Cisco IT Manager Targeting 70% Linux

RMX writes "LinuxWorld Australia has an interesting article discussing Linux Desktop adoption in Cisco. Cisco "already converted more than 2,000 of its engineers to Linux desktops...plans to move many laptop users to the platform over the next few years...the driver for Linux on the desktop is not cost savings, but easier support. Manning estimates that it takes a company approximately one desktop administrator to support 40 Windows PCs, while one administrator can support between 200 and 400 Linux desktops.'"

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

What gets me is that what they describe could be done with Active Directory and group policies.

Re:40:1 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll admit I am no fan of Windows, but 40:1 does sound off. I support users coast to coast at 24 different divisions, and we too are closer to 200:1.

However, I do also support a number of Linux/FreeBSD servers and think they are much less trouble. Also, have heard admins on both systems who say they support thousands of systems.

Bullshit

[afidel]

They obviously don't know their own department. I worked as a contractor for them a couple years ago. I was the only onsite tech support person for two sites with a total of 250 users, with 99% of those being windows. I was also part of the support teams initial Linux push, and I can tell you that the biggest driver from a customer (end user) perspective was the idea of using cheap Opteron workstations instead of uber expensive Sun stations. A Sun dual CPU workstation at the time with 12GB of ram was over $50k dollars, whereas an Opteron station with more cpu power and the same amount of ram was under $10K. That is a huge difference in price. The biggest factor stopping it from becoming a reality was the fact that at the time the Clearcase tool chain and support tools weren't fully functional under Linux. So I doubt the driver was so much lower desktop support costs as it was lower equipment costs.

Re:1:40 local support, ex. central IT admins

[Uber Banker]

We're typically 1:30 for local areas which is basically admin of the LAN, user applications, etc. Add to that central security, networking, hardware support, and we're down to 1:15.

Including in-house bespoke application support (specialist programmers emplyed under an IT remit, rather than technically able and active users) and you're down to 1:6 in some areas. On the other hand we have specialist terminals (with high maintainence requirements as well as user training etc) which are more like 1:90.

Inefficiency abounds in some companies.

I work for Cisco...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and I have to say that their Linux Workstations are extremely well deployed and managed. The desktops themselves are Dual-CPU 3G boxes running a customized version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Carpet is used to manage packages, supported by really nice internal mirrors providing fast access to everything you need to get the job done. The default install even includes acess to Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. Not sure if this is through Crossover or something -- it is so well integrated that I've never had to look under the covers to see how it is done. Having worked at other networking companies where Linux is the default engineering desktop, I have to say that Cisco really gets it when it comes to desktop linux.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Command completion's been in Windows since NT 4.0.

You just have to turn it on.

http://www.winxpcentral.com/windows2000/commandl in e-completion.php

You can turn in on via a manual regedit, .reg key, perl script (with Win32::Registry), etc. If you are doing a lot of setups it's easy to automate via one of these methods.

Re:Linux on the Desktop will Accelerate

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous for a reason.. I work for Big Blue. I applaud the fact that they are throwing money to Linux on the desktop, but.. they are an 800 pound gorrila with deep pockets. For the most part, they are completely clueless. They own Lotus Notes and use it internally, but, still, the best they can do is a buggered up version of Wine to run in on?? They are in the business of selling hardware and making money by attempting to make software run on it. Nothing more.

Re:1:40 local support, ex. central IT admins

[oliverthered]

Well, the company I worked for was so large that they had there own IT maintenance company.

at most we needed 2 people got the office to get the required skills base, so as a standalone company I'd say you need
1 person = 30 employees, or 1:15-1:40
3 people for 50+ employees, or 1:16
after that you can start to drop the ratios down quite quickly because you've got enough people for a reasonable problem.

'AM. Came into work, our email client was not working. ',....' Later arises the email server ran out of disk space.' isn't that the first thing you check?
Put quotas on all servers, and have them email you an alert when they start to run out of space or something sits at 100% CPU etc... also make sure all email accounts have a fixed quota, and try to make the quotas total no more than 150% of the disk space on the server.

This would have turned you Monday into an occasional job of fitting a new disk or emailing everyone holding lots of email telling them to clean it out or face the rm -rf *.

pm, browsed /.

"Someone complains they've not received the laptop ... From a user perspective around 0 to 400 hours have been spent 'building' this computer.", so what did you do with the rest of the morning apart from a 10min phone call.

PM. Someone has a problem with ODBC drivers in an application they're using. Turns out the drivers client application drivers were out of date for the server application.

Lock down the clients, no problem.

Wednesday. /.

Thursday.
'Someone's computer reset overnight ', all computers should be turned off at night and screen locked when the user is away from them.
It is a fire and security hazard to leave a pc on overnight.

'They remember their password but not their username(!)',
How?, don't you assign someone a user name when they get the job and keep records. Also try looking on one of the access logs of a server they used to get the users name. Failing that you'll find it recorded in the windows system log, of the pc, logging as admin and take a look.

PM.
'User complains of persistent popups on IE on various websites'
I recommend locking down the workstations,
Patching shouldn't be critical, you do run a firewall, web proxy and filter all email don't you?

Friday.

'Network folders seem slow (30+ secs to browse a folder with few files).', Wins or network configuration problem, make sure all you subnets are ok, there are lots of free tools to do this, and it only takes an hour or so.
failing that it could be a worm spewing all kinds of crap. The system should have been configured correctly in the first place, locked down and firewalled off.
PM: Trouble receiving attachments in email. takes several hours to partically resolve.

Why do I expect that you get a lot of 'email' and 'network' related problems where you work?

Revised week....

Monday, recieved an email from the mail server, bills inbox is full, sent him a reminder to tidy it up or I'd archive anything more than 3 months old.

Total time for the day 5 mins.

Tuesday, one ten minute phone call. Explained that the laptop was 'non-standard' so we were taking more time to check the configuration was good so that they didn't have any problems with it later on.

Total time for the day 10 mins,
Wednesday.
nothing
Total time for the day 0 mins,
Thursday,
Looked up someones user name for them.
Time 10 mins.
PM.
Nothing.
Friday.
AM. can't say, but should take too long, shouldn't have happened in the first-place.
PM. again can't say because.

So, in a week you probably would have had to do at most a days work, if the system had been locked down and configured properly. Do the same with the rest of the sysadmins &co and 80% would be out of a job.

(a little better than the 70% I claimed to be able to save you)

Re:Offtopic?

[Thanster]

you can use samba 3 to join an active directory in full native mode (no schema extensions, no mixed mode) we have completed this on Solaris and Linux.

Re:Heh. Try nearly 2000:1

[sigaar]

Computer And Chair

Call it the Brittish spelling if you wish :-)

Re:Different perspective...

[cduffy]

No, and I don't see any need to. Users are free to run sofware they install within their own accounts -- being developers, this is a frequent requirement.

Re:Different perspective...

[harmic]

This thread is typical of the IT support mindset that says "if only we can restrict what the users are doing we will have a much easier ride". The problem is that assumes that a one size fits all PC configuration can really work for all users.

It probably won't cause a problem if nobody in the company can install screen savers, desktop images, custom sounds, their favourite media player, or games. What does cause a problem is when your engineers cannot install the software they need to do their work.

I work in a large multinational manufacturer of telecoms equipment. I routinely have to install software: drivers for various types of mobile phones, different JVM versions to be compatible with vaious applications we have to test, test tools, etc. If I ring my helpdesk and ask them to install them, they say "sorry, this is not an SOE approved application". Luckily I was able to put the case to be given Admin rights.

I would also add that this type of user usually has the requisite skills to fix most problems anyway - so doesn't need to call the help desk as much anyway. One of my colleagues recently picked up a virus that the SOE antivirus did not pick up. He located the fix for it on the net and applied it himself.