I've been looking at this as well but on a smaller scale. First, Citrix doesn't support 10-25 users per server -- it's per processor. So a 4 way processor can conceivably handle 40-100 users and since you don't seem to be running hard core apps like CAD (you mentioned that these users would not be migrating), etc, let's say 20 users per processor or 80 users on a 4 way box.
That puts you at 12 Citrix servers.
Next, according to the Citrix folks I've worked with, Windows Server 2003 handles Citrix MUCH more efficiently than Windows 2000 resulting in -- according to them -- a doubling of the number of users possible on each server. Since I don't quite buy that, let's go with a factor of 1.5 times the users rather than doubling. But let's stick with 12 4-way Citrix server to account for redundancy which you will surely want for this solution. Heck -- let's go with 15 even. It's still a lot fewer than 100.
I agree that -- at the beginning, using old hardware would save money initially. But, consider the support angle for a second. Rather than new, identical thin clients, you'll still have whatever you currently support for desktops. If you just maintain the copy of Windows that's on there, when one breaks, it's a total reload. If you use the new thin clients, it's a matter of swapping out the unit and they're less expensive to buy initially as well as more reliable due to fewer moving parts. You should see support costs drop dramatically with this rollout.
The Citrix guy that mentioned 1000 users on a single box had to be talking about something much larger than 4 processors... personally, I would recommend a cluster of 4 ways servers for teh redundancy that it would provide in the event of a hardware failure.
Going with Linux won't necessarily save in the long run. Sure -- you'll save on the initial software acquisition. But consider the support, end-user retraining and other problems that could crop up. Even if you use Cross Over office or something like that, your users WILL require retraining and you will suffer a productivity issue initally.
Not going with a Linux solution won't automatically doom the project nor will it prevent savings from the implementation.
I'm all for Linux (I have it deployed where it makes sense), but am wary of making generalizations that it automatically saves money.
A lot of companies have used time clocks for hourly workers for a very, very long time. They generally have a very good reason and these people work in jobs in which it is expected that they will clock in and out. The person asking the question did not say that he was working in an Office Space style setting only that they were replacing their old system with someone new. Maybe it's a manufacturing company or a department store with part-time, hourly sales clerks. These places can either depend on people getting time sheets correctly filled out and submitted on time or they can use a system that is easier for the employee and more efficient for the company.
That's not what they're saying and you know it. It's more like putting a kiosk up in a mall with your CD rack with a burner and blank CDs sitting next to it.
While they achieve the same goal, Verizon's service was shoehorned into their existing network while Nextel's was designed differently from the ground up. Nextel uses a separate frequency/signal for PTT stuff. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question530.htm.
Linux is still where it is. It's part instructions and part attitude. Attitudes like "leave it to the pros" is extremely condescending. I'm not saying that a newbie will be able to get Samba 3 up and running in 2 minutes, but when a Windows server can be had that can do it out of the box with very little administration, people will think twice.
Regulated, deregulated, etc... does it really matter? Every once in a GREAT while, a certain part of the nation goes through something like this. It's happened before and it'll happen again.
I'm not trying to say that deregulation didn't lead to a series of events that caused the problem, but until there's more data, anything that is said is 100% conjecture and cannot be part of a meaningul discourse.
Personally, I file this in teh shit happens category.
Ok - let's say that you have 10 SuSE Linux 8.2 systems. In July, patches were released on 8 days for this product (the 3rd, 9th, 11th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 21st and 25th). For arguments sake, you need to install at least one of the patches each day as some days there were multiple patches released. Based on the logic above, you would have to perform 8 total security audits in July. I don't know too many admins that have that kind of time on their hands.
If I had mod points today I'd mod this as high as I possibly could. No matter how good you are at your job, no matter how much you get paid, no matter what you do, there is always something that could be done better. Let's face it: mistakes happen, a patch is missed, they forgot to delete a user account, etc. I'd be willing to bet that almost everyone out there has worked in at least one place where user accounts were not removed until well after the door had hit the ass of the former employee on his last day.
I'm outside his circle of friends, not white, pear shaped OR stinky (my wife would kill me) and I found it rather humorous. It wasn't about shooting babies, but rather compared SCO's current practices to something also pretty tasteless.
Now -- I'm not a dad yet but my wife is 5 month pregnant and I'm WAY excited about being a dad so maybe your perspective is different than mine, but I think that I'd even find it somewhat funny after my son is born.
Notice: I am not questioning your right to be offended, but just take this in context.
In theory, this is great but in practice I doubt it would work only from that standpoint that you'd basically be making someone wait for IT help every time they came back to the office.
Think about this scenario: a perfectly competent administrator has a properly configured firewall which blocks the problem. The "road warrior" brings his laptop from from 3 weeks on the road and had used a bunch of hotel access points where he got the worm. He connects it to his docking station in the office effectively bringing the problem behind the firewall.
You wouldn't have been a defendant anyway. Your company would have been. If I were your boss, I'd probably be displeased to find that one of my people added an additional operating system to our support load without prior authorization as well. If you were trying to sway him, you might have considered going to him before you went off on your own and did something that you obviously knew he wouldn't appreciate.
An infrastructure is not ripped out and replaced in a day -- or even two. I doubt that we'll see Linux being used for wholesale replacements of corporate desktops in the near future. Until that day does come, Linux needs to play nice with the current prevailing technology. Environments are not necessarily rated as reliable or not reliable based on the individual components but on how well it works overall.
You mention that you expect a number of these kinds of responses. This is because people who manage these kinds of environments understand that Windows is here to stay for the meantime. We have a lot of critical applications that only run under Windows for which there is no open source alternative, for example.
I can't comment on how hard it was to convert from teh horse and buggy to the automobile since I have no firsthand knowledge of the event and it's problems and wouldn't presume to have such.
This isn't a matter of a document here and a document there. For some of us, a product without native support for wpd files is less than useless. Now... if you would like to spend your summer between semesters in DC at my workplace converting all 40,000 wpd files to an intermediate format, I'd be happy to provide you with a computer and an office. Oh -- and make sure to preserve the formatting.
I'm not that old -- 30 -- but would like to say this on the topic. I've been in IT for 10 years and also have a 4 year degree (independent study). My take:
* Younger people tend to be somewhat more rash in their decisions and may go down a couple of unnecessary roads before arriving at their final destination.
* Experienced people have the background to be able to better anticipate the impact of a decision and as a result can make better decisions more quickly.
Yes -- these are very broad generalizations.
I'll admit it. I use Office. Office 2003 beta, even. I'm not one to often run beta software as my primary system unless there is a compelling reason. The redesigned Outlook provides me with the reason -- I haven't found a good replacement for Outlook yet -- Evolution doesn't cut it.
I've used pretty much everything out there: WordPerfect/Quattro since DOS-based versions; MS Office since it was a DOS-based product; WordStar (yes - WordStar); IBM's Writing Assistant; StarOffice 5.2 and 6; and OO.o.
Yep - OO.o is a great system. I actually like it a lot, but use Office exclusively at this point.
I don't buy it... our society has totally degenerated to a point where -- if someone isn't absolutely perfect and/or know everything they're open to some kind of lawsuit or criminal actions. Gone are they days of "love thy neighbor". Remember when people used to be nice to each other and even help each other? Those days weren't that long ago. And we're not talking about a water heater ruining your neighbor's basement. We're talking about a few unsolicited email messages -- a situation that the person can easily fix if they told that they have a problem. If after that they don't address it, take more action, but at least give them a chance to do the right thing.
I really hope this was a joke for the most part. Someone may be running totally open without even realizing it and would correct it if they were aware... but no - this AC suggests that they get thrown in jail rather than be nicely informed about the situation.
I don't know if you can call it racketeering. You don't see Ford continue selling the Model T, right? Now, I'm not saying that Windows 2000 is that old, but the argument would fit the case that you're trying to make.
You can also make a case that people DO need Windows XP (or some OS) on their new machines (disclaimer: I do NOT agree with Microsoft's OEM "agreements"). So MS won't sell you Windows 2000 anymore - they also won't see you Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. They're selling you the latest version of their product. Personally, I think that they should continue to sell AND support products at least one version back, but they shouldn't have to sell every product forever.
As for publishing the source for older versions of Windows -- I agree to a point. They shouldn't have to open up Windows NT or 2000 as they still support those products, but Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 might be up for debate.
I'm with you in much of what you just said. You're definitely right about the tarnishing that the Linux community is taking these days. Debates are often handled in a "I'm right and you're wrong because I like Linux" sort of way rather than in a responsible, productive way. I still run Linux in some areas because it makes sense in those areas, but in many others, I run -- dare I say it for fear of being told that I must have no clue about IT - Windows. Yep -- Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, Office... but again -- where it makes sense.
Amen, brother... I do the same thing and I'm certain that at the least, my entire day would be ruined if I missed an article on Slashdot. In fact, I would be so upset that I might just try to mow down pedestrians on my way home from work on said day.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent points all around. If they're just running Office, they'll be ok with Windows 2003. Other apps -- absolutely -- check carefully.
I've been looking at this as well but on a smaller scale. First, Citrix doesn't support 10-25 users per server -- it's per processor. So a 4 way processor can conceivably handle 40-100 users and since you don't seem to be running hard core apps like CAD (you mentioned that these users would not be migrating), etc, let's say 20 users per processor or 80 users on a 4 way box.
That puts you at 12 Citrix servers.
Next, according to the Citrix folks I've worked with, Windows Server 2003 handles Citrix MUCH more efficiently than Windows 2000 resulting in -- according to them -- a doubling of the number of users possible on each server. Since I don't quite buy that, let's go with a factor of 1.5 times the users rather than doubling. But let's stick with 12 4-way Citrix server to account for redundancy which you will surely want for this solution. Heck -- let's go with 15 even. It's still a lot fewer than 100.
I agree that -- at the beginning, using old hardware would save money initially. But, consider the support angle for a second. Rather than new, identical thin clients, you'll still have whatever you currently support for desktops. If you just maintain the copy of Windows that's on there, when one breaks, it's a total reload. If you use the new thin clients, it's a matter of swapping out the unit and they're less expensive to buy initially as well as more reliable due to fewer moving parts. You should see support costs drop dramatically with this rollout.
The Citrix guy that mentioned 1000 users on a single box had to be talking about something much larger than 4 processors... personally, I would recommend a cluster of 4 ways servers for teh redundancy that it would provide in the event of a hardware failure.
Going with Linux won't necessarily save in the long run. Sure -- you'll save on the initial software acquisition. But consider the support, end-user retraining and other problems that could crop up. Even if you use Cross Over office or something like that, your users WILL require retraining and you will suffer a productivity issue initally.
Not going with a Linux solution won't automatically doom the project nor will it prevent savings from the implementation.
I'm all for Linux (I have it deployed where it makes sense), but am wary of making generalizations that it automatically saves money.
A lot of companies have used time clocks for hourly workers for a very, very long time. They generally have a very good reason and these people work in jobs in which it is expected that they will clock in and out. The person asking the question did not say that he was working in an Office Space style setting only that they were replacing their old system with someone new. Maybe it's a manufacturing company or a department store with part-time, hourly sales clerks. These places can either depend on people getting time sheets correctly filled out and submitted on time or they can use a system that is easier for the employee and more efficient for the company.
That's not what they're saying and you know it. It's more like putting a kiosk up in a mall with your CD rack with a burner and blank CDs sitting next to it.
While they achieve the same goal, Verizon's service was shoehorned into their existing network while Nextel's was designed differently from the ground up. Nextel uses a separate frequency/signal for PTT stuff. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question530.htm.
Linux is still where it is. It's part instructions and part attitude. Attitudes like "leave it to the pros" is extremely condescending. I'm not saying that a newbie will be able to get Samba 3 up and running in 2 minutes, but when a Windows server can be had that can do it out of the box with very little administration, people will think twice.
Regulated, deregulated, etc... does it really matter? Every once in a GREAT while, a certain part of the nation goes through something like this. It's happened before and it'll happen again. I'm not trying to say that deregulation didn't lead to a series of events that caused the problem, but until there's more data, anything that is said is 100% conjecture and cannot be part of a meaningul discourse. Personally, I file this in teh shit happens category.
Ok - let's say that you have 10 SuSE Linux 8.2 systems. In July, patches were released on 8 days for this product (the 3rd, 9th, 11th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 21st and 25th). For arguments sake, you need to install at least one of the patches each day as some days there were multiple patches released. Based on the logic above, you would have to perform 8 total security audits in July. I don't know too many admins that have that kind of time on their hands.
If I had mod points today I'd mod this as high as I possibly could. No matter how good you are at your job, no matter how much you get paid, no matter what you do, there is always something that could be done better. Let's face it: mistakes happen, a patch is missed, they forgot to delete a user account, etc. I'd be willing to bet that almost everyone out there has worked in at least one place where user accounts were not removed until well after the door had hit the ass of the former employee on his last day.
In a perfect world, I wholeheartedly agree. However, we all know that this doesn't happen in the real world even though it should.
I'm outside his circle of friends, not white, pear shaped OR stinky (my wife would kill me) and I found it rather humorous. It wasn't about shooting babies, but rather compared SCO's current practices to something also pretty tasteless. Now -- I'm not a dad yet but my wife is 5 month pregnant and I'm WAY excited about being a dad so maybe your perspective is different than mine, but I think that I'd even find it somewhat funny after my son is born. Notice: I am not questioning your right to be offended, but just take this in context.
In theory, this is great but in practice I doubt it would work only from that standpoint that you'd basically be making someone wait for IT help every time they came back to the office.
Think about this scenario: a perfectly competent administrator has a properly configured firewall which blocks the problem. The "road warrior" brings his laptop from from 3 weeks on the road and had used a bunch of hotel access points where he got the worm. He connects it to his docking station in the office effectively bringing the problem behind the firewall.
You wouldn't have been a defendant anyway. Your company would have been. If I were your boss, I'd probably be displeased to find that one of my people added an additional operating system to our support load without prior authorization as well. If you were trying to sway him, you might have considered going to him before you went off on your own and did something that you obviously knew he wouldn't appreciate.
An infrastructure is not ripped out and replaced in a day -- or even two. I doubt that we'll see Linux being used for wholesale replacements of corporate desktops in the near future. Until that day does come, Linux needs to play nice with the current prevailing technology. Environments are not necessarily rated as reliable or not reliable based on the individual components but on how well it works overall.
You mention that you expect a number of these kinds of responses. This is because people who manage these kinds of environments understand that Windows is here to stay for the meantime. We have a lot of critical applications that only run under Windows for which there is no open source alternative, for example.
I can't comment on how hard it was to convert from teh horse and buggy to the automobile since I have no firsthand knowledge of the event and it's problems and wouldn't presume to have such.
This isn't a matter of a document here and a document there. For some of us, a product without native support for wpd files is less than useless. Now... if you would like to spend your summer between semesters in DC at my workplace converting all 40,000 wpd files to an intermediate format, I'd be happy to provide you with a computer and an office. Oh -- and make sure to preserve the formatting.
I'm not that old -- 30 -- but would like to say this on the topic. I've been in IT for 10 years and also have a 4 year degree (independent study). My take: * Younger people tend to be somewhat more rash in their decisions and may go down a couple of unnecessary roads before arriving at their final destination. * Experienced people have the background to be able to better anticipate the impact of a decision and as a result can make better decisions more quickly. Yes -- these are very broad generalizations.
I'll admit it. I use Office. Office 2003 beta, even. I'm not one to often run beta software as my primary system unless there is a compelling reason. The redesigned Outlook provides me with the reason -- I haven't found a good replacement for Outlook yet -- Evolution doesn't cut it. I've used pretty much everything out there: WordPerfect/Quattro since DOS-based versions; MS Office since it was a DOS-based product; WordStar (yes - WordStar); IBM's Writing Assistant; StarOffice 5.2 and 6; and OO.o. Yep - OO.o is a great system. I actually like it a lot, but use Office exclusively at this point.
I don't buy it... our society has totally degenerated to a point where -- if someone isn't absolutely perfect and/or know everything they're open to some kind of lawsuit or criminal actions. Gone are they days of "love thy neighbor". Remember when people used to be nice to each other and even help each other? Those days weren't that long ago. And we're not talking about a water heater ruining your neighbor's basement. We're talking about a few unsolicited email messages -- a situation that the person can easily fix if they told that they have a problem. If after that they don't address it, take more action, but at least give them a chance to do the right thing.
I really hope this was a joke for the most part. Someone may be running totally open without even realizing it and would correct it if they were aware... but no - this AC suggests that they get thrown in jail rather than be nicely informed about the situation.
If you're so busy, get off Slashdot. And you might consider taking a little time in a class in people skills.
I don't know if you can call it racketeering. You don't see Ford continue selling the Model T, right? Now, I'm not saying that Windows 2000 is that old, but the argument would fit the case that you're trying to make.
You can also make a case that people DO need Windows XP (or some OS) on their new machines (disclaimer: I do NOT agree with Microsoft's OEM "agreements"). So MS won't sell you Windows 2000 anymore - they also won't see you Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. They're selling you the latest version of their product. Personally, I think that they should continue to sell AND support products at least one version back, but they shouldn't have to sell every product forever.
As for publishing the source for older versions of Windows -- I agree to a point. They shouldn't have to open up Windows NT or 2000 as they still support those products, but Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 might be up for debate.
I'm with you in much of what you just said. You're definitely right about the tarnishing that the Linux community is taking these days. Debates are often handled in a "I'm right and you're wrong because I like Linux" sort of way rather than in a responsible, productive way. I still run Linux in some areas because it makes sense in those areas, but in many others, I run -- dare I say it for fear of being told that I must have no clue about IT - Windows. Yep -- Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, Office... but again -- where it makes sense.
"KITT!!! I need ya buddy!"
Amen, brother... I do the same thing and I'm certain that at the least, my entire day would be ruined if I missed an article on Slashdot. In fact, I would be so upset that I might just try to mow down pedestrians on my way home from work on said day.