Just invest in Gold so the price of your gold goes up and you hate the goverment, we understand that now (and from all the other posts).
Reading your makes me feel like I am at some sort of Dale Carnegie training class. This post is about the wonders (and ridiculousness) of Unisys and government contracts, if you please...
400 Million Netware User Licenses? Let see, that would be 1 for every person in the US and the UK.
Somehow I wouldn't trust that salesman for anything.
One of the other posters said it well, I don't know anyone or have heard of any company that is migrating to Netware or OES. Only companies moving away from it.
One thing the business world continues to demand is cheap and plentiful labor. Good Netware and Groupwise Engineers are hard to find, and the good ones want to make a lot more money than most Windows Engineers. This in itself is what drives a lot of companies away from Netware and Groupwise.
I hear the "Their support sucks" argument a lot, but that has not been my experience.
We have 26 Netbackup systems throughout our company and they all work very well. When there are problems, (usually hardware related) the Veritas support group is always willing to work to find the problem.
I have had nothing but good support from this company with Netbackup. An I have probably open abouit 25 calls with them over two years (with the problem being hardware 95% of the time, STK SUCKS!)
I have used all sorts of backup products in the past, including BE (which isn't bad for 25 small srvers in my book), and NetBackup is the best.
Avoid anyone who says anything good about FDR, unless you like lots calls in the middle of the night from mainframe schedulers.
I am in complete agreement, hang in there. While I got a CCNA because I wanted to force myself to learn more about IP and Routing, etc. I have loads of experience with Windows and some Linux.
While I have met a few compentent people with MS letters after their name, they are VERY few compared to the incompetent MCSEs. More and more hiring managers are realizing this.
I currently work for a very large corporation, and not one person asked me about letters before hiring me.
I am the lead engineer at work, and I have only been turned down for a job once (many years ago) due to lack of skills.
Look this, isn't flamebait and i am not trying to start battle. You can give windows users a machine they can use and like without Admin or root access too, I and many others have done it and it works very well.
My initial point is that politics makes most of these deicision on security and not the security folks.
We have a Customer service group (300 users) where everyone uses the same Username and password for their login, everyone knows it, and it hasn't changed in years.
We have a strict password policy (strong passwords, change every 60 days) throughout the company.
We tried to force them to change, and they wouldn't. They were going to raise hell as that would be a change. We complained to the security group, and they said they can't really enforce it. Those kinds of decisions are why destkop support groups in large companies get screwed.
I agree that lots of windows users need root, but it also comes from:
1) Sloppy programming. I have seen several instance where Applicaitons get bought by the users they NEED to run their business, and the first thing the README says is that all the users need to me administrators to run the app. Do they need to be? No, I know they don't, but the morons they bought their apps from can't figure it out or are too lazy to get it right.
2) Then there are the Gems from Microsoft: Can't use Office 97 on Windows 2000 without be a Power User.
SMS is worthless without AD or Microsoft DHCP. They'll lock you in just as well, although for a lower price than Zenworks/Novell Client costs (for now).
I have heard Kix scripts and file shares are often a better answer for desktops than ZenWorks, but then you need to find people that can write the scripts...
What kind of reporting can you get (and how hard is it to get it)?
We have been told (by the group that runs ZenWorks at our company) that these iventory reports are not possible (perhaps that means easily available). Say, I want to find all the machines that are running a certain version of certain product, give me the list. We are told we can't get that with ZenWorks
I agree, Engineers and Admins that know what they are doing can keep any OS running well. We have 5 Windows engineers working on >200 Servers. Half of them Mission Critical apps to our business. We are very good at meeting our SLAs. So are the Linux, Unix and Novell Groups.
The Desktop support people have a much tougher time. They deal with Users. Users have the right to install their own apps, because they need it (political). Management won't purchase new machines (and OSes) for users because it is just too costly.
Desktop people are always going to be screwed if they don't get the support they need. It doesn't really matter what OS they are running, there will always be the user that needs root level access to break their machines.
We have been using Zenworks for everything it "can" manage at our company. It sounds great, can deal with our Linux, Novell and Windows Systems together. In practice, its crap.
Roll out a new application to the desktops. Do you get an error code if it doesn't install properly? No. Do you get a report of the machines that had problems installing? No. This is especially bad when you are working with hundreds of machines that must have the latest verision to work with the new DB Server.
Zenworks is garbage. And I believe Novell will not get much farther with it, as there are alternatives to use with SMS that will allow hetergenous networks to be managed from one console.
I work with both Linux and MS. Zenworks is worthless for both. Our MS and Linux Server groups have installed it per management and shut it off. Now everyone (except the novell group) is getting ready to push out their own tool to manage their systems.
I didn't even get into the cost comparison of SMS vs. ZenWorks. Its not even funny for what you get.
I used to consult for a JA office, and 90% of the staff used Kazaa, Morpheus and Napster like madmen.
Some Staffers had GIGs of pirated music and movies.
I wonder how they are doing now...
I download all my ISOs and files from this server for its reliablity and large amounts of bandwidth. Its a federal gov't entity, so it is a contribution in some way to the open source movement.
I feel like I am getting something back for my taxes that doesn't involve bombing innocent people in other countries.
I wouldn't call this the death of Netscape. I have been using Netscape 7.2 for months now, and I find it superior to IE.
Everything (except for sites with lazy coders who don't want their code to work with 7.02 - flipdog.com, this means you) runs flawlessly. On my XP box, it actually starts faster than IE 6 for some bizarre reason...
Its mail component is much better than 4.7. And while I know this is all based on Mozilla, I have found the mozilla relases less stable than the Netscape realases...
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Just invest in Gold so the price of your gold goes up and you hate the goverment, we understand that now (and from all the other posts).
Reading your makes me feel like I am at some sort of Dale Carnegie training class. This post is about the wonders (and ridiculousness) of Unisys and government contracts, if you please...
400 Million Netware User Licenses? Let see, that would be 1 for every person in the US and the UK. Somehow I wouldn't trust that salesman for anything. One of the other posters said it well, I don't know anyone or have heard of any company that is migrating to Netware or OES. Only companies moving away from it. One thing the business world continues to demand is cheap and plentiful labor. Good Netware and Groupwise Engineers are hard to find, and the good ones want to make a lot more money than most Windows Engineers. This in itself is what drives a lot of companies away from Netware and Groupwise.
amen
I hear the "Their support sucks" argument a lot, but that has not been my experience. We have 26 Netbackup systems throughout our company and they all work very well. When there are problems, (usually hardware related) the Veritas support group is always willing to work to find the problem. I have had nothing but good support from this company with Netbackup. An I have probably open abouit 25 calls with them over two years (with the problem being hardware 95% of the time, STK SUCKS!) I have used all sorts of backup products in the past, including BE (which isn't bad for 25 small srvers in my book), and NetBackup is the best. Avoid anyone who says anything good about FDR, unless you like lots calls in the middle of the night from mainframe schedulers.
I am in complete agreement, hang in there. While I got a CCNA because I wanted to force myself to learn more about IP and Routing, etc. I have loads of experience with Windows and some Linux. While I have met a few compentent people with MS letters after their name, they are VERY few compared to the incompetent MCSEs. More and more hiring managers are realizing this. I currently work for a very large corporation, and not one person asked me about letters before hiring me. I am the lead engineer at work, and I have only been turned down for a job once (many years ago) due to lack of skills.
+ 80 points
Look this, isn't flamebait and i am not trying to start battle. You can give windows users a machine they can use and like without Admin or root access too, I and many others have done it and it works very well. My initial point is that politics makes most of these deicision on security and not the security folks. We have a Customer service group (300 users) where everyone uses the same Username and password for their login, everyone knows it, and it hasn't changed in years. We have a strict password policy (strong passwords, change every 60 days) throughout the company. We tried to force them to change, and they wouldn't. They were going to raise hell as that would be a change. We complained to the security group, and they said they can't really enforce it. Those kinds of decisions are why destkop support groups in large companies get screwed. I agree that lots of windows users need root, but it also comes from: 1) Sloppy programming. I have seen several instance where Applicaitons get bought by the users they NEED to run their business, and the first thing the README says is that all the users need to me administrators to run the app. Do they need to be? No, I know they don't, but the morons they bought their apps from can't figure it out or are too lazy to get it right. 2) Then there are the Gems from Microsoft: Can't use Office 97 on Windows 2000 without be a Power User.
SMS is worthless without AD or Microsoft DHCP. They'll lock you in just as well, although for a lower price than Zenworks/Novell Client costs (for now). I have heard Kix scripts and file shares are often a better answer for desktops than ZenWorks, but then you need to find people that can write the scripts...
What OSes are you supporting with Zen?
What kind of reporting can you get (and how hard is it to get it)?
We have been told (by the group that runs ZenWorks at our company) that these iventory reports are not possible (perhaps that means easily available). Say, I want to find all the machines that are running a certain version of certain product, give me the list. We are told we can't get that with ZenWorks
I agree, Engineers and Admins that know what they are doing can keep any OS running well. We have 5 Windows engineers working on >200 Servers. Half of them Mission Critical apps to our business. We are very good at meeting our SLAs. So are the Linux, Unix and Novell Groups.
The Desktop support people have a much tougher time. They deal with Users. Users have the right to install their own apps, because they need it (political). Management won't purchase new machines (and OSes) for users because it is just too costly.
Desktop people are always going to be screwed if they don't get the support they need. It doesn't really matter what OS they are running, there will always be the user that needs root level access to break their machines.
We have been using Zenworks for everything it "can" manage at our company. It sounds great, can deal with our Linux, Novell and Windows Systems together. In practice, its crap. Roll out a new application to the desktops. Do you get an error code if it doesn't install properly? No. Do you get a report of the machines that had problems installing? No. This is especially bad when you are working with hundreds of machines that must have the latest verision to work with the new DB Server. Zenworks is garbage. And I believe Novell will not get much farther with it, as there are alternatives to use with SMS that will allow hetergenous networks to be managed from one console. I work with both Linux and MS. Zenworks is worthless for both. Our MS and Linux Server groups have installed it per management and shut it off. Now everyone (except the novell group) is getting ready to push out their own tool to manage their systems. I didn't even get into the cost comparison of SMS vs. ZenWorks. Its not even funny for what you get.
I used to consult for a JA office, and 90% of the staff used Kazaa, Morpheus and Napster like madmen. Some Staffers had GIGs of pirated music and movies. I wonder how they are doing now...
I download all my ISOs and files from this server for its reliablity and large amounts of bandwidth. Its a federal gov't entity, so it is a contribution in some way to the open source movement. I feel like I am getting something back for my taxes that doesn't involve bombing innocent people in other countries.
Yes, its called rpm or aptget or any other easy binary install
Geesh!
I wouldn't call this the death of Netscape. I have been using Netscape 7.2 for months now, and I find it superior to IE. Everything (except for sites with lazy coders who don't want their code to work with 7.02 - flipdog.com, this means you) runs flawlessly. On my XP box, it actually starts faster than IE 6 for some bizarre reason... Its mail component is much better than 4.7. And while I know this is all based on Mozilla, I have found the mozilla relases less stable than the Netscape realases...