Slashdot Mirror
MS Beta Software To Manage Unix/Linux Systems
Tumbleweed writes "The Cross Platform and Interop team at Microsoft today announced some new beta products for managing Unix/Linux systems from MS Operations Manager 2007, as well as connectors for HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console. Both betas are available at Microsoft Connect (search for systemcenter), according the blog."
"You will disarm your command prompts and escort us into Linux as root. If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you."
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Wtf? The gui tools available NATIVELY don't allow for any comprehensive management of Unix/Linux systems. Less is more, terminal is faster, text over ssh, bash scripting - the entire culture of *nix is anti-gui.
How the fuck is MS going to make a gui to manage such systems?
Or are they just reimplementing an ssh terminal?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I dual boot Linux and Windows, the less Windows knows about Linux on the system all the better, especially when you consider Windows wants to do stuff like on re-installing Windows, install it's boot loader over the better Linux one. Who knows what Windows would do to file permissions.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
So they are building a GUI to manage Linux servers. Could this eventually lead to a MS Linux distribution? (of course one that masks the cli and possibly has it's own proprietary clones of all the 'standard' programs)
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
A lot of my work these days deals with getting Windows boxes to act more like *NIX boxes so I can operate them remotely from a central Linux box.
It's working out pretty well, actually... I set up cygwin with sshd installed in interactive mode, so I can run a script on the central server and have a cluster of WinXP machines all open an application simultaneously, such as play a video simultaneously or connect to a set of VNC servers all at once. I can also use rsync to efficiently distribute and keep a set of files up to date.
Still running into a bunch of limitations of what I can do remotely, such as set the display mode to a certain resolution, etc. so it ultimately won't keep me from replacing the remote machines with a bunch of custom Knoppix LiveCDs eventually. But at least this way I can still leverage the other Windows sysadmins we have an abundance of.
Does anyone here have even a faint idea of what Operations Manager is? Judging from the posts so far, the answer is obviously "Not a clue".
It's not a remote shell.
"Infringing the GPL?!" LOL!
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Devil's advocate here:
/usr/local and the only thing it does is fire up a cron job to update the virus definitions and occasionally run a filesystem scan.
Long term, this might be a help for Linux and other UNIX variants. A lot of companies are required, either due to regulations, contract or their own corporate policies to perform audits on computer systems. Having a "one stop shop" by MS where someone can punch a button and generate a report on vital machine statistics for every single thing hooked up to the corporate network, down to the USB powered urinals, regardless of OS being run, will allow IT shops more freedom in choosing operating systems.
Having OS independence for this tool would allow a shop to use Linux for a number of servers, but when audit time comes around, it will be as easy to print out a report about the machine's and how it adheres to corporate policy as the Windows machines. Audits of machine and network infrastructure security are a critical part of a lot of businesses and any tool that allows this to be made easier is definitely a help.
Using a tool like this, a business can not just say to a prospective client that "all our network connected computers have antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software installed that are kept updated", but actually show it, by showing a report that even the Solaris boxes have Mcafee installed [1] with current vdef files.
[1]: Yes, we all know about UNIX boxes and viruses, but there are lots of times when virus scanning software has to be present on all machines due to contract or legal reasons, even if the installed program just takes up space in
Many people. Have you ever used MOM or something like it? There are no FOSS products that can give an overview and easy management of a hundred or so Linux systems like MOM, or BMC, or CA or Tivoli can do with Windows. Attitudes like your are why FOSS is so far behind. Many people want an easy way to manage 100 desktops before they deploy 100 desktops. And while Microsoft makes some crappy products, they are always easy. Microsoft could own this market very fast, and that should scare you. The fact is that all the easy ways to manage a large number of Linux systems are closed source. Why is that? PS: If I am wrong, please post some links. I hope I am wrong, because SSHing into all the systems I support is killing me.
their software cant manage their own systems thoroughly. now its gonna manage linux ? oh boy oh boy oh boy !! hot jupiters !
Read radical news here
Why doesn't Microsoft just bite the bullet and base the next version of Windows on Linux or BSD?
We could finally see a secure and maintainable version of Windows. And Linux might finally see its adoption on the desktop like it has always sought.
It is obvious that Windows has become stagnant. Adoption seems to be nil, or possibly even negative. When ordinary (read: non-geek) acquaintances go out of their way to trash Vista, you know it's in trouble. And I don't believe their code-base is the issue, either, since they've purportedly redone it. Instead, I think they're suffering from decades of complacency due to having no competition. And if they don't change their tune soon, they risk being surpassed.
OTOH, Linux is ready for prime-time. With technologies like HAL, Udev, and Dbus (amongst many others), Linux is easily growing out of its role as a server O/S. Everything is in place to create any kind of application, securely, from a Compiz-enabled desktop to a POS register. That's more than I can say for Windows, despite it being deployed on these platforms. The only barriers left are formalities and time. Linux is poised to dominate, and Microsoft must be aware of that considering their recent behavior.
They should take a hint from Apple, hit the reset switch on Windows and rebuild it from Linux. They could use their experience to develop a more modularized, secure, stable operating system than they have ever been able to offer.
They probably wouldn't reap the profits that they are used to, but then again they probably aren't doing that now. In fact, I would expect that they would divert some of their focus away from their Windows product line. After all, Linux-based Windows could be a nearly free enabler to all of their other product lines. Also, Microsoft could gain a bit of goodwill by contributing their changes back to the community and finally owning up to their so-called open source initiative.
It can be easily argued that Microsoft needs goodwill more than it needs wealth at the moment.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
Many people who want to deploy "100 desktops" (or rather "100 servers" in this context) will first want to hire competent staff to manage said hosts.
For OSS unix-management stuff I'd point to puppet, cfengine, FAI (debian specific) and others. As usual there is not "one tool to rule them all" but a set of building blocks that competent staff will assemble into something suitable to the task.
Yahoo News
Microsoft leverages two community projects promoting open protocols for network management-- Web Services for Management and OpenPegasus-- to enable cross-platform support. Microsoft also has joined the steering committee for the OpenPegasus project and will contribute royalty-free code to the project
some articles via Google News
Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog
Information Week
Microsoft won't just rip the code from OpenPegasus, but will join IBM, HP and others on the OpenPegasus Steering Committee and contribute code back to the project under the OSI-approved Microsoft Public License, which the Free Software Foundation has said is compatible with the GNU GPL version 3. The terms of the Microsoft Public License mean that any code Microsoft contributes will be freely modifiable and usable by anyone, so long as copyrights in the code are left intact.
"It's very important to me that we use OSI-approved licenses when using open source," Sam Ramji, Microsoft's director of platform strategy and one of its top open source advocates, said in an interview.
Microsoft's adoption of OpenPegasus for the Operations Manager add-in could be seen as a small data point that shows Microsoft is getting a little bit more comfortable with the open source world by working with IBM and others on an open source project. It's not like Microsoft is open sourcing all of System Center, but it is a step nonetheless.