Cisco IT Manager Targeting 70% Linux 312
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.'"
1:40 ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it (Score:3, Interesting)
Critical mass... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Critical mass... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have read many articles that say that this sort of testing is often not done with OSS projects prior to the patch being released.
Handling Firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Handling Firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
In the corporate environment (ie when the PC isn't yours and the company doesn't want to spend ages fixing messes you've made 'personalizing' your PC) you need to lock down some preferences (eg proxy settings, security settings, mail account details if you're using thunderbird/moz suite). This used to be really easy under the old Netscape suite (there was a GUI tool), and although there's some support still left in firefox/mozilla (you can lock down prefs manually in the
Check out the Mozilla Enterprise [mozdev.org] project for more details and how some of us have hacked together lockdown and other 'enterprise' requirements.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux on the Desktop will Accelerate (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe the success of Firefox will force web programmers to develop for more than one browser, and then we can all more easily switch to Linux.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Critical mass... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:1:40 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:40:1 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose it's all about what level of service you want to provide to your users. The basic message that Linux is easier to admin still holds true though.
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
The cool thing with Cisco was that this wasn't uncommon. There are some generalities - most PMs, management, marketing, etc. I met had a single Windows laptop. But when you met someone in a technical role, there was no telling what tools they had aquired to do their work. Cisco took providing their employees the desired tools seriously - "no technology religion". And as far as I could see, it created a very diverse IT environment (and very effective despite the fears of monoculuture IT fans).
This touches on another reason Cisco went this direction. Their employees demanded it. Cisco aquired quite a few startups that were heavily using Linux already. Linux was working its way in to the engineering corp. at Cisco even without these aquisitions. It was very much a part of Cisco's corporate culture to find a way to support any tool their employees needed (which explains the hell they went through to move to Exchange
A better way... (Score:1, Interesting)
"Factors that even out the Linux/Windows desktop costs include retraining employees, installing applications that support Windows applications on Linux, and support subscription fees from Linux vendors such as Red Hat, which are necessary for software updates and patches, Manning says."
Why? We used RH before we migrated to Debian and we now find Debian to be better AND easier to administer than RH. I think it a mistake on behalf of Cisco that they, seemingly, disregarded Debian as a desktop option.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the company can stomach the up front costs for locking down the systems - then yes their ok, and the engineers need more help, but for smaller companies that are more reactive, the AIM using, Arery form printing, spyware downloading secretaries are a pain in the butt.
Heh. Try nearly 2000:1 (Score:3, Interesting)
I have absolutely no sympathy for people who can't support their fifty computers because it's too hard for them. I would love it if we were down to less than 500:1 or if we could exchange 90% of the equipment to standardize on two or three Macs and two or three PCs, but it'll never happen.
Re:Support cost less not due to windows per se... (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't logically follow. You have expressed two free variables in the statement, so any difference in outcome could be due to either.
About time someone mentioned this.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:40:1 ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I know this is a bit offtopic, but... AFS [openafs.org]'s support for backup volumes provides basically this same thing as a feature built into the filesystem. Furthermore, it lets the administrator issue commands (from any node on the network) like "move this volume from partition 1 on file server A to partition 3 on file server B"; the data gets moved, and the clients are notified to use the new fileserver for files on that volume with no further work. You can also have read-only volumes be located on multiple fileservers, and the clients will automatically load-balance between them; further, updates to these read-only volumes can be made by an admin editing a read-write copy of the volume, and then pushed over to the read-only volume as a single transaction.
Making it performant can be a PITA, but from an administration perspective it's really neat stuff.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
They're also talking engineers' desktops at an embedded-hardware company, so most of the usual stories about "we'll give everyone a word processor and a web browser and that will be that" probably change a lot.
Our company is completely different to that of course. Every software engineer maintains their own machine. The amount of time we spend on application or OS problems easily exceeds 1/200 of working hours.
Re:A pipe dream? (Score:1, Interesting)
From the Cisco Engineers and Pre Sales guys I have talked to the story goes like this. When Cisco bought Selsius a lot of the Cisco engineers (many of whom are Solaris geeks) freeked out that it ran on Windows, so when working out how they were going to run such a sensitive piece of software (to any company running it) on an OS that was and is in no way a server os in any sense of the word (I come from a linux background and frankly after 6 months full-time dealing with CM I am astounded that Windows admins actually think it is) they would completely lock it down and only approve a few pieces of software to run on it. Thats why you don't even install win2k yourself on CM , basically Cisco run a Windows version of MythTV Knopix which installs the OS and the CM all packaged as one.
At the same time all the Solaris geeks were all contemplating going out the back and committing hary-kary because Cisco had turned to the dark side a push was started to initiate a program to port CM to Unix (IMO at this point in time CM was a really really buggy piece of crap and frankly Cisco would have been better writing their own PABX software on solaris anyways). Sometime after this the effort was eventually started (apparently the refusal by some companies such as oracle to run windows as a "server" in their network helped the case) and it has ended up with CallManager being ported to Linux. From what I now know the initial plan was for there to be a Windows version and a Linux version of CallManager, but now the push is going to be to 100% Linux , the release should be out by the end of this year (regional Cisco offices are already playing with it) and will be know as CallManager 5. One of the major benefits they are touting is that if you convert your current server to CM5 you can double the number of phones able to register to it. Another interseting thing they are saying is that they have developed a magic CD that you can stick into your windows CallManager that will convert it to linux and upgrade it to CM5, it will be intersting to see if this is true and if so how they do it esp for the Publishers, my guess would be they partition the HD copy the MSSQL DB and settings over to the new partition then blow the Windows away , install Linux covert the DB. Cisco are also talking about moving all of their other VoIP products to Linux , the CRS servers and Unity are scheduled for the same makeover (in fact Unity express already runs on Linux). Also this push to Linux is tied up with their push to SIP away from SCCP. interesting times are ahead for Cisco
Political animals (Score:1, Interesting)
I have seen places where Unix admin support is a 400-to-1 ratio. I have seen one place where it was a 1-to-1 ratio. The difference between those places was, primarily, the ability of the admins to "justify" bringing in more people and management falling for it. The admins could then spend their time on
I have seen similar trends amongst Windows admins...just not as much since I deal more with Unix. Still, I would say all other things being equal a server-to-admin ratio comes down to the admins' political acumen and management's cupidity.
Sounds like your company is doing it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm using Linux thin clients for most of my basic needs users at work. They're getting pretty good now, but I'm still running into a frustrating number of stupid bugs. I think I spend about an equal amount of time supporting them and the win98 users - at "near zero". Ditto our one and only XP user now that I've got the bugs ironed out. Most of my time is wasted supporting the MacOS 9 desktop publishing staff due to the nightmarish OS and apps involved there.
If you think Windows is hard to manage, try MacOS. ARRGGGGHHHHHH. MacOS/X is a little better, but still pretty awful IMO.
Microsoft is also pretty reasonable with CD keys etc compared to many companies. QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop both scan the network for other copies, interrogate them for their CD key, and refuse to run if they find it's the same. This makes image based installs impossible since they don't provide any way to install and configure the app, then "de-personalize" it so all you have to do to get it working is enter the CD key. (You can do this with Windows, BTW). Those apps are a nightmare and in comparison Windows looks absolutely lovely to manage.
I'm also finding my trials with OO.o and GNOME for our journalists pretty dismal so far. All sorts of weird bugs keep on turning up and I'm about to give up and get them Windows boxes. I use Linux at home without issues, but these uses can and do break stuff all the time.
In the end, I guess it comes down to picking the right tool for the right job. MS desktops, managed well, are OK. I don't like them, but they work. Especially if you lock IE down so hard the user can't even run it, and if they figure out how to run it anyway, can't visit anywhere or do anything. Too bad they cost so bloody much and still insist on bundling IE, Outlook Express (Yes you can remove it, but it'll be back every time you patch the damn OS), etc.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
A 'team' could probably support 200 windows PC's. An individual would run so far behind on updates and fixes to the updates that it would be far too unreasonable for a major firm that has major security expectations to do things that way.
Not to say linux doesnt have similar issues because it does, it just doesnt have has many.
Re:40:1 ? (Score:2, Interesting)
In my days of tech support I talked to many certified people on the phone, the MCSE's were usually very arrogant, they knew Windows but not networks, the A+ people were barely any better than Joe Users but at least they could use DOS, and the Cisco certified people were generally both respectful and knowledgeable.
I can think of very few, if any cases where someone Cisco certified called me and had the problem be on their end.
Cisco hardware deployment with non-Winders (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess I'll continue to stick to CLI and console cables for configuration and management.