given a fairly serious amount of control over how things are done, *especially* if you've been tasked with taking over a high-cost failure, as this fellow was.
I suspect our friend here had perhaps a bit more buy-off from upper management than it appears. He was probably instructed to "fix it, don't spend money, and don't bother us with the details". Does the fact that he succeeded without a load of bureaucracy bother you, or is it the adoption of OpenBSD ( no problems with corporate use there, BTW ) that bothers you?
Again, I'm agreeing with you generally- going it alone is often a poor choice - but inaction is fairly often worse than action, and it's hard to argue with success. People tend to view successful execution of an independent plan as "initiative". It's only "insubordination" if you fail. The lesson? Don't fail.
The point of this story is that PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS started using OpenBSD! This is a BIG FOUR accounting firm! Every IT exec in the world can now say "If it's good enough for PWC, it oughta be good enough for us." So this is a big win for open source.
PWC advises many Fortune 1000, Global 1000, what have you on IT issues; there is a chance that this sort of internal use of open source software will lead them to recommend use of OSS to their clients. The C-level decision makers are talking to PWC and others, and probably not reading Slashdot.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=200 51024113247
BTW: When he said, "just do it", he's not talking about informing management; he's talking about informing/surveying USERS. He's meaning, "Don't bother trying to convince users, instead, just tell them the procedures have changed, and this is 'The New Way' (TM) to do things. They'll do it, find it better/faster, than thank you"
Shamelessly stolen, so don't mod me up.
Mark T. Uemura (IP 221.249.159.51) (mark.uemura@gmail.com) on Tue Oct 25 14:18:17 2005 (GMT)
It's unfortunate that reporters such as this guy would sensationalize
a talk by carefully crafting his story from bits and pieces mostly
taken out of context. So, in all fairness to my firm and to those who
were not present, I feel compelled to set the story straight.
First off, the story is not an interview even though it may come across
as such. The title is rather sensational but I certainly wasn't
desperate. There were problems and they were fixed and our team was
just very resourceful in doing so.
Gedda writes:
> IT managers who want to deploy an open source solution but are worried
> about company politics should go ahead and do it without asking,
> according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan IT manager Mark Uemura.
No, this is taken out of context. What I said was that we had very big
and important changes that we needed to make in order to restore network
and application stability. My reference to just going ahead and doing it
referred to making the necessary changes behind the scenes. It wasn't
about company politics and it wasn't about migrating services from Windows
to OpenBSD. My experience was that we did ourselves a disfavour by trying
to inform and explain to users and management the technical reasons for
the changes that needed to be made. In fact, all of the pushback had
nothing to do with OpenBSD. We needed to migrate from an old Domain
Controller with a corrupt Active Directory to a new one. We also
introduced the concept of working on Application Servers in Terminal
Services to take advantage of server power for resource intensive
applications that ran very slowly on users' PCs. So, the push back was
related to things like "you'll have to login to this new Domain rather
than the old one from tomorrow onwards." or getting users to change the
way they work and use applications running on a Terminal Servers for speed.
In the end, when all was sad and done, users and management realized the
difference that we had made; no more downtime or data loss. Furthermore,
they've never had everything running so smoothly and as efficiently for
as long as they could remember. Their IT problems went away as a result
of our efforts and the decisions that we made.
In fact, all of the migrations to OpenBSD were either behind the scenes
where the users were oblivious to the changes. Well, almost oblivious.
Often times we would get "Hey, the Internet is really fast today, cool!"
or "Man, can you guys like spill some coffee in the server room or
something? We're not used to this much uptime. It means we can't go
home early anymore!"
In those cases where users did have to interact with OpenBSD, it was
always well received and positive such as moving off of a very slow VPN
for remote access on to a quicker and more user friendly alternative
such as port forwarding applications through OpenSSH.
> Faced with an unreliable network, Uemura went ahead and migrated systems
> from Windows to OpenBSD on the premise that management would trust his
> judgement.
Once again, migrating services to OpenBSD was not an issue. So long as
we did not compromise security in doing so. Generally, we did so to
improve security and that's what OpenBSD is famous for and yet ther
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Buggy software that affects your entire company will cost you much more in downtime, missed due dates, frustration, hatred of IT and quality of life. From the article:
Then PWC was hit with a virus affecting network traffic and the Checkpoint firewall was running at 100 percent CPU capacity which was effectively a denial of service. "So we had to put an OpenBSD firewall in front of Checkpoint," he said. "We saved seven salaries worth over one year. It was so dramatic they gave me a big raise and I was promoted from system administrator to IT manager. And because of the savings we get more productivity out of old hardware."
TCO fact, baby.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have to agree with the guy quoted in the article. DON'T TELL THE PHBs.
Don't waste your time doing a cost benefit analysis. Don't waste your time trying to educate them. They've got other things on their minds, and they won't really understand it anyway. They have their job, and you have your job.
It's one thing if you want to try linux on the desktop or some other radical solution, but switching to a Samba fileserver or a Linux router/firewall? They don't need to know. As long as their files are where they want them to be, when they want them to be there, you'll be fine.
Was at a business once, where I was trying to talk the CEO into using a Linux solution, an idea to which he was VIOLENTLY opposed, said Windows had worked great for him. So eventually, I gave in and drew up a Windows solution. He wanted to know if it was goign to have all the functions that the current system had, and was leery because I was using a different version of windows.
So we went back into his "server room" (think ventillated broom closet) to look at the machine...Which turned out to be headless, which surprised me a bit, as it was supposed to be an NT box. As it turned out it WAS like an NT box in that it had an NT sticker on it, and NT rhymes with 7.3, as in Redhat 7.3 (uptime 518 days), running on a PIII coppermine with so much dust on the heatsink that I wasn't quite sure what it was at first.
Needless to say, he went with a linux system, and now he brags about it all over the place. I learned my lesson...Don't start talking software with the bosses. You'll only make more problems for yourself. If you don't absolutely HAVE to justify it to someone, don't do it.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Therefore I have been experimenting with other Alternatives, such as Apple's OSX Server. OSX to my surprise is an organized way of working with Unix. So in the past months i have been learning how to use OSX Server and have polished my skills into using it in "Hybrid" Environments, with the most excellent results.
One of my clients was a Windows Shop, It took me several months to convince them to change the server into OSX. The prerogative was simple: Apple offered us the perfect growing up environment for a company of 20 something employees that could get as big as 50 in the next couple of years. How? Well Apple's Xserve and Unlimited Lic. OSX was the key. When I presented them with both investing plan's, which consisted of a Dell Server and Windows, and an Xserve and OSX, it basically came down to a 17k dollar investment to do with the Dell, Windows and all its licencing, and 4 terminal stations. In comparison with the Apple Equipment, the Xserve (2.0Ghz PowerPC, 1gb ECC, 80gb sata hdd (expandable to 3 hdd in sata raid 0)) and OSX Unlimited + Apple Remote (Unlimited), It only went up to $11,075.00. When I presented them both quotes, and told them that with the mac we could have interoperability with Windows XP pc's accessing the server as well, better security, easier configuration and other options, the company decided to take the dive and went the Apple way. Recently they had 20 more employees added, in which this would have meant an increase in licencing of over $2000, the company kept hiring and keeps growing without any problems and the IT Structure is solid. For applications, we Use Quickbooks 2005 for Mac and Quickbooks 2005 for Windows XP, Office for Mac and Office XP for Windows (althought we are going to change to Open Office 2.0 in December 2005). The reason we have a couple windows machines, is for some industry specific applications that we cannot find on mac, so we use them on windows. Everything else is run on the macs with no problems.
I want to add that the Remote Desktop of Macs is an awesome tool. I can make OSX Deployments far more easier than it is in Windows Server Environment. The next client im going to work on this week, Im going to propose the same change, in a bigger scale... I know ill be successfull because the previous client is in love with his system at work.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
"Uemura said PWC chose OpenBSD, an operating system he is comfortable with..."
"My predecessor spent too much [so] I was told not to spend any money."
Seems to me the reasons they switched are spelled out pretty plainly in the article -- Uemura was a *nix person and OpenBSD was free. Yet somehow the abstract of the article claims PWC switched because "Windows was a nightmare".
Yes, there was mention in the article that their Windows servers were bouncing alot. But the main reason given for the switch was to "spend no money". I suspect if Uemura had not been a *nix type and instead was a good Windows admin he could have fixed the problem without spending any money by instead properly configuring and patching the Windows servers.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I don't anymore, unfortunately. But I'm on one of the craziest networks you can imagine right now: Windows, Unix, Linux, BSD, OSX, and OS 8-9, and I can drive hardware choice depending on the type of solutions I develop.
If you've got a choice, and someone asks for a product without telling you how to do it, do it the right way, and don't give them too much information.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Katanas are used to cut others. The wakizashi is used for Seppuku,as well as cutting others that get too close. See the wikipedia article on Seppuku for details...
Think global, act loco
One of the things I used to do is put together a nice solid system on a lan party box, then take it to the company I was trying to sell to, plug it in, and let it do it's stuff. Usually the sight of hardware that you can just plug in and have working in minutes was enough to cinch the sale.
I know a guy who developed this crazy thin client app/server setup, piped through pptp, that booted off a USB key. So he'd take it to a potential customer, jack it into one of their computers and it would hook into his servers, and download the whole system. Ran fast as hell. Pretty incredible. He'd jack it into an old system, and be zipping through heavy applications like Photoshop so quickly that the old graphics card couldn't keep up. Impressed the hell out of people.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Take the place where I'm working for example. Medium sized company in Europe. Four countries and exspansion in more. After some bad moves two years ago by one of our operations the whole company got in trouble. Management decided to fire some 20%, vut back on outside consultants and retire everyone above 60. They also orchestrated a salary freeze and a max overtime cap. So we lost many of ur most experienced people from the downsizing or from people that decided to leave. In my office I'm the only IT guy left. The CEO told us in IT to cut back on new projects and frooze IT spending at x percant of turnover. Since most of our costs are locked in service contracts, licenses and scheduled hardware upgrades it's very hard to replace aging systems. We had some legacy systems that we just HAD to replace and that almost crushed our budget. So at one of our IT-guys meetings we just decided to stop renewing some MS products and went with Debian on some DNS, file and printer-servers.
Some six months later our local management found out that we had deviated from the "Microsoft-shop policy", but what could they do? They complained for a day or so before they realised that it was the only way we could stay withn the budget. In an environment where one can get fired for failing to stay within budget as well as failing to provide "service" to other units sometimes Linux is the only way.
Sorry for the bad English.
No need to do a transition analysis, Microsoft has already done several of them.