Okay, it's time to debunk the M$ admins are lazy myth a bit..
Here's my work environment -- the products that I'm supposed to install, after I've chosen the hardware for 700+ desktops, and maintain, after writing policies and ops documentation.
Exchange (10) Servers, IIS (7) Servers, MS-SQL 6.5 and 7 (5) servers, Metaframe/NFuse (4) servers, RAS, VPN, 45 NT servers for general ops of all this stuff, a couple of Debian boxes for internal DNS, FreeBSD running MRTG, Nessus, etc, perform 2nd level support for 8 clueless admins and 6 semi-knowledgable ones. Additionally, let's not forget the "uhh, how do I do a word merge", boss ranting about multicasting (for which I am going to modify configs on 12 cisco Routers and godonlyknows how many switches), write policy and operational documentation for all of this. Manage the "network consultants" than run DNS, e-Trust and FW-1, provide support and knowledgable comment towards a $2mil software app development process in terms of "net and O/S", deploy 2000 server *sigh* next month and ensure that everyone makes a backup occasionally. (play nice with audit, 20 mangers and two other organizations [1 that owns us, 1 that we own]).
If *ANY* of you suckers handle all that daily, and still have time to mess with patches on a regular basis, I'd love to see you in action. This seems to be quite a common scenario for a lot of mid/small size companies, in my experience.
I'd love to live in your dream world. People wonder why I'm an alcoholic.:-P Perhaps if I had a nice farm of 600 identical boxes, I'd be a perfect admin. This is life, folks. Get on with it without making the comments -- without understanding the other side of the fence.
I did realize about three months before codered that we were a screaming hole for IIS exploits. Do I have time to cull through 30+ patches and tinker with which are appropriate to apply? Nope. Result: Nimda runs rampant still this week because I've been stuck in innane meetings all day.
Now: Suppose your boss is used to having a mini-vax, and asked for CPU usage reports by dep't and individual last week. Do you see the uphill battle? We're young. Management in a small/midsize company isn't likely to even understand what they have running, less what should be paid attention to technically. Politics, Politics, Politics all day long. Yay! Well, I guess of the rest of the world got messed, it's okay that we did too.
Have fun admin'n your two Apache boxes. Good Night.
You're missing the entire point of deploying a messaging system in a corporate environment. This is what messes Linux up. It's nice that you can run SendMail, popD and whatever on the big hardware.. but.. for my corporate end users, this isn't adequate.
Here are my criteria, sorted in no particular order, for a system that I would be happy to deploy to my 700+ users:
1) Reliable: No loss of data (no PC storage, backups are centralized). [admittedly, tough to maintain with exchange, in the field]
2) Useability: (l)Users can find their info quickly and easily. (search via header, sender, date, text in body, text in attachments, etc..)
3) Manageable costs associated with the above two criteria. I'm not claiming $0 cost -- but predictable and manageable costs.
That's it. Exchange rules at meeting those criteria. I don't want to backup 700+ PC's -- I don't run an ISP!.. In the corporate world, you have to be able to do things such as "recover" a significant (L)user deleted email. If the CEO says "whoops, I poo-poo canned it accidentally", you're expected to fix the situation..
Which is quite common, for the market that Linux is "trying" to target -- except that most implementers assume there is a *nice* SLA in place.. the small/medium size market is not ready for the lack of end-user features that are present in the *VAST* majority of the distributions.
gimmie M$ Small Business Server vs. a Linux/POP3/IMAP solution and I only have to wait until the first end-user "OOPSIE" as a sysadmin, before I toss linux out the window..
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Okay, it's time to debunk the M$ admins are lazy myth a bit..
:-P Perhaps if I had a nice farm of 600 identical boxes, I'd be a perfect admin. This is life, folks. Get on with it without making the comments -- without understanding the other side of the fence.
Here's my work environment -- the products that I'm supposed to install, after I've chosen the hardware for 700+ desktops, and maintain, after writing policies and ops documentation.
Exchange (10) Servers, IIS (7) Servers, MS-SQL 6.5 and 7 (5) servers, Metaframe/NFuse (4) servers, RAS, VPN, 45 NT servers for general ops of all this stuff, a couple of Debian boxes for internal DNS, FreeBSD running MRTG, Nessus, etc, perform 2nd level support for 8 clueless admins and 6 semi-knowledgable ones. Additionally, let's not forget the "uhh, how do I do a word merge", boss ranting about multicasting (for which I am going to modify configs on 12 cisco Routers and godonlyknows how many switches), write policy and operational documentation for all of this. Manage the "network consultants" than run DNS, e-Trust and FW-1, provide support and knowledgable comment towards a $2mil software app development process in terms of "net and O/S", deploy 2000 server *sigh* next month and ensure that everyone makes a backup occasionally. (play nice with audit, 20 mangers and two other organizations [1 that owns us, 1 that we own]).
If *ANY* of you suckers handle all that daily, and still have time to mess with patches on a regular basis, I'd love to see you in action. This seems to be quite a common scenario for a lot of mid/small size companies, in my experience.
I'd love to live in your dream world. People wonder why I'm an alcoholic.
I did realize about three months before codered that we were a screaming hole for IIS exploits. Do I have time to cull through 30+ patches and tinker with which are appropriate to apply? Nope. Result: Nimda runs rampant still this week because I've been stuck in innane meetings all day.
Now: Suppose your boss is used to having a mini-vax, and asked for CPU usage reports by dep't and individual last week. Do you see the uphill battle? We're young. Management in a small/midsize company isn't likely to even understand what they have running, less what should be paid attention to technically. Politics, Politics, Politics all day long. Yay! Well, I guess of the rest of the world got messed, it's okay that we did too.
Have fun admin'n your two Apache boxes. Good Night.
No troll indended, it's just a rant.
S.
Folks,
.. In the corporate world, you have to be able to do things such as "recover" a significant (L)user deleted email. If the CEO says "whoops, I poo-poo canned it accidentally", you're expected to fix the situation..
You're missing the entire point of deploying a messaging system in a corporate environment. This is what messes Linux up. It's nice that you can run SendMail, popD and whatever on the big hardware.. but.. for my corporate end users, this isn't adequate.
Here are my criteria, sorted in no particular order, for a system that I would be happy to deploy to my 700+ users:
1) Reliable: No loss of data (no PC storage, backups are centralized). [admittedly, tough to maintain with exchange, in the field]
2) Useability: (l)Users can find their info quickly and easily. (search via header, sender, date, text in body, text in attachments, etc..)
3) Manageable costs associated with the above two criteria. I'm not claiming $0 cost -- but predictable and manageable costs.
That's it. Exchange rules at meeting those criteria. I don't want to backup 700+ PC's -- I don't run an ISP!
Which is quite common, for the market that Linux is "trying" to target -- except that most implementers assume there is a *nice* SLA in place.. the small/medium size market is not ready for the lack of end-user features that are present in the *VAST* majority of the distributions.
gimmie M$ Small Business Server vs. a Linux/POP3/IMAP solution and I only have to wait until the first end-user "OOPSIE" as a sysadmin, before I toss linux out the window..
Cheers,
Scoots.