This isn't exactly a technical white paper on the relative security of Macs. Like most of the crappy journalism in the computer industry these days, this article has no real substance or useful information in it. It just states "well, we think the Mac might be just as big of a target as Windows."
Trust your instinct though - most people here know that Windows suffers from some symptoms no other platform has to contend with: lots of visibility and major security holes that many people never get around to fixing. _Every_ other currently viable desktop operating system is at _least_ less visible; in the case of Mac OS X (with an open-sourced FreeBSD-like core) it's even harder for a user-space application to attack critical system components.
Yes, Mac users should get some virus protection. Heck, EVERYONE needs virus protection these days. But to ascribe the Mac as "not really more secure than Windows" is just bunk.
This is a great idea, and is about two years overdue.:)
But... I took a look at the only technical document available at www.unitedlinux.com, and it reads like a compendium of the latest buzzwords and acronyms. They've tried to list every possible feature you'd ever possibly want in an OS on that document... which concerns me a bit, because I know some of those features aren't mature yet under any other Linux distribution!
It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
d'oh - I should also note that MOST people only use one msgXX.db file - they're designated by the db engine when the mailbox is created. But sometimes multiple msgXX.db files get traversed if the user uses shared folders.
It's a cool system anyhow; there are lots of notes about the database structure & message flow at www.novell.com/documentation - I think it's fascinating 'cause it is well-designed.
umm... I don't know why it chopped off some vital info, but here it is again:
1) userxyz.db - headers & stuff. 2) msgxx.db (30 per post office) - shared "big" databases that hold message-note-task-document bodies. this makes it easy to share folders... no duplicated data (except for the pointers in the userxyz.db files) 3) FD00... directories that hold "big" messages and attachments beyond the msgxx.db limit (so those databases don't get too big)
Exchange is actually a decent way to store e-mail on a server. But if you're gonna look at PC-based groupware solutions, DON'T use Exchange because it's loaded with holes. Its monolithic, proprietary JET-based data format is prone to corruption (I've seen this happen several times.:) They're trying to get it to work on SQL server, but I don't like MS SQL server that much, either.
I don't have a lot of experience with Lotus Notes (though I hear it's good...:) but I can tell you GroupWise solved this probelm (on UNIX, about ten years ago, when it was WordPerfect Office) with a proprietary database broken into different types of individual files. GroupWise these days consists of a few important files for each user:
1) a smallish userxyzy.db (where xyzy is the unique user identifier, so you can change their e-mail address the items aren't duplicated; the pointers in the userxyzy.db files are updated to point to the shared items.
3) an unlimited number of special-purpose directories (FD01...FDXX) that hold items that are bigger than a certain size (I think it's 4k or 8k?)
All of the database files are encrypted & compressed (algorithms licensed from Stac). The connection between the clients & server is encrypted & compressed. You can also use POP/IMAP (+ POP+SSL/IMAP+SSL) to access a GroupWise post office (and a web-based interface written in java servlets)). But I'm drifting off the topic...
anyhow, I always thought this setup was a really nice, well thought-out way to maximize performance for a large mail system without wasting lots of space (or inodes:) (Did I mention the whole database gets constantly reindexed, so you can find anything in seconds? Exchange does not do this on the back end without third-party software. Of course, it has no document management, either... but I digress.:)
Perhaps some of this info could be adapted for a UNIX-based open-source e-mail solution? (of course it seems silly since GroupWise is already available for UNix:) I'm still waiting for an open-source package that does everything GroupWise does... I think it'll be a while though.:(
hey -
(totally offtopic)
I'm taking the "view from 10,000 ft. approach" - i.e., Netware doesn't break down like NT... Netware is easier to upgrade than NT... Netware is easier to move than NT... Netware more closely follows standards than NT... Netware is faster than NT... Netware is more secure than NT... these are all facts.:) I wish all of my customers would run Netware, because it means I'd rarely have to see them unless I'm installing something new.
I don't develop for Netware, but I understand it's a pain in the ass to develop NLMs compared to writing win32 code. But writing solid server apps SHOULDN'T be for everyone... and Netware is clearly not built for developers (to its own detriment)... it's built to be the best possible file server, which it is.
Nowadays, Novell is really pushing hard for people to develop in Java instead. (I believe) the kernel is now fully pre-emptive (pretty sure they fixed that with NW5, but I could be mistaken) and threads split across processors really easily now. Clustering comes _with_ Netware 6 out of the box - and it works great! There's a lot to be said for it as a good web services platform... just most people don't think about it. Check it out if you get a chance - http://www.novell.com/netware
No one said it wasn't easy to develop apps for Windows... that's part of Microsoft's genuis... because they certainly don't maintain market share based on the technical merits of their software.
Novell Netware is technically superior to Windows NT.
SCSI is technically superior to IDE.
Does any of this matter to most of the market? Not really, since most people look primarily at up-front cost. I've been telling my customers (mainly small businesses) that mirrored IDE drives are the best value for general purpose data storage. The gap has narrowed; IDE definately makes more sense for most people (and even most servers) these days.
If I were specing out a system for high-end video editing, or a system that absoulutely had to process thousands of transactions a second, or a general purpose file or e-mail server that supported thousands of users, or a GIANT SAN, I'd go with SCSI. SCSI shines in really big storage pools, or in places where you absolutely need the fastest possible speed. But for most things, IDE undercuts SCSI by a longshot.
That said, there is one major problem with IDE, and it's not bandwidth (as most "higher-end" IDE-RAID controllers (such as some of the new ones by Adaptec) have multiple channels for multiple drives) - it's lack of VERY standard chipsets & APIs needed to access IDE block devices. The original spec has been hacked onto so many times that you're really at the mercy of the manufacturers' drivers for any "sophisticated" IDE implementations. This has gotten me into trouble several times. SCSI drivers tend to be more plentiful than high-end IDE drivers, and the testing cycles seem to be better because OS vendors actually care about them.
But again, people who buy IDE just on the technical merits of it may as well throw their money away. I wish the situation were different, but I don't think it will change unless drive vendors DRASTICALLY lower SCSI drive prices. Right now they're getting away with charging lots of extra dough simply because managers are hearing "SCSI is way better!" from their employees when purchasing hardware. That may have been true a few years ago, but it'll take a few years for the general consensus to swing in the other direction. (I really, really like SCSI too, and I think IDE sucks as a technology... but money talks):(
Correct - they KNOW they're beat in the areas of open standards, innovation, security and stability. Integration is their calling card; no one else can integrate the whole range of products like Microsoft, and it makes it that much easier for an executive-type to wave his/her hand and say "we're switching to Microsoft across the board."
If Microsoft were forced to release everything as individual pieces LIKE EVERY OTHER VENDOR, their "message" would get lost in the crowd and you'd have people building piecemeal networks with individual best-of-breed applications, rather than getting everything from a single vendor. Which is actually a pretty good thing, in this case...
I bought an iBook a few months back for most of the reasons listed in the ad... I was pretty skeptical of any bundled software, but I have to admit that "AppleWorks is actually pretty darned good." Switching between apps & getting basic things done seems just a tad easier with AppleWorks than with MS Office, probably making it a better package for most general-purpose needs.
It has an amazingly devout user community, too.
Flash is the right medium for this...
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Flash and Open Source
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Anyone who has ever actually looked at Flash or its development tools will tell you that there's really nothing else like it on the market right now. I think open-source advocates react strongly to it simply because it's so proprietary. You can develop stuff in Flash that looks *identical* on multiple platforms (despite browser differences) and fits in a minimum of space.
Flash (the development tool) enables people to create relatively complex animations and interactive sites with amazing ease. Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate.:)
Until there are real, viable alternatives to Flash that have 96% browser penetration (this statistic is from Macromedia, of course, so it may or may not be 100% true) then it'll be the best tool for the job.
(Someone suggested PHP as an alternative? You really think doing this stuff in PHP will be as easy without any GUI-based tools??)
Yeah, most of the functionality this guy wants comes bundled in... and I think it's also really important to stress that eDir is a *distributed* *pervasive* database.. that alone marks a clear distinction from other products. (No, not "Pervasive" as in the company...)
If a server tanks, you don't lose any access to your auth info. If multiple servers tank, you STILL don't lose any access to your auth info. There are no single points of failure (note: Active Directory actually has (I believe) up to FOUR single points of failure- you have to manually reassign servers in case one of them crashes in order to have write access to your data. At least this was the case last time I checked it a few months ago.). Most other LDAP implementations are single-server as well. eDir really is as good people say it is... a good case study was CNN when they built a web portal... they were deciding whether or not to build their own custom auth database, but ended up choosing eDir instead because everything was already included. here's the story: CNN eDirectory success story
Similarly, Yahoo! picked eDir & Novell's Portal offering for their business portal... check it out:
Yahoo! success story.
Both talk about scalability (replication), LDAP & cross-platform abilities. Anyhow, give it a look. It's really cool.:)
Disclaimer: I do not work for, nor have I ever worked for Novell...
LDAP is a great idea, but it's only half of the problem - it specifies the cross-platform interface, but not the database to store that information in. OpenLDAP sounds like a step in the right direction.
MS has their ActiveDirectory that fully supports LDAP, but the database is very Windows-centric and you'd be taking on all of Microsoft's security issues related to hosting ANYTHING on a Win2K server.
Really, seriously, definitely have a look at Novell eDirectory (a.k.a. NDS) as your foundation - replicas of NDS partitions can be *hosted* on Solaris, RedHat Linux, Netware, NT and Win2K (note: you do NOT NEED A NETWARE SERVER ON YOUR NETWORK TO RUN eDIRECTORY!:) You can use the proprietary Novell client software for various OSes to access this information, or make standard LDAP calls to it.
NDS (the database part) is dynamically extensible, totally replicated (for performance and auto failover) & almost completely automatic... very little maintenance is required. It supports hooks for almost all OSes for authentication (look at Novell Account Manager for Linux & Solaris, for example) and directly supports smartcards/biometric/SecurID/etc. It's "light" meaning you wouldn't have to dedicate entire servers to host the information. The security is awesome and the you get very fine-grained control over everything. It's relatively inexpensive these days, too. (You can practically get it for free if you're a developer - check the website for a free eval copy, too)
These days, Novell also has all sorts of whiz-bang products (i.e. DirXML) that integrate with eDirectory - do bulk-loads or automatic synchronization of other proprietary directories using your own XML interfaces. They even have a bunch of tools & apps that let you take existing apps and set them up as "single sign on" so you don't have to keep track of multiple passwords for multiple databases.
The other advantage is that Novell has about ten years of lead time over everyone else's directory implementation right now.. I'm lucky enough to have had a chance to play with NDS on several large networks and continue to be amazed at the technology behind it.
Re:Sounds like a tremendous waste...
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Linux On Big Iron
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· Score: 1
I would have to agree that using a mainframe to serve e-mail to 700 users is seriously massive overkill, and that the "Dell server" (although Dell is not my favorite Intel-based server) option actually makes more financial sense.
Yes, many Dell servers are available with dual (if not more) HOT-SWAP power supplies. Yes, many Dell servers support *expandable* hot-plug hardware RAID. Yes, Dell has the dual-channel RAID storage box. Yes, hot-plug PCI is an option. No, PC architecture does not yet support hot-plug RAM or processors, but it's only a matter of time. (Not that you would need these if the server was properly spec'ed out to begin with).
I would be interested in seeing what the incendiary costs are for running a mainframe vs. a server--how much electricity does that thing eat up, anyhow? What are the contractual costs with IBM? Yes, their service & support is great, but I can't see why a company would spend all of that extra money for 100% uptime when they can have "99.9999%" uptime for a fraction of the cost. I understand mainframes are legendary for their reliability, but many companies simply don't NEED that and the cost differential required to simply maintain and run them may be a big waste of money.
Given a competent administrator/integrator and the right combo of server software, a PC server should be able to give very reliable service at far less cost than maintaining mainframes. E-mail, while important, is simply not as "mission-critical" in most cases as a gigantic ERP solution, and even those run well on PC servers these days.
I understand mainframes are still "cool," but if you have a competent staff in place they're simply not a good use of a company's resources these days for things that are better served by commodity hardware. It sounds like the guy who did this really wanted to play with it and see if it would work; using Microsoft's licensing costs to justify it was an easy out, despite the fact that there are other products comparable to Exchange in features that are far less expensive. Also, the article didn't say anything about the features that were LOST by using Linux to serve e-mail instead of a real groupware package.
Smoke & mirrors... "look at me! I put Linux on a mainframe! Isn't that cool of me?"
Novell's got a product coming out that leverages their eDirectory, ZENworks, and Portal offerings. Basically, it'll give you a web-based "view" of all of your options no matter where you login at (and it's all encrypted with SSL).
Your "homepage" could have e-mail, file&print access across different servers, and applications. Depending on HOW you're accessing the system it'll change how it delivers apps.
For example, if you're on a high-speed LAN it'll figure out what servers are closest to you and deliver apps to your desktop if they're not already installed. If you move to a different office, it'll change to the closest server that has the apps on it.
If you're at a web cafe or on a dial-up connection, it can deliver the SAME apps via a Citrix session automatically without the user having to pay attention to the underlying mechanisms, keeping track of licensing concerns automatically.
This is not just a simple remote "viewing" solution like VNC and it's not a remote "processing, local viewing" solution like X - it's a way to tie together all of the resources (servers, apps, data) you already have in a solution that the users can easily take with them anywhere without having to change to fit the system. Pretty cool.
Unfortunately, they haven't yet put up any screenshots, but the ones I've seen look really cool... here's a 3rd-party article that gives you a better idea of how this works than I can.
(Yes, they embraced Linux a while back, and yes, ZENworks Synergy is supposed to even extend to handhelds.:)
No, I don't work for Novell - I just think they *still* make some damn fine products (even if their marketing does really suck.)
I never said the Mac sucked; I just said it and its users were on a different planet from PCs.:) And the first several versions of OS/2 really did suck (and they were 16-bit) - OS/2 1.3 was the first *good* version. I was lucky enough to use it a couple of times - that thing was solid.
Macs had dual-monitor, dual-keyboard, better I/O, better sound, better graphics for years... the list goes on and on. But the OS did kinda suck until Mac OS X - it was kinda toylike.
I think the "registry" stuff was installed by Netscape (in this case) just because it made it easier to port, no? I don't think it was anything that was a standard for the whole system. I still think attributes, shadows, etc. were stored in with the filesystem (or in the EA DATA files).
I didn't know that - I *do* remember "EA DATA. SF" files (yes, with the spaces) on drives that weren't formatted with HPFS, so I assumed it was just a way of storing the extended attributes for the files/objects in that directory. I figured the "EA DATA" was just built into the HPFS filesystem. (HPFS seemed much faster and more resistant to fragmentation than NTFS is today...)
I never had a problem though with those things getting corrupt, at least not like problems with the registry these days.:)
Interestingly, my original post got modded up to a 3 last night, then back down to a 2. I suspect it's because I said something negative about Linux.
OS/2 was a truly great OS. The only other Truly Great OS I can think of is Mac OS X. "Linux+GNU utilities" is a very good OS for a number of reasons, but it's not particularly innovative.
OS/2 2.0 (the first fully 32-bit version that also supported running more than one DOS session at one time) ran WELL on my 386sx-16 with 6 megs of RAM. Granted, it was slow as molasses, but I was able to run my BBS in one window and do other stuff without a problem. (I still remember my disgust when I tried to do this with Windows 3.0 on the same hardware - it didn't work well at ALL.) The environment was very graphically rich, and the jewel in the crown was the WorkPlace Shell, the likes of which I have yet to see on another OS (even BeOS didn't quite cut it).
The workplace shell was completely object-oriented; it was so far ahead of its time that most people had a really tough time understanding it which may have helped lead to its demise. You could drag "things" or "attributes" from programs to collections of objects, etc. I could open up the paint or font panel and "drag" color & typefaces over to any part of any open folder or application, and they would stick. The links were stored *in* the filesystem with the objects they affected, instead of a monolithic pseudo-database or oodles of unwieldy text files. As long as programs were written to take advantage of the object-oriented aspect of the WPS, it was a thing of beauty to watch how seamlessly everything worked together. (I used to spend hours customizing colors & fonts on all of my folders & windows by dragging... no OS since then has really been quite as fun to do this with, as they all "feel" very rigid and inflexible in comparison.") WPS also had the concept of templates as stacks of paper that you would literally rip off the top and fill in, not worrying about what the underlying application is. And WPS brought us the first tabbed-divider interfaces, which were pervasive throughout the system.
But OS/2 was released in a time when PC users were just starting to think graphically and Mac users were almost literally on another planet. Microsoft capitalized on this by releasing version after version of an OS that was essentially a menu-driven system overlaid on top of DOS. OS/2 was so advanced that people simply couldn't grasp its potential. And yes, people viewed IBM as "evil" at the time, and IBM sucked at marketing, etc...etc... there are really a ton of reasons why it didn't make it, but luckily I don't think most of them apply to Linux. No, Linux has a whole list of other problems that will hamper its adoption by the masses, but I digress.:)
It is a small consolation that OS/2 is still in heavy use in banks, and in Germany (I believe some user groups still exist there). They like their finely engineered products over there.:)
Like Mac OS X, (and unlike Windows or Linux) OS/2 wasn't simply a "list of features available in an OS" - it was designed from the ground up to deliver a complete & refined experience to the user. It disappeared into the background as you concentrated on the task at hand. It's what an OS should be. It's the last OS I ever used (until Mac OS X) that was truly a joy to use on a daily basis (and this includes several distributions of Linux).
It's nice that at least Apple finally gets this.:)
Another company tried to pull this one about ten years ago. They claimed (I believe) a 12 to 1 compression on "random" data, and you could "recompress" that data stream as many times as you wanted until it was less than 4k.
uh-huh.
Given that this really IS mathematically impossible, and people have tried for years to figure out ways around it, it's just another company trying to sell snake oil to investors. It's too bad this stuff makes it to slashdot and to the media in general, because the company doesn't deserve the attention.
Slashdot Mirror
and stable, and fast, and flexible, and dynamic, and scalable, and runs java faster than you can possibly imagine.
Trust your instinct though - most people here know that Windows suffers from some symptoms no other platform has to contend with: lots of visibility and major security holes that many people never get around to fixing. _Every_ other currently viable desktop operating system is at _least_ less visible; in the case of Mac OS X (with an open-sourced FreeBSD-like core) it's even harder for a user-space application to attack critical system components.
Yes, Mac users should get some virus protection. Heck, EVERYONE needs virus protection these days. But to ascribe the Mac as "not really more secure than Windows" is just bunk.
But... I took a look at the only technical document available at www.unitedlinux.com, and it reads like a compendium of the latest buzzwords and acronyms. They've tried to list every possible feature you'd ever possibly want in an OS on that document... which concerns me a bit, because I know some of those features aren't mature yet under any other Linux distribution!
It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
d'oh - I should also note that MOST people only use one msgXX.db file - they're designated by the db engine when the mailbox is created. But sometimes multiple msgXX.db files get traversed if the user uses shared folders.
It's a cool system anyhow; there are lots of notes about the database structure & message flow at www.novell.com/documentation - I think it's fascinating 'cause it is well-designed.
umm... I don't know why it chopped off some vital info, but here it is again:
1) userxyz.db - headers & stuff.
2) msgxx.db (30 per post office) - shared "big" databases that hold message-note-task-document bodies. this makes it easy to share folders... no duplicated data (except for the pointers in the userxyz.db files)
3) FD00... directories that hold "big" messages and attachments beyond the msgxx.db limit (so those databases don't get too big)
Exchange is actually a decent way to store e-mail on a server. But if you're gonna look at PC-based groupware solutions, DON'T use Exchange because it's loaded with holes. Its monolithic, proprietary JET-based data format is prone to corruption (I've seen this happen several times. :) They're trying to get it to work on SQL server, but I don't like MS SQL server that much, either.
:) but I can tell you GroupWise solved this probelm (on UNIX, about ten years ago, when it was WordPerfect Office) with a proprietary database broken into different types of individual files. GroupWise these days consists of a few important files for each user:
:) (Did I mention the whole database gets constantly reindexed, so you can find anything in seconds? Exchange does not do this on the back end without third-party software. Of course, it has no document management, either... but I digress. :)
:) I'm still waiting for an open-source package that does everything GroupWise does... I think it'll be a while though. :(
I don't have a lot of experience with Lotus Notes (though I hear it's good...
1) a smallish userxyzy.db (where xyzy is the unique user identifier, so you can change their e-mail address the items aren't duplicated; the pointers in the userxyzy.db files are updated to point to the shared items.
3) an unlimited number of special-purpose directories (FD01...FDXX) that hold items that are bigger than a certain size (I think it's 4k or 8k?)
All of the database files are encrypted & compressed (algorithms licensed from Stac). The connection between the clients & server is encrypted & compressed. You can also use POP/IMAP (+ POP+SSL/IMAP+SSL) to access a GroupWise post office (and a web-based interface written in java servlets)). But I'm drifting off the topic...
anyhow, I always thought this setup was a really nice, well thought-out way to maximize performance for a large mail system without wasting lots of space (or inodes
Perhaps some of this info could be adapted for a UNIX-based open-source e-mail solution? (of course it seems silly since GroupWise is already available for UNix
I don't develop for Netware, but I understand it's a pain in the ass to develop NLMs compared to writing win32 code. But writing solid server apps SHOULDN'T be for everyone... and Netware is clearly not built for developers (to its own detriment)... it's built to be the best possible file server, which it is.
Nowadays, Novell is really pushing hard for people to develop in Java instead. (I believe) the kernel is now fully pre-emptive (pretty sure they fixed that with NW5, but I could be mistaken) and threads split across processors really easily now. Clustering comes _with_ Netware 6 out of the box - and it works great! There's a lot to be said for it as a good web services platform... just most people don't think about it. Check it out if you get a chance - http://www.novell.com/netware
No one said it wasn't easy to develop apps for Windows... that's part of Microsoft's genuis... because they certainly don't maintain market share based on the technical merits of their software.
that might make more sense. :)
Beta is technically superior to VHS.
Novell Netware is technically superior to Windows NT.
SCSI is technically superior to IDE.
Does any of this matter to most of the market? Not really, since most people look primarily at up-front cost. I've been telling my customers (mainly small businesses) that mirrored IDE drives are the best value for general purpose data storage. The gap has narrowed; IDE definately makes more sense for most people (and even most servers) these days.
If I were specing out a system for high-end video editing, or a system that absoulutely had to process thousands of transactions a second, or a general purpose file or e-mail server that supported thousands of users, or a GIANT SAN, I'd go with SCSI. SCSI shines in really big storage pools, or in places where you absolutely need the fastest possible speed. But for most things, IDE undercuts SCSI by a longshot.
That said, there is one major problem with IDE, and it's not bandwidth (as most "higher-end" IDE-RAID controllers (such as some of the new ones by Adaptec) have multiple channels for multiple drives) - it's lack of VERY standard chipsets & APIs needed to access IDE block devices. The original spec has been hacked onto so many times that you're really at the mercy of the manufacturers' drivers for any "sophisticated" IDE implementations. This has gotten me into trouble several times. SCSI drivers tend to be more plentiful than high-end IDE drivers, and the testing cycles seem to be better because OS vendors actually care about them.
But again, people who buy IDE just on the technical merits of it may as well throw their money away. I wish the situation were different, but I don't think it will change unless drive vendors DRASTICALLY lower SCSI drive prices. Right now they're getting away with charging lots of extra dough simply because managers are hearing "SCSI is way better!" from their employees when purchasing hardware. That may have been true a few years ago, but it'll take a few years for the general consensus to swing in the other direction. (I really, really like SCSI too, and I think IDE sucks as a technology... but money talks) :(
If Microsoft were forced to release everything as individual pieces LIKE EVERY OTHER VENDOR, their "message" would get lost in the crowd and you'd have people building piecemeal networks with individual best-of-breed applications, rather than getting everything from a single vendor. Which is actually a pretty good thing, in this case...
I bought an iBook a few months back for most of the reasons listed in the ad... I was pretty skeptical of any bundled software, but I have to admit that "AppleWorks is actually pretty darned good." Switching between apps & getting basic things done seems just a tad easier with AppleWorks than with MS Office, probably making it a better package for most general-purpose needs.
It has an amazingly devout user community, too.
Flash (the development tool) enables people to create relatively complex animations and interactive sites with amazing ease. Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)
Until there are real, viable alternatives to Flash that have 96% browser penetration (this statistic is from Macromedia, of course, so it may or may not be 100% true) then it'll be the best tool for the job.
(Someone suggested PHP as an alternative? You really think doing this stuff in PHP will be as easy without any GUI-based tools??)
An Apple iBook, in comparison, provides way more functionality, a keyboard, and a bigger and better screen for $1199. (And you can run VNC with it. :)
Umm... anyone else see a problem here?
Yeah, most of the functionality this guy wants comes bundled in... and I think it's also really important to stress that eDir is a *distributed* *pervasive* database.. that alone marks a clear distinction from other products. (No, not "Pervasive" as in the company...)
If a server tanks, you don't lose any access to your auth info. If multiple servers tank, you STILL don't lose any access to your auth info. There are no single points of failure (note: Active Directory actually has (I believe) up to FOUR single points of failure- you have to manually reassign servers in case one of them crashes in order to have write access to your data. At least this was the case last time I checked it a few months ago.). Most other LDAP implementations are single-server as well. eDir really is as good people say it is... a good case study was CNN when they built a web portal... they were deciding whether or not to build their own custom auth database, but ended up choosing eDir instead because everything was already included. here's the story: CNN eDirectory success story
Similarly, Yahoo! picked eDir & Novell's Portal offering for their business portal... check it out: Yahoo! success story.
Both talk about scalability (replication), LDAP & cross-platform abilities. Anyhow, give it a look. It's really cool. :)
Disclaimer: I do not work for, nor have I ever worked for Novell...
LDAP is a great idea, but it's only half of the problem - it specifies the cross-platform interface, but not the database to store that information in. OpenLDAP sounds like a step in the right direction.
MS has their ActiveDirectory that fully supports LDAP, but the database is very Windows-centric and you'd be taking on all of Microsoft's security issues related to hosting ANYTHING on a Win2K server.
Really, seriously, definitely have a look at Novell eDirectory (a.k.a. NDS) as your foundation - replicas of NDS partitions can be *hosted* on Solaris, RedHat Linux, Netware, NT and Win2K (note: you do NOT NEED A NETWARE SERVER ON YOUR NETWORK TO RUN eDIRECTORY! :) You can use the proprietary Novell client software for various OSes to access this information, or make standard LDAP calls to it.
NDS (the database part) is dynamically extensible, totally replicated (for performance and auto failover) & almost completely automatic... very little maintenance is required. It supports hooks for almost all OSes for authentication (look at Novell Account Manager for Linux & Solaris, for example) and directly supports smartcards/biometric/SecurID/etc. It's "light" meaning you wouldn't have to dedicate entire servers to host the information. The security is awesome and the you get very fine-grained control over everything. It's relatively inexpensive these days, too. (You can practically get it for free if you're a developer - check the website for a free eval copy, too)
These days, Novell also has all sorts of whiz-bang products (i.e. DirXML) that integrate with eDirectory - do bulk-loads or automatic synchronization of other proprietary directories using your own XML interfaces. They even have a bunch of tools & apps that let you take existing apps and set them up as "single sign on" so you don't have to keep track of multiple passwords for multiple databases.
The other advantage is that Novell has about ten years of lead time over everyone else's directory implementation right now.. I'm lucky enough to have had a chance to play with NDS on several large networks and continue to be amazed at the technology behind it.
more info: http://www.novell.com/edirectory
I would have to agree that using a mainframe to serve e-mail to 700 users is seriously massive overkill, and that the "Dell server" (although Dell is not my favorite Intel-based server) option actually makes more financial sense.
:)
Yes, many Dell servers are available with dual (if not more) HOT-SWAP power supplies. Yes, many Dell servers support *expandable* hot-plug hardware RAID. Yes, Dell has the dual-channel RAID storage box. Yes, hot-plug PCI is an option. No, PC architecture does not yet support hot-plug RAM or processors, but it's only a matter of time. (Not that you would need these if the server was properly spec'ed out to begin with).
I would be interested in seeing what the incendiary costs are for running a mainframe vs. a server--how much electricity does that thing eat up, anyhow? What are the contractual costs with IBM? Yes, their service & support is great, but I can't see why a company would spend all of that extra money for 100% uptime when they can have "99.9999%" uptime for a fraction of the cost. I understand mainframes are legendary for their reliability, but many companies simply don't NEED that and the cost differential required to simply maintain and run them may be a big waste of money.
Given a competent administrator/integrator and the right combo of server software, a PC server should be able to give very reliable service at far less cost than maintaining mainframes. E-mail, while important, is simply not as "mission-critical" in most cases as a gigantic ERP solution, and even those run well on PC servers these days.
I understand mainframes are still "cool," but if you have a competent staff in place they're simply not a good use of a company's resources these days for things that are better served by commodity hardware. It sounds like the guy who did this really wanted to play with it and see if it would work; using Microsoft's licensing costs to justify it was an easy out, despite the fact that there are other products comparable to Exchange in features that are far less expensive. Also, the article didn't say anything about the features that were LOST by using Linux to serve e-mail instead of a real groupware package.
Smoke & mirrors... "look at me! I put Linux on a mainframe! Isn't that cool of me?"
(okay, call me jaded
Your "homepage" could have e-mail, file&print access across different servers, and applications. Depending on HOW you're accessing the system it'll change how it delivers apps.
For example, if you're on a high-speed LAN it'll figure out what servers are closest to you and deliver apps to your desktop if they're not already installed. If you move to a different office, it'll change to the closest server that has the apps on it.
If you're at a web cafe or on a dial-up connection, it can deliver the SAME apps via a Citrix session automatically without the user having to pay attention to the underlying mechanisms, keeping track of licensing concerns automatically.
This is not just a simple remote "viewing" solution like VNC and it's not a remote "processing, local viewing" solution like X - it's a way to tie together all of the resources (servers, apps, data) you already have in a solution that the users can easily take with them anywhere without having to change to fit the system. Pretty cool.
Go here for more info on synergy.
Unfortunately, they haven't yet put up any screenshots, but the ones I've seen look really cool... here's a 3rd-party article that gives you a better idea of how this works than I can.
(Yes, they embraced Linux a while back, and yes, ZENworks Synergy is supposed to even extend to handhelds. :)
No, I don't work for Novell - I just think they *still* make some damn fine products (even if their marketing does really suck.)
OK - I'll give you that. :)
You know they've resuscitated Amiga, and are now developing it as a portable virutal machine... check the archives for info on that.
were you replying to my post??
:) And the first several versions of OS/2 really did suck (and they were 16-bit) - OS/2 1.3 was the first *good* version. I was lucky enough to use it a couple of times - that thing was solid.
I never said the Mac sucked; I just said it and its users were on a different planet from PCs.
Macs had dual-monitor, dual-keyboard, better I/O, better sound, better graphics for years... the list goes on and on. But the OS did kinda suck until Mac OS X - it was kinda toylike.
I just took a look at that article-
:)
I think the "registry" stuff was installed by Netscape (in this case) just because it made it easier to port, no? I don't think it was anything that was a standard for the whole system.
I still think attributes, shadows, etc. were stored in with the filesystem (or in the EA DATA files).
Oh - and Unix has 'rm -rf' instead of DELDIR.
I didn't know that - I *do* remember "EA DATA. SF" files (yes, with the spaces) on drives that weren't formatted with HPFS, so I assumed it was just a way of storing the extended attributes for the files/objects in that directory. I figured the "EA DATA" was just built into the HPFS filesystem. (HPFS seemed much faster and more resistant to fragmentation than NTFS is today...)
:)
I never had a problem though with those things getting corrupt, at least not like problems with the registry these days.
Interestingly, my original post got modded up to a 3 last night, then back down to a 2. I suspect it's because I said something negative about Linux.
OS/2 was a truly great OS. The only other Truly Great OS I can think of is Mac OS X. "Linux+GNU utilities" is a very good OS for a number of reasons, but it's not particularly innovative.
:)
:)
:)
OS/2 2.0 (the first fully 32-bit version that also supported running more than one DOS session at one time) ran WELL on my 386sx-16 with 6 megs of RAM. Granted, it was slow as molasses, but I was able to run my BBS in one window and do other stuff without a problem. (I still remember my disgust when I tried to do this with Windows 3.0 on the same hardware - it didn't work well at ALL.) The environment was very graphically rich, and the jewel in the crown was the WorkPlace Shell, the likes of which I have yet to see on another OS (even BeOS didn't quite cut it).
The workplace shell was completely object-oriented; it was so far ahead of its time that most people had a really tough time understanding it which may have helped lead to its demise. You could drag "things" or "attributes" from programs to collections of objects, etc. I could open up the paint or font panel and "drag" color & typefaces over to any part of any open folder or application, and they would stick. The links were stored *in* the filesystem with the objects they affected, instead of a monolithic pseudo-database or oodles of unwieldy text files. As long as programs were written to take advantage of the object-oriented aspect of the WPS, it was a thing of beauty to watch how seamlessly everything worked together. (I used to spend hours customizing colors & fonts on all of my folders & windows by dragging... no OS since then has really been quite as fun to do this with, as they all "feel" very rigid and inflexible in comparison.") WPS also had the concept of templates as stacks of paper that you would literally rip off the top and fill in, not worrying about what the underlying application is. And WPS brought us the first tabbed-divider interfaces, which were pervasive throughout the system.
But OS/2 was released in a time when PC users were just starting to think graphically and Mac users were almost literally on another planet. Microsoft capitalized on this by releasing version after version of an OS that was essentially a menu-driven system overlaid on top of DOS. OS/2 was so advanced that people simply couldn't grasp its potential. And yes, people viewed IBM as "evil" at the time, and IBM sucked at marketing, etc...etc... there are really a ton of reasons why it didn't make it, but luckily I don't think most of them apply to Linux. No, Linux has a whole list of other problems that will hamper its adoption by the masses, but I digress.
It is a small consolation that OS/2 is still in heavy use in banks, and in Germany (I believe some user groups still exist there). They like their finely engineered products over there.
Like Mac OS X, (and unlike Windows or Linux) OS/2 wasn't simply a "list of features available in an OS" - it was designed from the ground up to deliver a complete & refined experience to the user. It disappeared into the background as you concentrated on the task at hand. It's what an OS should be. It's the last OS I ever used (until Mac OS X) that was truly a joy to use on a daily basis (and this includes several distributions of Linux).
It's nice that at least Apple finally gets this.
Another company tried to pull this one about ten years ago. They claimed (I believe) a 12 to 1 compression on "random" data, and you could "recompress" that data stream as many times as you wanted until it was less than 4k.
uh-huh.
Given that this really IS mathematically impossible, and people have tried for years to figure out ways around it, it's just another company trying to sell snake oil to investors. It's too bad this stuff makes it to slashdot and to the media in general, because the company doesn't deserve the attention.
0. Sissy Biggers
This is reason enough for me not to watch.
Sissy:
"Hey, Todd, what are you putting in that pot?"
Todd (clearly distracted from cooking):
"I'm putting tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar & crab in this pot."
Sissy:
"Todd says he's putting tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar & crab in the pot."
Commentator:
"Thanks Sissy. Do you think it's some kind of a sauce?"
Sissy:
"Yes, I think it's some kind of a sauce."
Commentator 1: "What is balsamic vinegar?"
Commentator 2: "It's a special type of vinegar that comes from Italy."
Commentator 1: "Oh."
Commentator 2: "Wow, look at Todd light those sparklers!"
Sissy: "Hey guys, Todd is now lighting some sparklers!"
and it continues to plod on and on like this..
unbelieveable.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
:)
I prefer your deconstruction of this case to the dozens of other articles I've seen...