Ummm, who's talking about code bases? Did I miss a post? IOS != PIX OS != CSS OS != CatOS != NativeIOS, ad nauseum. That has nothing to do with the issue, which is the comparison between M$ and Cisco. While both enjoy large market share, Cisco doesn't compare in terms of overall corporate skullduggery, and their products generally work as advertised, and ample resources are available to track bugs in the code.
Cisco has definitely made some good moves in aquisitons (and a few bad ones), but that doesn't have anything to do with the argument.
And yes, Extreme makes great equipment... so does Juniper. They could be considered, well, competition, eh? I don't see anything close to that in the desktop market.
Cisco is hardly the M$ of networking. They play nice with the RFCs, while providing their own solutions to similar issues. They have extremely complete buglists/tracking for all software/hardware and you don't have to reboot their devices every 24 hours. If Cisco *was* the M$ of networking, their routers/switches/aggregators would only play nice with other Cisco devices.
Funny. This says 6,909, with 3,070 in the US. That's not many, especially considering that they're (necessarily) clustered around population centers. The test is one day, but the failure rate is the same. 5 people take the test every day, but less than one passes.
There will never be a CCIE flood in the market. Once the number approaches n, Cisco will make the test harder. It's in their best interests.
If you are a registered CCIE, and have no education beyond high school, nobody will give a rats ass about the lack of a CS degree. CCIE's write their own ticket, believe me. There are only about 6000 CCIE's in the world, and they've earned it. For those who don't know, the CCIE lab test has a 97% failure rate. It's generally regarded as the toughest certification on the planet.
" You will need to buy "Digital Audio Discs" and royalties from these discs are distributed to artists via the RIAA."
Let's get this straight. Any royalties from these discs will go to the artists.... well, maybe 1% of the royalties will go to the artists. If they're lucky.
To paraphrase Terry Prachett: "There exists no greater evil than music industry executives" -John Paul Jones
Visions of a Novell evangelist who talks the good talk on the hill occupying this position makes me ill at ease. We (as in "The Open Source Community") could stand to benefit greatly from a knowledgeable person occupying this position, especially with the big software (M$) corps lobbying in Washington.
The other side of the cookie would present us with a truly political appointee. Anyone who's worked for a "political" rather than "technical" CIO/CTO knows that this is rarely a Good Thing, but hey, it's Washington. They'll do the right thing.
(maybe they'll appoint John Dvorak, that would be interesting, if nothing else: "Government Mandates that PCs Suck, story at 11"
-JPJ
Re:Single greatest threat to the ASP model:
on
When ASPs Go Under
·
· Score: 2
Well now...
If I was saving big bucks by using an ASP to host MS Office, and maybe Internet Explorer, I'm not spending that cash on buying M$ licenses, am I? I'm not spending that cash buying PCs, either, since I'm buying thin terminals for my DP folks, and others that only need these apps. I'm not paying desktop support people to maintain 2-3 year old P-II-300s with 64MB RAM, or paying to upgrade them etc. etc.
This means I can spend *some* of the extra cash on redundant links to the internet, no? In fact, I could even spend that cash on dedicated frame-relay to the ASP site, with a backup T1 to the 'net through different trunks, couldn't I?
Also, if I'm outsourcing Explorer, the bandwidth that I'm using for web isn't going through my T1, I'm only getting the screenscrape, which is lower bandwidth than the page, *and*, if I'm outsourcing Exchange, I'm *not* getting 50MB attachments (who does this? why bother?) through my T1, they're landing at the ASP, and staying there.
Oh, and my ASP is colo'd at a facility with redundant everything, and I don't need to buy an amazingly large UPS, generator, etc. etc for my data. Sounds good to me.
You and I wouldn't desire to have all our apps and data on an external resource, but the vast majority of users won't understand or care, as long as the applications work.
Corporations moving towards this market will not thrive on selling to the intelligent and savvy user, they will thrive on selling to the AOL user.
yaknow, I've had one of these devices for about 1.5 years now. I've posted about it, did *all* the US beta testing under NT/2k/FreeBSD/Solaris, and nobody noticed. Now we see this? What happened to cutting edge?
Yeah, contact sales@ininet.com for pricing information.
As an aside to the main topic, I've been the primary US beta-tester for these QikDrives under NT/2K/Solaris/Tru64/Linux/FreeBSD. I consult to Platypus, and assist their engineering team. This is good stuff, if your application can utilize it effectively.
I have an Ultra10 with the 2GB half-card in it now.
I've been working on a Linux install on a dedicated RAM drive for awhile...
I have a prototype Platypus Qikdrive8 that has 2GB of RAM, and is addressed as a mass storage controller. Installing on the device is a little tricky, but wow. Fast, mang. Bummer if you lose power, but there are ways around that. (Check the URL). It's cool for non-production use, but if you have the entire system running in RAM, well, it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy. Platypus for one is coming out with a HD-based backup system (data dump from the device to the battery-powered HD if power is lost) for their large RAM drives. That could be the answer.
-JPJ
I've been working from home for about 4 years, on and off. I leave the house for site work (router upgrades, and stuff that I would rather be doing on-site, than having to drive in a panic 'cause an OS upgrade didn't work out too well), but other than that, I'm home all day. Girlfriend loves it. I don't mind, most of the time, until 5pm rolls around, and all I can do to "leave work" is to go downstairs. Where I have a laptop. On the coffee table.
If you love your job enough to constantly be around it, then it's good... if you don't, think twice.
Ex-SA, eh? NT, eh? No wonder you thought that rebooting the machine would *fix* security problems. That's the fist and last lesson taught for NT admins. Reboot, reboot, reboot.
We're talking servers, folks. Their main function is to *serve content*, not to be rebooting constantly to free "lost" memory in the paging file, or to start fresh 'cause an app locked. I am not necessarily a Linux fan, but I am definitely a UNIX fan, and I'm an MCSE. NT works, yes. It is a good solution for companies that don't have the money or need for knowledgeable staff to maintain servers for core business apps. It's good for companies who hire consultants to protect them via firewalls/network security, then leave.
UNIX is far more stable, far more reliable, and much easier to protect than NT boxes, but *you have to know what you're doing*. You can water everything down so that certain functions can be figured out via "NT For Dummies", but what if you have a problem that isn't in a dialog box?
If I needed to rewrite headers for outbound mail based on a database of users-domainname pairs, and recipient address, or customize my mail pathing configuration, I'd have a helluva time doing it in Exchange. I can do it very quickly with sendmail because I know how sendmail works. Yes, I have extensively dealt with Exchange, and it will rarely do exactly what I want. I itch to be able to change the position of a single variable in output headers, or envelope rewrites.
Speaking of headers, do you realize that Eric Allman, the guy who wrote, and has been updating sendmail since the early 80's WROTE SMTP? All mail servers use sendmail header formats, unless it's braindead like MMDF, which has to be handled special-case.
Let's face it. Sendmail will be around long after Exchange goes the way of the dodo.
To quote: "To cut a long story short, I find that this "sendmail" program is shareware written years and years ago. It is jam-packed with security holes, and has the most cryptic configuration utility you have ever seen in your life. You think regedit32 is bad ? You haven't seen "vi".
Years ago? Did you think about upgrading the version? What was it, 6.4 or something? Are you still runnning NT 3.51 on your servers? Oh, and vi is a modal editor. Once you work with it, you can edit large files, and make sweeping global changes to configurations with a few keystrokes. Amazing! If you have your head in the sand, here's a solution: pico.
To quote again: "It pops up with no prompt, and a whole load of what looked like garbage, or modem line noise, garbage along the lines of:
H?P?Return-Path: HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.$?_($?s$|from $.$_) $.by $j ($v/$Z)$?r with $r$. id " etc.
Look at this. It's a very simple concept. It's the format of a header. It will fill in variables that pertain to the email in question.: Received: from (hostname) (email addr, IP) by (hostname) (version of sendmail) with SMTP ID (blah) for (username@hostname).
This is *exactly* what Exchange does, but you can't see it because you might mess with it, and that's not the M$ way. Sendmail is an open book. You can modify it any which way you like. Amazing!
To put it bluntly, and I'm not attempting to start an OS flamewar here, NT is a good solution for smaller companies that have core apps that run under NT, and no real expertise, or need to deal with serving large amounts of content reliably. It's also good for giving users a familiar interface, and ease-of-use for the desktop. Don't put it in my server room to run mail or serve web content. NT servers do not perform well under serious loads, and will require far more resources to achieve the same functionality that, say, BSDI needs to do the same things.
UNIX is for those that understand what's happening on every level of the computer and the network, and wish to improve their investment by maximizing the potential of their servers. UNIX is not for everybody, and especially not for you.
Oh, and sorry about having to "log in". That security stuff sucks, eh?
Yeah, but that's too hard. Let's bash a publicly known entity for actions of a couple folks. Recipie for DoS? No mainstream 'puter OS required: (1) Cisco 7500 series router (1) OC/12 or suitably large pipe (1) Fatalistic viewpoint, (1) Large pot of coffee (2) command-line entries It's like blaming Ford for a hit and run. Done.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me that the Simpsons has reached the point of being a minor religion...
As folks will quote scripture, so folks will quote the Simpsons.
It's on Sunday, and plans are made around it. Those that watch think those that don't are wierd.
You can also attend throughout the week, but the sermons seem a bit canned and dated.
The characters consistently show reality through a fun-house mirror and have representation from most ethnic groups/stereotypes.
Why not? I'm sure someone somewhere hates the Simpsons with passion enough to start a small war, and that's all the qualification I need.
-JPJ
Ummm, who's talking about code bases? Did I miss a post? IOS != PIX OS != CSS OS != CatOS != NativeIOS, ad nauseum. That has nothing to do with the issue, which is the comparison between M$ and Cisco. While both enjoy large market share, Cisco doesn't compare in terms of overall corporate skullduggery, and their products generally work as advertised, and ample resources are available to track bugs in the code.
Cisco has definitely made some good moves in aquisitons (and a few bad ones), but that doesn't have anything to do with the argument.
And yes, Extreme makes great equipment... so does Juniper. They could be considered, well, competition, eh? I don't see anything close to that in the desktop market.
Go back to your CCNA studyguide.
-JPJ
Cisco is hardly the M$ of networking. They play nice with the RFCs, while providing their own solutions to similar issues. They have extremely complete buglists/tracking for all software/hardware and you don't have to reboot their devices every 24 hours. If Cisco *was* the M$ of networking, their routers/switches/aggregators would only play nice with other Cisco devices.
802.1q, VRRV, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, PPP, 802.3p anyone?
-JPJ
Funny. This says 6,909, with 3,070 in the US. That's not many, especially considering that they're (necessarily) clustered around population centers. The test is one day, but the failure rate is the same. 5 people take the test every day, but less than one passes.
There will never be a CCIE flood in the market. Once the number approaches n, Cisco will make the test harder. It's in their best interests.
If you are a registered CCIE, and have no education beyond high school, nobody will give a rats ass about the lack of a CS degree. CCIE's write their own ticket, believe me.
There are only about 6000 CCIE's in the world, and they've earned it. For those who don't know, the CCIE lab test has a 97% failure rate. It's generally regarded as the toughest certification on the planet.
" You will need to buy "Digital Audio Discs" and royalties from these discs are distributed to artists via the RIAA."
Let's get this straight. Any royalties from these discs will go to the artists.... well, maybe 1% of the royalties will go to the artists. If they're lucky.
To paraphrase Terry Prachett: "There exists no greater evil than music industry executives"
-John Paul Jones
Well, I like the idea, but...
Visions of a Novell evangelist who talks the good talk on the hill occupying this position makes me ill at ease. We (as in "The Open Source Community") could stand to benefit greatly from a knowledgeable person occupying this position, especially with the big software (M$) corps lobbying in Washington.
The other side of the cookie would present us with a truly political appointee. Anyone who's worked for a "political" rather than "technical" CIO/CTO knows that this is rarely a Good Thing, but hey, it's Washington. They'll do the right thing.
(maybe they'll appoint John Dvorak, that would be interesting, if nothing else: "Government Mandates that PCs Suck, story at 11"
-JPJ
Well now...
If I was saving big bucks by using an ASP to host MS Office, and maybe Internet Explorer, I'm not spending that cash on buying M$ licenses, am I? I'm not spending that cash buying PCs, either, since I'm buying thin terminals for my DP folks, and others that only need these apps. I'm not paying desktop support people to maintain 2-3 year old P-II-300s with 64MB RAM, or paying to upgrade them etc. etc.
This means I can spend *some* of the extra cash on redundant links to the internet, no? In fact, I could even spend that cash on dedicated frame-relay to the ASP site, with a backup T1 to the 'net through different trunks, couldn't I?
Also, if I'm outsourcing Explorer, the bandwidth that I'm using for web isn't going through my T1, I'm only getting the screenscrape, which is lower bandwidth than the page, *and*, if I'm outsourcing Exchange, I'm *not* getting 50MB attachments (who does this? why bother?) through my T1, they're landing at the ASP, and staying there.
Oh, and my ASP is colo'd at a facility with redundant everything, and I don't need to buy an amazingly large UPS, generator, etc. etc for my data. Sounds good to me.
-JPJ
Actually, it's nothing like SunRay.
*sigh* If only broadcast UDP wasn't the SunRay answer.
-JPJ
Only on Slashdot can a freedom to innovate/IP discussion wind up talking about cloning chocolate-chip cookies. Or maybe I'm wrong?
-JPJ
Yahoo has been selling this type of commodity for quite awhile, albeit indirectly. An example.
This is a Yahoo! Store.
Oh yeah, and who cares anyway?
-JPJ
The point is missed.
You and I wouldn't desire to have all our apps and data on an external resource, but the vast majority of users won't understand or care, as long as the applications work.
Corporations moving towards this market will not thrive on selling to the intelligent and savvy user, they will thrive on selling to the AOL user.
-JPJ
Citrix
-JPJ
VMWare
-JPJ
Cisco isn't the best/biggest due to their hardware.... software-software-software. -JPJ
The cost is incurred due to the large capacity DIMMS. While 4x256MB DIMMS are relatively cheap, 1GB DIMMS are more expensive due to the density.
-JPJ
yaknow, I've had one of these devices for about 1.5 years now. I've posted about it, did *all* the US beta testing under NT/2k/FreeBSD/Solaris, and nobody noticed. Now we see this? What happened to cutting edge?
-JPJ
CDW has old/high prices... I don't think they've sold a single one. Contact sales@ininet.com for accurate info.
(sales hat off now)
-JPJ
Yeah, contact sales@ininet.com for pricing information.
As an aside to the main topic, I've been the primary US beta-tester for these QikDrives under NT/2K/Solaris/Tru64/Linux/FreeBSD. I consult to Platypus, and assist their engineering team. This is good stuff, if your application can utilize it effectively.
I have an Ultra10 with the 2GB half-card in it now.
-JPJ
I've been working on a Linux install on a dedicated RAM drive for awhile...
I have a prototype Platypus Qikdrive8 that has 2GB of RAM, and is addressed as a mass storage controller. Installing on the device is a little tricky, but wow. Fast, mang. Bummer if you lose power, but there are ways around that. (Check the URL). It's cool for non-production use, but if you have the entire system running in RAM, well, it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy. Platypus for one is coming out with a HD-based backup system (data dump from the device to the battery-powered HD if power is lost) for their large RAM drives. That could be the answer. -JPJ
I've been working from home for about 4 years, on and off. I leave the house for site work (router upgrades, and stuff that I would rather be doing on-site, than having to drive in a panic 'cause an OS upgrade didn't work out too well), but other than that, I'm home all day. Girlfriend loves it. I don't mind, most of the time, until 5pm rolls around, and all I can do to "leave work" is to go downstairs. Where I have a laptop. On the coffee table.
If you love your job enough to constantly be around it, then it's good... if you don't, think twice.
-JPJ
My, my, my.
Ex-SA, eh? NT, eh? No wonder you thought that rebooting the machine would *fix* security problems. That's the fist and last lesson taught for NT admins. Reboot, reboot, reboot.
We're talking servers, folks. Their main function is to *serve content*, not to be rebooting constantly to free "lost" memory in the paging file, or to start fresh 'cause an app locked. I am not necessarily a Linux fan, but I am definitely a UNIX fan, and I'm an MCSE. NT works, yes. It is a good solution for companies that don't have the money or need for knowledgeable staff to maintain servers for core business apps. It's good for companies who hire consultants to protect them via firewalls/network security, then leave.
UNIX is far more stable, far more reliable, and much easier to protect than NT boxes, but *you have to know what you're doing*. You can water everything down so that certain functions can be figured out via "NT For Dummies", but what if you have a problem that isn't in a dialog box?
If I needed to rewrite headers for outbound mail based on a database of users-domainname pairs, and recipient address, or customize my mail pathing configuration, I'd have a helluva time doing it in Exchange. I can do it very quickly with sendmail because I know how sendmail works. Yes, I have extensively dealt with Exchange, and it will rarely do exactly what I want. I itch to be able to change the position of a single variable in output headers, or envelope rewrites.
Speaking of headers, do you realize that Eric Allman, the guy who wrote, and has been updating sendmail since the early 80's WROTE SMTP? All mail servers use sendmail header formats, unless it's braindead like MMDF, which has to be handled special-case.
Let's face it. Sendmail will be around long after Exchange goes the way of the dodo.
To quote: "To cut a long story short, I find that this "sendmail" program is shareware written years and years ago. It is jam-packed with security holes, and has the most cryptic configuration utility you have ever seen in your life. You think regedit32 is bad ? You haven't seen "vi".
Years ago? Did you think about upgrading the version? What was it, 6.4 or something? Are you still runnning NT 3.51 on your servers? Oh, and vi is a modal editor. Once you work with it, you can edit large files, and make sweeping global changes to configurations with a few keystrokes. Amazing! If you have your head in the sand, here's a solution: pico.
To quote again: "It pops up with no prompt, and a whole load of what looked like garbage, or modem line noise, garbage along the lines of:
H?P?Return-Path:
HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.$?_($?s$|from $.$_) $.by $j ($v/$Z)$?r with $r$. id "
etc.
Look at this. It's a very simple concept. It's the format of a header. It will fill in variables that pertain to the email in question.:
Received: from (hostname) (email addr, IP) by (hostname) (version of sendmail) with SMTP ID (blah) for (username@hostname).
This is *exactly* what Exchange does, but you can't see it because you might mess with it, and that's not the M$ way. Sendmail is an open book. You can modify it any which way you like. Amazing!
To put it bluntly, and I'm not attempting to start an OS flamewar here, NT is a good solution for smaller companies that have core apps that run under NT, and no real expertise, or need to deal with serving large amounts of content reliably. It's also good for giving users a familiar interface, and ease-of-use for the desktop. Don't put it in my server room to run mail or serve web content. NT servers do not perform well under serious loads, and will require far more resources to achieve the same functionality that, say, BSDI needs to do the same things.
UNIX is for those that understand what's happening on every level of the computer and the network, and wish to improve their investment by maximizing the potential of their servers. UNIX is not for everybody, and especially not for you.
Oh, and sorry about having to "log in". That security stuff sucks, eh?
Yeah, but that's too hard. Let's bash a publicly known entity for actions of a couple folks. Recipie for DoS? No mainstream 'puter OS required: (1) Cisco 7500 series router (1) OC/12 or suitably large pipe (1) Fatalistic viewpoint, (1) Large pot of coffee (2) command-line entries It's like blaming Ford for a hit and run. Done.