Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together? 375
greymond writes "In my ever growing job responsibilities, I've recently been tasked with documenting our organization's IT infrastructure, primarily focusing on cost analysis of our hardware leases and software purchases. This is something that has never been done in our organization before and while it's moving along slowly, I'm already seeing some places where we could make improvements. Once completed, I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and from Exchange to Gmail. However, this would result in three departments each running a different system: Windows, OS X, and most likely Fedora. Has anyone worked in or tried to set up an environment like this? What roadblocks did you run into? Is this really feasible or should I just continue to focus on the cutbacks that don't require OS changes? (The requirement for having three different systems is that the vast majority of our administration, who rely solely on an install of Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel, are savvy enough that if they came in and saw Gnome running on Fedora with Open Office they'd pick it up fast. However, our marketing department is composed entirely of Apple systems, and the latest Adobe Creative Suite doesn't seem to all work under Wine. The biggest issue is with the Sales department though, as they rely on a proprietary sales platform that is Windows only — and generally, sales personal give the biggest push back when it comes to organizational changes.)"
You are doing it wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
[1] Glossary:
Boni: plural of Bonus.
Step aside, I can answer this one (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideas (Score:1, Insightful)
First off, I really don't think you want to deploy Fedora in an office environment. It's unstable, has a short support life and is not well suited to end-users. If you're a Red Hat type of person, I'd recommend trying CentOS or Scientific Linux. Much longer life spans, much more stable and still free.
Otherwise, get one or two users from each department to test-run the new OS you put in front of them. It's all well and good for you to say, "We can replace A with B and it can do the same job," but your end-users will always find cases where A and B are not compatible or one lacks the features of another. So make sure at least one user in each department tries your new solution before you plan to roll it out to anyone else.
Why drop Windows 7? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is Windows 7 failing to do for you that Linux will improve upon without causing problems in different areas? I find it hard to believe that a business that already paid for Windows 7 is making a smart business decision by dropping it in favor of Linux (or even Mac OS X).
Changing to Linux because you can is just stupid. Good luck following through with your "savvy" users actually using Linux on a daily basis without a lot of trouble. You're going to need it...
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Something I've learned as an old IT guy is that employee comfort is very under-rated. How comfortable an employee is with their work space is critical to productivity. I'm talking everything from the chair they sit in to what's on their monitor. If they're comfortable with windows and office and become uncomfortable with gmail and open office then you'll just kill productivity and whatever money you saved will be meaningless.
What else can we help you with? (Score:5, Insightful)
We know nothing about your company, what it does, what the people are like. We have no fucking clue what you should do, because every situation is different. If there is one decent bit of advice to be had, and this comes from the Veep level with 20 years in:
1. Everything starts with the directory system and
2. Calendaring derives from it.
Change 1/3 instead of 2/3 (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're looking to simplify your IT architecture, you should consider cutting out Fedora. Marketing requires Windows or Mac, sales requires Windows, and nobody requires Linux.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. If you've already sunk the costs into Exchange, it's very difficult to think of many good reasons to go to Gmail. Frankly, for desktops, the same holds for Windows 7.
I don't know all the details but if this is just your personal love of OSS then I would recommend you put your feelings aside and make decisions as a professional and not as a fanboy.
Re:hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
When was the last time Gmail was taken down by a virus? Or a power outage? Or a hardware failure?
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
That was the great weakness of the ribbon in the new office. Yes, once you learn it it's much more productive. But people are generally too scared of their computer to want to learn the new stuff to benefit from it. And it's a fight that IT support staff aren't ever going to win. Ever. If engineering comes down or management says, hey look at al this cool new/easier stuff we can do with it people might comply. In my experience it's best from management. When someone who everyone knows is a mindless suite with an MBA shows how they can do something that actually looks good, well, everyone else figures it can't be that bad.
People's expectations from home matter too, and how much they can fix on their own. If I don't know where something is, but the guy in the cubicle next to me does I can usually save IT some time teaching me. If on the other hand you use linux, which virtually no one knows, and figuring out even basic things REQUIRES an IT guy, because no one who does any of the actual work has linux at home, well, you're adding considerably to your support costs. Then you get into problems where things don't work, either on your end or for the customer. If you didn't pay for it, they have no obligation or desire to support you. If you paid 5000 bucks a seat for a piece of software you should have in your contract who you contact about things not working and they can go all the way up and down the chain to find people who can fix it, including devs. If you have a problem with something open source, pay someone to be an in house developer or pay for.. wait wasn't the point to not have to pay someone?
Be careful, beyond here there be dragons!! (Score:4, Insightful)
This all depends on the size of your network and number of each type of system deployed. Plus don't forget there are political reasons for making or not making certain recommendations that generally outweigh any technical/economic reasons. I have seen people fired for making recommendations that had less exposure than what you have suggested.
Re:Realistic Answer: Dumbass (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me the solution to his problem is to move everyone to Windows 7. All the software he wants to use work on Windows so he'd only have one OS to maintain.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Outlook's a horrid mail client. I'd actually say that Outlook 2010 is significantly worse than 2003.
Yet, it's pretty much the best* client for scheduling/calendaring/meetings. Most businesses care a lot about this.
*Note that best != good.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also odd that he wants to switch everything to Linux when it sounds like he's got an entire Microsoft Shop going with the exception of Macs in one department.
If you aren't a Linux Guru - I don't see the point of creating a headache for yourself by trying to switch to Linux when the Microsoft Foundation is already there.
What he saves in licensing costs will ultimately be lost in troubleshooting because he doesn't appear to have the skills necessary to work this out properly - if you don't know how, than I don't suggest trying it out.
Re:My input (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry mate, but some of the advice you give is rubbish:
- "more professional to have a @companyname e-mail over @gmail."
You do know you can use google apps for your own domain, right?
- "I don't know if you are currently using or plan to use active directory"
You do know that Active Directory is a requirement for Exchange, right?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fedora? (Score:0, Insightful)
You should only consider RHEL, SUSE,CentOS, or Ubuntu LTS for business use. Fedora release are only supported for a few months.
Of course,since you don't know what you're doing it won't matter. Nobody is going to let you destroy the business with your silly plans.
Re:Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, the MS astroturf army is out in force. Can't anyone with experience doing this answer the submitter's question?
Why Fedora? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm at a kind of satellite office for a big telecom company, and we all have "managed" workstations -- PCs running Windows, exchange server, lots of 3rd-party security software, internal websites with ActiveX, etc. So we're heavily entrenched in a Windows computing environment.
But ironically almost all of the equipment we're working on is running a Linux kernel. We have to do development on remote *nix servers. So ssh, Xwindows, telnet, scripting with Perl/Python/Tcl/whatever, ... these are the tools for most of the actual work done around here. Windows is a complete disaster for this environment! Some folks install their own Linux in a VM, others use Cygwin a lot, and others struggle along with software like Exceed and Putty. Either way it's very awkward.
So every couple days someone asks "can I _please_ switch to Linux on my desktop? Please??" I can't even pretend to know the whole scope of the answer, but MS Exchange (especially calendaring) and liberal use of Word and Excel documents factor in heavily.
I'll echo the sentiment that Outlook is a horrible, nasty email client! I don't hate anyone with enough savage intensity to recommend Outlook to them. (Just try searching for that email you vaguely recall reading 2 months ago.) But we even use Exchange to schedule our conference rooms! I don't know any other client that works well enough with Exchange to be an adequate replacement.
So my conclusion (if I'm not just ranting) is that if you abandon multi-platform support at an early enough stage within a company (probably starting with an Exchange server) then you can become locked in subtly and deeply. Divorcing Windows on the desktop at my workplace is like pulling a thread on a sweater. Pretty soon the whole thing unravels.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take it one step futher - why get rid of Windows 7? You already have licenses, probably already have some patch deployment method in place, and your users are probably happy and familer with it. There is going to be a ZERO cost benefit of going from Windows to Linux because the company ALREADY HAS licenses. Now, if you are talking about bringing in future people, and in future computer purchaces, going open source, that is different.
All going from Windows to Linux is going to do is frustrate users, and going from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice is yet ANOTHER new Office product they have to use. You will have to incure a cost of training users, and suffer from a temporary loss in productivity while the users learn the new system. In other words, converting from Windows 7 to Linux will probably ADD costs, not save them. On top of that, you would have to incure the costs of reimaging your entire Windows user base, and backing up user data, then porting it over to Linux.
I say, stick with Exchange - your department has already sunk money into it, and leave your Windows users alone. Your solutions are going to COSTS money, not save it.
Re:Why drop Windows 7? (Score:3, Insightful)
Changing to Linux because you can is just stupid.
crikey, things have changed round here, haven't they?!
Re:Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
I have to be devil's advocate here, but for what Exchange does, it does well:
Need secure connections between you and a client over the Internet at the TLS level? Done.
Need antispam protection? Exchange is decent at stomping spam, and the rules are often updated by MS.
Need support for the devices the PHB use? Built in and far cheaper than BES.
Need support for the PHBs to send meetings, tasks, status reports, IRM [1], etc.? Exchange is the only thing out there.
Need support for large amounts of mailboxes? Exchange is the only game in town.
Need support for hub/edge configurations? Nothing else out there that can handle this scaling.
[1]: Yes, DRM sucks, but if it comes to a choice between using Microsoft's document protection versus having personal data leaked, I'll take IRM versus the bad press.
Re:hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
Company trade secrets, financial information, etc should *never* be hosted on a 3rd party site. Emails, right or wrong, will have that information...or at least internal emails will. Of course, once you go to gmail there's no such thing as internal email.
I see this general idea posted a lot, but in actual fact real corporations and governments frequently trust such information to third parties. Contractors and subcontractors are privy not only to the government secrets that they are working with to perform their duties, but each other's internal documents. Companies like Iron Mountain based their entire business model on archiving, protecting, and, under the proper conditions, destroying other company's internal documents.
The Fortune 50 company I used to work for contracted their entire corporate IT infrastructure to Dell. Dell provided workstations, IT help desk, and ran all the internal and external servers. Below the level of the CTO pretty much every person in the IT department actually worked for Dell.
Security companies like Brinks provide all the physical security including guards and cameras for lots of companies. The guards who work for our security contractor have more access to our building than I do as a regular employee.
In short, most companies of any size already trust a good portion of their internal information to other companies on a regular and ongoing basis. How is this different? You write the contract to ensure severe penalties for the third party in the event the information is deliberately compromised, less serve penalties for accidental compromise and you do business.
Re:Realistic Answer: Dumbass (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you even checked out Google's Google Apps offering for businesses or are you just spouting off? Seriously - 1) The professional side is not free ala Gmail it is based off of. 2) Exchange doesn't offer built in translation services in the mail client or the chat client 3) There are more collaboration options and features in Google apps than you get with the Outlook/Exchange combo. I could go on, but you seriously need to check out the offering before you outright bash it.
I certainly agree with your opinion regarding moving people off a recent investment in Win 7, but the Exchange to Google Apps option is viable and potentially a money saver even though we don't know the details of his environment.
Re:Why? (Score:0, Insightful)
Yeah, right.
Gmail *might* have frequent outage of a few minutes. Never noticed, except in google chat. Nobody expect an email turnaround of less than 10 minutes to an hour, if that. What I did notice was the 2 days exchange recovery (granted, one day was a Sunday). And I wasn't the only one. Still, we're on Exchange because "the devil that you know"... And presumably somebody, somewhere, is using fancy features.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that then you have TWO operating systems to maintain (patch, secure, update, etc), and more memory to run the Windows VM effectively.
If you need to run Windows apps, run Windows. If you need Unix apps run a Unix variant.
Trying to get rid of WIndows by running it in a VM *on client machines* is retarded, you're just creating work for yourself. If you want to do that run a virtual desktop off vSphere. NOT via virtualbox running on a client machine.
Windows as a client is fine if you have a half competent admin to maintain the environment.
Shifting OS simply due to zealotry or lack of knowledge of the existing platform is stupid.
For what its worth, I run a heterogenous environment here (FreeBSD, Linux, WinXP, Win7), but its because i use the relevant tool for the job. I don't do shit like replacing every screw in the building with a hex head and demand that all people give up their screwdrivers for a set of allen keys - for no reason other than not liking screwdrivers...
Re:What else can we help you with? (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, if your company is sales-driven, don't fucking mess around with anything that might result in a reduced standard of service. You'll kick yourself in the end.
Re:Realistic Answer: Dumbass (Score:2, Insightful)
While a lot of their role is to technically make things work, there is no point in good IT-infrastructure unless it makes people accomplish their work.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've done the same thing before. HOWEVER, when supporting a large number of end users, its not the right way to do it. In small numbers, sure.
My point was that those pushing the lower TCO of linux (supposedly) and then suggested that you can "always run windows apps in a VM" are deluded and missing the fact that whether or not an OS is a VM or not, it still consumes a license (and in a VM, the Windows license your PC came with is not necessarily valid) and still requires the same level of patching and maintenance as a real install.
I maintain: use the right tool for the job. if you have started work in an MS shop, and all their apps are based on MS stuff, focus on protecting that environment (perhaps through the use of open source monitoring, firewalling, intrusion detection, etc if you're keen) and leave running MS based stuff to MS platforms.
Switching everyone to a foreign OS and a new application platform just because you don't like or are not knowledgable enough to secure an MS platform is a sysadmin failing, not a platform failing.
Ditto for walking into a unix-based ISP / web application host / etc and trying to switch their shit to IIS and .net. Its usually time better spent refining what you have than reinventing the wheel.