[ale] Distro Reply

Mon Jan 3 22:32:26 EST 2005

But you have to understand, that to foster widespread acceptance of the
Linuxes in the enterprise, we must drop our zealotry to a degree.  (I had to
learn this the hard way, and speak of myself here)

Something Microsoft has been so good at is embrace and extend.  In the Linux
world, we still hav IT managers that were educated in the 60's and 70's and
view Linux as nothing more than a toy.  If instead you approach them with a
small entry (DNS server, for instance) and provide them all the trappings of
their paid-for "supported" os, you've won.  

It doesn't matter that it isn't GNU/Linux.  It doesn't matter that it's
"Free and Open".  What matters to today's IT manager (decreasingly so) is
that when Linux admin X gets pissed and leaves, he can call company Y to
support solution Z.  That's all he cares about.  

Again, from the ENTERPRISE perspective, we're newcomers to this game with
something to prove.

When I was at Our Lady of the Lake hospital, when I arrived in 2001, there
was *NO* Linux in house.  Not desktop, not server.  When I left, there was
RH on RS6000/Power PC, a clustered HIPAA compliant patient radiology records
system writing to Optical disks running on RH AS 3.x. (Which, incidently,
was used in the first hospital in America going completely filmless in their
entire radiology farm)  I had 2 DNS servers on IBM 435 machines with over
200 days uptime, running on RH 9.x.  The IBM p690 Regatta had a RedHat
partition onboard, and we had Linux 390 on the mainframe.  Finally, the
entire UNIX-based Administration team was running in a 100% linux desktop
environment.  (11 people).

ALL SERVING HOSPITAL PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTS.

My key to success in a Linux-hostile environ was to start slow.  The DNS
servers were first.  We ran them in test for 6 mnths before they'd let me go
live with them.  When I did, both machines were on IBM maintenance, and were
running an (at the time) supported Linux system.  I also had hardware flat
out fail, and had *ZERO* downtime.  This type of event spoke VOLUMES.  Next,
I upgraded everything to RH AS 3 before I left.  As of today, the Linux
environments (as *we* would all be aware) have been the most stable,
zero-maintenance environments in-house.  However, to Joe IT manager, this
must be proven through time and trial.  You can't just run in and install
Gentoo and hope it works.

In my time at the hospital, I can count total downtime (unscheduled) within
an afternoon's cofee-break time.  We *NEVER* went down without planning, and
then only once (or less) a year.  At one point, our systems were up more
than the mainframe (it has to come down for an hour tice a year for
time-change)

Why do I say all this?

While a simple throw-it and forget-it Linux system may be fine for Joe
shopkeeper, it won't work in the Enterprise.

Don't take that as a slam.  It isn't.  It's real-world, eterprise (read
data-ceter) class expereience in mission critical (read patient's records
and lives) data environments.  If we want to take over the world in the
Linux arena (read, oust Microsoft) you have to start grassroots and
enterprise simultaneously, and converge toward Microsoft's territory from
both ends so their only place to go is the margins...marginalized.

Thanks for listening.

Jerald M. Sheets jr.
Sr. UNIX Systems Administrator
McKesson, Inc.
(404) 293-8762
**********
>su -
Password:
# cat /dev/flood > /dev/earth
# rdev noah+beasts
# dd if=noah+beasts of=/dev/earth

PGP Key: 0x6267F183

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT d+ s++: a C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E--- W++ N+ o-- K+ w-- 
O M+ V PS- PE++ Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R* tv- b+ DI++++ D++ 
G+ e h---- r+++ y++++ 
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-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jeff
Hubbs
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 9:43 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: RE: [ale] Distro Reply

I guess what bothers me about the attitude described here (not saying that
Jerald holds it) is that I had thought that part of the whole point of using
Linux and FOSS in general is that you *weren't* dependent on a single source
or *any* source of conditional support - the idea being that you as an IT
implementor/integrator had inviolate say over how your software behaved.
This "viable, supported alternative" talk sounds like nothing so much as
wanting the ball and chain back.

I *know* what it's like to be stuck in a certain kind of closed-source hell
where you can't get your app fixed or your peripheral to behave properly for
love *or* money, and I also know what it's like for paid support reps to
turn their nose up at you because the way in which you needed to adapt their
product to your needs was, in their eyes, "unsupported."  There's nothing
about the OS in question being Linux that keeps implementors out of that
wasteland.  

Jeff

On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 17:26, Jerald Sheets wrote:
> Again, from a business perspective you'd never sell Debian as a 
> viable, supported alternative to the pinhead suits.
> 
> They're getting better, it's just not considered viable on a 
> widespread basis yet.
> 
> Jerald M. Sheets jr.
> Sr. UNIX Systems Administrator
> McKesson, Inc.
> (404) 293-8762
> **********
> >su -
> Password:
> # cat /dev/flood > /dev/earth
> # rdev noah+beasts
> # dd if=noah+beasts of=/dev/earth
> 
> PGP Key: 0x6267F183
> 
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GIT d+ s++: a C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E--- W++ N+ o-- K+ w-- O M+ V PS- 
> PE++ Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R* tv- b+ DI++++ D++
> G+ e h---- r+++ y++++
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of 
> Raylynn Knight
> Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 5:12 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] Distro Reply
> 
> On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 12:41 -0500, Geoffrey wrote:
> > John P. Healey wrote:
> > > Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org> writes:
> > > 
> > >>Yeah...  I don't get that either.  The most mature products on the 
> > >>planet are not an option...
> > > 
> > > 
> > > He's probably looking to broaden his horizons and explore 
> > > packaging systems that aren't rpm based.  Also, I fail to see how 
> > > Debian is any less mature than redhat, mandrake, and fedora.
> > 
> > Stable Debian running a 2.2 kernel.  To me, that is not mature, that 
> > is old.  Personal opinion.
> > 
> Stable Debian is 3.0r4 released on 1 January 2005.  Debian supports 
> many hardware architectures, some of which only have a 2.2 kernel.  
> Debian 3.0 was originally released 19 July 2002 so the default install 
> kernel is a 2.2 based kernel, however a 2.4 kernel is optional and 
> available on
> x86 hardware at boot time.
> 
>  
> --
> Raylynn Knight <audilover at speedfactory.net>
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
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