I don't expect anybody to read this as Slashdot articles grow exponentially in comments each hour but...
The price of petrol in London is about 116 pence per liter http://www.whatprice.co.uk/petrol-prices/ 1 US gallon = 3.78 liter 4.39 GBP (pounds) per gallon 1 pound = 1.5 dollars (exchange rates are always crazy) 6.59 dollars per gallon
So, while many will argue that "Europeans" are "controlling their oil consumption" through taxes, I would argue that the world has been susidizing the oil industry. Additionally, many American vehicles get 20 or even 15 mpg.
PLEASE REMEMBER, money is fiction (pieces of paper), work is economic fiction, government is fiction, and the price of Gas/Fossil Fuels is fiction. We all agree to a system but the system can and should be changed towards improvement.
So perhaps instead of silly rebates we should reduce Fossil Fuel susbidies and increase the tax on gas (yes, there are both Federal and State taxes on gas already so I'm not proposing some radical communist ideology).
Considering that property ownership means "lease until you stop paying property taxes to the City/State/Feds" or "eminent domain" Kelo v. City of New London...
And if you "own an OEM license for an operating system" that is "non transferrable to another machine"...
It's not surprising that the "phone you buy and own" is actually controlled by the Manufacturer and can be modified by them over the air at their discretion:
This fits the "subscription model" that anti-virus, browser, and now operating systems all use to ensure steady cash-flow and hopefully phase out that frustrating "buy it once" legacy mentality that is also symptomatic of people who don't use credit cards.
I strongly suggest periodically researching alternatives to large corporations that ignore your rights or sense of ownership - i.e. try a different browser (firefox/opera?), a different search engine (hakia.com) , and hopefully somebody will fork Android like Centos does a wonderful job for Red Hat (and then post it on Sourceforge / slashdot).
I am still in the process of upgrading a "legacy" infrastructure in a smaller (less than 50) office but I feel your pain.
First, it's not "tech sexy", but you've got to get the current infrastructure all written down (or typed up - but then you have to burn to cd just in case your "upgrade" breaks everything).
You should also "interview" users (preferrably by email but sometimes if you need an answer you have to just call them or... face to face even...) to find out what services they use - you might be surprised to find something that you didn't even know your Dept was responsible for (oh, that Panasonic PBX that runs the whole phone system is in the locked closet they forgot to tell you about...)
Your next step is prioritizing what you actually need/want to do... remember that you're in a business environment so having redundant power supplies for the dedicated cd burning computer may not actually improve your workplace (but yes, it might be cool to have an automated coffee maker that can run on solar power...)
So now that you know pretty much what you have and what you want to change...
Technology wise, Virtualization is definitely your answer... and there's a learning curve:
VMWare is pretty nice and pretty expensive.
Virtualbox (I use) is free but doesn't have as many enterprise features (automatic failover)
Xen with Remus or HA is the thinking man's setup
All of the above will depend on reliable hardware - that means at least RAID 1, and yes you can go with SAN but be aware that it's a level of complexity you might not need (for FTP, DNS, etc.)
Reading what you've listed as "services" it almost sounds like you want a single linux VM running all of those things with Xen and Remus...
Good luck, and TEST IT before you deploy it as a production setup.
As an up and coming IT Manager/Sys Admin/Netw Admin I feel for you and you're exactly right!
All of the stuff you've said is TRUE and I feel sorry for all of the people who read and don't understand... because the world turns without computers but computers now turn the world...
Sadly, reading your post, I also wonder whether I should continue down this career path...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't expect anybody to read this as Slashdot articles grow exponentially in comments each hour but...
The price of petrol in London is about 116 pence per liter http://www.whatprice.co.uk/petrol-prices/
1 US gallon = 3.78 liter
4.39 GBP (pounds) per gallon
1 pound = 1.5 dollars (exchange rates are always crazy)
6.59 dollars per gallon
195k / 49.5 = 3939.40 * $6.59 = 25,960
195k / 30 = 6500 * $6.59 = 42,835
195k / 15 = 13000 * $6.59 = $85,670
So, while many will argue that "Europeans" are "controlling their oil consumption" through taxes, I would argue that the world has been susidizing the oil industry. Additionally, many American vehicles get 20 or even 15 mpg.
PLEASE REMEMBER, money is fiction (pieces of paper), work is economic fiction, government is fiction, and the price of Gas/Fossil Fuels is fiction. We all agree to a system but the system can and should be changed towards improvement.
IEA: To promote efficiency, cut fossil fuel subsidies
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20007059-54.html
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html
So perhaps instead of silly rebates we should reduce Fossil Fuel susbidies and increase the tax on gas (yes, there are both Federal and State taxes on gas already so I'm not proposing some radical communist ideology).
Considering that property ownership means "lease until you stop paying property taxes to the City/State/Feds" or "eminent domain" Kelo v. City of New London ...
And if you "own an OEM license for an operating system" that is "non transferrable to another machine" ...
It's not surprising that the "phone you buy and own" is actually controlled by the Manufacturer and can be modified by them over the air at their discretion:
Pertinent examples:
Syrian Radar: http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-hunt-for-the-kill-switch/0
Kindle's Orwellian book deletion: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
iPhone
This fits the "subscription model" that anti-virus, browser, and now operating systems all use to ensure steady cash-flow and hopefully phase out that frustrating "buy it once" legacy mentality that is also symptomatic of people who don't use credit cards.
I strongly suggest periodically researching alternatives to large corporations that ignore your rights or sense of ownership - i.e. try a different browser (firefox/opera?), a different search engine (hakia.com) , and hopefully somebody will fork Android like Centos does a wonderful job for Red Hat (and then post it on Sourceforge / slashdot).
I am still in the process of upgrading a "legacy" infrastructure in a smaller (less than 50) office but I feel your pain.
First, it's not "tech sexy", but you've got to get the current infrastructure all written down (or typed up - but then you have to burn to cd just in case your "upgrade" breaks everything).
You should also "interview" users (preferrably by email but sometimes if you need an answer you have to just call them or... face to face even...) to find out what services they use - you might be surprised to find something that you didn't even know your Dept was responsible for (oh, that Panasonic PBX that runs the whole phone system is in the locked closet they forgot to tell you about...)
Your next step is prioritizing what you actually need/want to do... remember that you're in a business environment so having redundant power supplies for the dedicated cd burning computer may not actually improve your workplace (but yes, it might be cool to have an automated coffee maker that can run on solar power...)
So now that you know pretty much what you have and what you want to change...
Technology wise, Virtualization is definitely your answer... and there's a learning curve:
VMWare is pretty nice and pretty expensive.
Virtualbox (I use) is free but doesn't have as many enterprise features (automatic failover)
Xen with Remus or HA is the thinking man's setup
All of the above will depend on reliable hardware - that means at least RAID 1, and yes you can go with SAN but be aware that it's a level of complexity you might not need (for FTP, DNS, etc.)
Reading what you've listed as "services" it almost sounds like you want a single linux VM running all of those things with Xen and Remus...
Good luck, and TEST IT before you deploy it as a production setup.
As an up and coming IT Manager/Sys Admin/Netw Admin I feel for you and you're exactly right! All of the stuff you've said is TRUE and I feel sorry for all of the people who read and don't understand... because the world turns without computers but computers now turn the world... Sadly, reading your post, I also wonder whether I should continue down this career path...