I have exactly the same experience as you on countless systems! One of my machines at home (currently used by my son) has been through many incarnations of Debian!
More than this, my company manages hundreds of Debian boxes that have been through this chain-of-reincarnation scenario and all are, without exception, working flawlessly.
There are a few of us who also operate in the 'real world' who may not quite share your view;)
I am by no means a Debian 'bigot', I don't us it as my personal desktop for instance, but I strongly assert it has a place, not least in the enterprise, an area we're no slouches in ourselves 8^)
I'm glad you like using Red Hat. I find your experience of the superiority of up2date over apt interesting, but not really backed up by my own experience.
In my experience, 'enterprise customers' are more least as likely to go the Debian route, of course, ymmv but it is in no way as cut and dried as you seem to assert.
Debian is not only the distribution of choice for the technically savvy, it is in most cases the best choice for deployment in Business.
The inevitable rise of GNU/Linux is one thing, Debian's place in the world is another. The two are not connected!
We deploy GNU/Linux and Free Software, every day, in an Enterprise setting. The opinion-du-jour on 'Linux on the Desktop' has almost nothing to do with distribution selection for any particular business. To the extent that Debian sticks to its long tradition of quality, stability, security and attention to detail it will remain right at the top of the shortlist (certainly for us at the very least).
Any increase in GNU/Linux usage is good for the community. Home users will be swayed by what they have always been swayed by - ease of use, getting their stuff done, and eye-candy. Decisions on Distributions used in business will continue to be made using a differenct set of criteria.
I agree, this would be a great book! We've started an LDAP howto for some of it, but haven't worked in compatibility with CUPS, Sendmail, Cyrus, etc *yet*. I should really mention Gerald Carter's LDAP book published by O'Reilly - this is for sure a part of the 'big picture' Our howto is at http://www.siriusit.co.uk/documents/index_ldap.htm l in case you're interested
Oops, a bit premature with the 'submit' button there. I meant to add that Samba + CUPS + OpenLDAP will do pretty much everything most businesses need for a back-end serving their MS desktops. It will also pave the way for bringing in new platforms (whether they be Open Source, MacOS X, whatever). We've got a full case study illustrating this trilogy here: http://www.siriusit.co.uk/support/casestudi es/k_g_ case.html CUPS will give equal quality/ease of use/simple admin printing to your *NIX and MacOS users as your Windows users. Couple this with an OpenLDAP authentication backend and you're in a great position to diminish your companies reliance on MS software, or even eliminate it on the back-end entirely. Don't want to go on too much more, but the features coming up in Samba 3.0 (due rsn), especially enhanced LDAP support and MS AS interoperability make this trilogy a no-brainer!
CUPS coupled with Samba and OpenLDAP now provides a one-stop replacement for authentication and file/print for most organisations currently running a MS back-end. Great to see some dead treeware on the subject
First Microsoft, then Yahoo - quite a coincidence on the timing methinks, perhaps Micros~1 should just buy them...
Re:It is a v_e_r_y complex message to get across..
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CIOs Looking At OSS
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· Score: 1
You're right of course, but the very simplicity of the message causes a problem. Mr Exec's first response is 'So what's the catch', and believe me, he has very little time for 'well, there isn't one!'.
Re:You all are missing a great new market...
on
CIOs Looking At OSS
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· Score: 1
YMMV of course, but we've found they are lower. It comes down to the old ratio of support staff to machines, which is lower under _any_ kind of UNIX. Even if short-term costs go up, that 'term' really is short, and the payback period is also typically short.
Certainly one should not oversell, neither should one miss this 'great new market' as you yourself pointed out.
The company you having spoken with is not untypical. In our experience the majority of companies make the change in stages. A common starting point is an email gateway, firewall or web server, but it really depends on their needs at the time of course!
LOL, we've used the switching will get you big discounts too! I think it should be used sparingly though as Open Source deployments can be sold on merits first (performance, stability, etc.), then cost (near-as-dammit-free), then 'plus microsoft salespeople will drop their pants^H^H^H^Hrices if you really don't get on with it' as a last resort.
Whether I'm a good consultant or not is in the minds of our clients. But all of them are happy so far and we seem to be getting more and more positive stories in the UK press. Our clients certainly are saving a _lot_ of money without a hint of religion in site;)
best regards,
Mark
Re:OSS pushed thanks to IBM?
on
CIOs Looking At OSS
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Absolutely. Up until a year or two ago we had to spend a large amount of time at initial presentations convincing companies that Open Source was a credible alternative to proprietary software. More often than not we get a 'if it's good enough for IBM, it's good enough for us' type response now, so much so that we take for granted that the prospective new client is convinced of the credibility of Open Source.
Re:You all are missing a great new market...
on
CIOs Looking At OSS
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Bang on the money. We're finding that firms are becoming conscious of the breakdown of their IT costs: 1. Hardware 2. Licensing 3. Support
In fact with Open Source deployments 1. goes down, 2. is _vastly_ reduced, and 3. is merely swapped to someone who supports Open Source. Overall result - lower costs.
The trick is to get them to try it!
on
CIOs Looking At OSS
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I agree with the article fully, it's been our experience here in the UK that companies are much more willing to consider Open Source. We are talking with some _significantly_ sized UK firms - the real trick is to get them to trial some projects. Once 'the penguin has landed' it inevitably spreads. I'm glad that the point was made about TCO. We have noticed that _whatever_ the intellectual debate over TCO, when you _actually deploy_ in any decent sized business, TCO benefits are huge! With the benefits of an actual deployment - the advantages of Open Source are clear - it's only those standing on the outside looking in that have doubts - the long term conclusions that Open Source will take the Enterprise is inevitable.
That's now what we've found. In fact business in the UK at least are interested in using it for pretty much everything you do on the back end. Here's our latest case study: http://www.siriusit.co.uk/technical/casest udies/kg.html The short version is - GNU/Linux is Enterprise ready, and companies are using it for pretty much everything!
to any of us 'selling' open source to 'The Enterprise'. We've been finding increasing acceptance recently amongst medium size businesses in the UK, and a willingness in the media to accept that Open Source is 'Enterprise Ready', which, of course, it has been for years.
We have just finished moving the entire infrastructure of a large UK construction firm over to Linux and Open Source. The TCO gains are enormous and fall into three main categories:
Staff. Less maintenance/repairs means staff are freed for productive work (or staff numbers reduced).
Licences. Pretty obvious really.
Hardware. The upgrade cycle is _drastically_ reduced. Companies depreciate hardware - if you depreciate 300k over three years it costs 100k per year. If your hardware lasts twice as long that goes down to 50k per year.
The Company has entirely eliminated its windows servers and is very happy with the cost savings. They went on record with this in last weeks 'Computing' (UK industry magazine).
We have the full case study here
and several pages related to TCO at here
Slashdot Mirror
Bang on the money!
:-)
I have exactly the same experience as you on countless systems! One of my machines at home (currently used by my son) has been through many incarnations of Debian!
More than this, my company manages hundreds of Debian boxes that have been through this chain-of-reincarnation scenario and all are, without exception, working flawlessly.
Thanks for writing
There are a few of us who also operate in the 'real world' who may not quite share your view ;)
I am by no means a Debian 'bigot', I don't us it as my personal desktop for instance, but I strongly assert it has a place, not least in the enterprise, an area we're no slouches in ourselves 8^)
I'm glad you like using Red Hat. I find your experience of the superiority of up2date over apt interesting, but not really backed up by my own experience.
In my experience, 'enterprise customers' are more least as likely to go the Debian route, of course, ymmv but it is in no way as cut and dried as you seem to assert.
Debian is not only the distribution of choice for the technically savvy, it is in most cases the best choice for deployment in Business.
The inevitable rise of GNU/Linux is one thing, Debian's place in the world is another. The two are not connected!
We deploy GNU/Linux and Free Software, every day, in an Enterprise setting. The opinion-du-jour on 'Linux on the Desktop' has almost nothing to do with distribution selection for any particular business. To the extent that Debian sticks to its long tradition of quality, stability, security and attention to detail it will remain right at the top of the shortlist (certainly for us at the very least).
Any increase in GNU/Linux usage is good for the community. Home users will be swayed by what they have always been swayed by - ease of use, getting their stuff done, and eye-candy. Decisions on Distributions used in business will continue to be made using a differenct set of criteria.
er, boy am I retarded today, that link should be:
h tm l
http://www.siriusit.co.uk/documents/index_ldap.
too much coffee, mumble...
I agree, this would be a great book!m l
We've started an LDAP howto for some of it, but haven't worked in compatibility with CUPS, Sendmail, Cyrus, etc *yet*.
I should really mention Gerald Carter's LDAP book published by O'Reilly - this is for sure a part of the 'big picture'
Our howto is at http://www.siriusit.co.uk/documents/index_ldap.ht
in case you're interested
Oops, a bit premature with the 'submit' button there.i es/k_g_ case.html
I meant to add that Samba + CUPS + OpenLDAP will do pretty much everything most businesses need for a back-end serving their MS desktops. It will also pave the way for bringing in new platforms (whether they be Open Source, MacOS X, whatever).
We've got a full case study illustrating this trilogy here:
http://www.siriusit.co.uk/support/casestud
CUPS will give equal quality/ease of use/simple admin printing to your *NIX and MacOS users as your Windows users. Couple this with an OpenLDAP authentication backend and you're in a great position to diminish your companies reliance on MS software, or even eliminate it on the back-end entirely.
Don't want to go on too much more, but the features coming up in Samba 3.0 (due rsn), especially enhanced LDAP support and MS AS interoperability make this trilogy a no-brainer!
CUPS coupled with Samba and OpenLDAP now provides a one-stop replacement for authentication and file/print for most organisations currently running a MS back-end. Great to see some dead treeware on the subject
First Microsoft, then Yahoo - quite a coincidence on the timing methinks, perhaps Micros~1 should just buy them...
You're right of course, but the very simplicity of the message causes a problem. Mr Exec's first response is 'So what's the catch', and believe me, he has very little time for 'well, there isn't one!'.
YMMV of course, but we've found they are lower. It comes down to the old ratio of support staff to machines, which is lower under _any_ kind of UNIX. Even if short-term costs go up, that 'term' really is short, and the payback period is also typically short.
;)
Certainly one should not oversell, neither should one miss this 'great new market' as you yourself pointed out.
The company you having spoken with is not untypical. In our experience the majority of companies make the change in stages. A common starting point is an email gateway, firewall or web server, but it really depends on their needs at the time of course!
LOL, we've used the switching will get you big discounts too! I think it should be used sparingly though as Open Source deployments can be sold on merits first (performance, stability, etc.), then cost (near-as-dammit-free), then 'plus microsoft salespeople will drop their pants^H^H^H^Hrices if you really don't get on with it' as a last resort.
Whether I'm a good consultant or not is in the minds of our clients. But all of them are happy so far and we seem to be getting more and more positive stories in the UK press. Our clients certainly are saving a _lot_ of money without a hint of religion in site
best regards,
Mark
Absolutely.
Up until a year or two ago we had to spend a large amount of time at initial presentations convincing companies that Open Source was a credible alternative to proprietary software. More often than not we get a 'if it's good enough for IBM, it's good enough for us' type response now, so much so that we take for granted that the prospective new client is convinced of the credibility of Open Source.
Bang on the money.
We're finding that firms are becoming conscious of the breakdown of their IT costs:
1. Hardware
2. Licensing
3. Support
In fact with Open Source deployments 1. goes down, 2. is _vastly_ reduced, and 3. is merely swapped to someone who supports Open Source. Overall result - lower costs.
I agree with the article fully, it's been our experience here in the UK that companies are much more willing to consider Open Source. We are talking with some _significantly_ sized UK firms - the real trick is to get them to trial some projects. Once 'the penguin has landed' it inevitably spreads.
I'm glad that the point was made about TCO. We have noticed that _whatever_ the intellectual debate over TCO, when you _actually deploy_ in any decent sized business, TCO benefits are huge!
With the benefits of an actual deployment - the advantages of Open Source are clear - it's only those standing on the outside looking in that have doubts - the long term conclusions that Open Source will take the Enterprise is inevitable.
That's now what we've found. In fact business in the UK at least are interested in using it for pretty much everything you do on the back end. Here's our latest case study:t udies/kg .html
http://www.siriusit.co.uk/technical/cases
The short version is - GNU/Linux is Enterprise ready, and companies are using it for pretty much everything!
to any of us 'selling' open source to 'The Enterprise'. We've been finding increasing acceptance recently amongst medium size businesses in the UK, and a willingness in the media to accept that Open Source is 'Enterprise Ready', which, of course, it has been for years.
I spotted this service a few weeks back when I noticed an increasing number of people browsing our site from the IP address it maps to.
I checked it out and thought "pretty neat", but i don't really see much advantage over the vanilla google.
Anyway, people are already using it and have been for some time...
Great idea...
Here's our latest results:
The press release may be found here
Our case study may be found here
We have just finished moving the entire infrastructure of a large UK construction firm over to Linux and Open Source. The TCO gains are enormous and fall into three main categories:
- Staff. Less maintenance/repairs means staff are freed for productive work (or staff numbers reduced).
- Licences. Pretty obvious really.
- Hardware. The upgrade cycle is _drastically_ reduced. Companies depreciate hardware - if you depreciate 300k over three years it costs 100k per year. If your hardware lasts twice as long that goes down to 50k per year.
The Company has entirely eliminated its windows servers and is very happy with the cost savings. They went on record with this in last weeks 'Computing' (UK industry magazine).We have the full case study here and several pages related to TCO at here