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Linux Business

Linux in Enterprise Environments 197

Posted by CmdrTaco from the putting-on-your-tie dept.
watzinaneihm writes "Eweek has an Article about how Linux is getting accepted in Enterprises.IBM is releasing Tivoli for Linux. CA released Unicenter for Linux a few months ago.I got rumours about rumours that HP might do something similar with Openview. " One for those of you who dress nicer than me.
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Linux in Enterprise Environments More

Linux in Enterprise Environments

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  • Linux on the Enterprize? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:56AM (#5126760)
    I always knew that Spock was logical

  • Lotus Notes, Please! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:57AM (#5126765) Journal
    Just release Notes already. I realize that it runs under wine but...

    • Version 6 won't run under Wine :-( (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I could move about 250 desktop workstations to Linux if I could get a satisfactory Notes 6 desktop to work there. Web-based Notes won't cut it, I need the full client and R5 doesn't do all I need.

    • You *can* use Notes under Linux (Score:4, Interesting)

      by nicestepauthor ( 307146 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:25AM (#5126946) Homepage
      Here at work I sometimes use Linux mail programs like Mozilla Mail with Notes. Notes supports IMAP for reading your email and LDAP for accessing the company address book. We've been doing this using Netscape Mail on the Macintosh for years (Notes client is available for the Mac but the Mac users didn't want to buy it) and it works just as well for Linux. For Notes databases (other than email) you can make them useable over the Web with a reasonable amount of work. Notes *developers* need the full client, but many Notes users could probably do without it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • IBM has no intention of building a proprietary client solution for a platform dedicated to open standards. What they're doing instead is opening maximum possibilities on the Domino server using standards-based clients, including IMAP, HTTP and LDAP. iNotes is simply the next phase of that. (iNotes is really just some packaging of an extremely complex DOM application that could never even have dreamed of seeing the light of day on Linux before Mozilla was released.)

        You can read why they don't want to build a native client from the horse's mouth at LDD Today [lotus.com]

        For those that want to see a Domino Designer for platforms other than Windows, I'd ask a simple question: what do you think DXL is for?

    • I realise that this is easier said than done in most organizations, but long term, it is really the only way. Is there really anything that Notes does that wouldn't be better implemented using open standards and/or free/open software tools?

      The reason it won't run well under Wine is that the clients just plain don't run that well anywhere. Unless it is way better than the last time I had to use it, this is already an obsolete product that any sane organization would be phasing out, and they certainly would not be creating new applications using this closed technology. Stay with it, and you will be burned, it is just a question of when.

  • Linux is used in the enterprise (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:57AM (#5126772) Homepage Journal
    but mainly by people who are developing on the Linux platform. The majority of managers, marketing, and other folk are very tightly monitored by the IT department and are not ready for Linux yet.

    Here, it's all RedHat 8.0. It was tough to get people to switch to 7.3, but once the developers saw 8.0 they loved it.
    • That's now what we've found. In fact business in the UK at least are interested in using it for pretty much everything you do on the back end. Here's our latest case study:
      http://www.siriusit.co.uk/technical/casest udies/kg .html
      The short version is - GNU/Linux is Enterprise ready, and companies are using it for pretty much everything!

  • Linux in the Marine Corps (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kryonD ( 163018 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:58AM (#5126775) Homepage Journal
    Linux is not just being considered, it's being used as a realistic, cost effective solution. See this presentation [usmc.mil] on what the Marine Corps now uses to manage its warehouse inventories. It's a bit old, but still very relevant as the system is being deployed here in Okinawa next month.

    • Power Point -- puke (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't know what the presentation says because it is in PowerPoint, but I guess they don't use Linux to make presentations...
    • Sure Linux and other open source solutions are being employed by the Marine Corp and Navy. However, all those existing systems are not termed as "legacy" systems and will be scheduled to be "rehosted" by a MS solution shortly with currently being implemented NMCI contract.

      The NMCI contract converts all of Navy IT to Microsoft "solutions". You cannot connect a non-NMCI (read microsoft) computer to the network anywhere. The NMCI contract is a huge win for Microsoft and loss for the Navy as well as for Open Source and other platform suppliers.

      • You are actually incorrect on this point. I'm also stuck with the lovely billet of being the NMCI rep for the unit, so I've done my homework here. You can start at EDS's site [nmci-isf.com] and then get even deeper at the contract award site [navy.mil]. EDS is going to do exactly what their satement of work and contract say they have to do. Anything you may have read produced by the Navy or Marine Corps that contradicts these two sites is merely wishful thinking or bad information.

        STRATIS(Warehouse management:Linux, Oracle), as well as ROLMS(Ammunition accounting:Solaris/NT, Oracle) and DMLSS(Medical Logistics:Oracle) are three systems that I am responsible for that employ non MS based solutions. All 3 of these systems have been identified by EDS Corp as LEGACY applications and will be supported in house by DOD personnel. The contract clearly explains the definition of legacy and non-legacy systems.

        What you may have been thinking is what would happen if we elected to request EDS to support the functionality of the system. In this case, EDS would contract out and provide their own MS based solution which would be a non-legacy system. They would support every inch, or byte in this case, of the system. Legacy apps only get supported up to the link light on the LAN card...not the card itself mind you, just that there is a valid signal going to the card.
        • The mere terminology of listing a system as a "legacy" system indicates that its days are numbered and any new system development will most likely be favored toward a NMCI supported platform.

          This is certainly true if the system is to connect to "the" network. Therefore NMCI effectively locks out all non-MS systems that connect to the network and Internet - this figures into to a very large piece of the pie. This means all intranets will be IIS, end of discussion, and all application development will be MS products such VB/ASP and all clients will be MS, regardless if there are a better solutions for a given task. And believe me, for web applications, there are much better solutions.

          Where I work we use Linux/Perl/Octave/Gnuplot/etc. extensively to acquire and process data, monitor systems, collobrate, admin remotely, etc. As NMCI approaches all new system and application devleopement that connect to the network will be directed toward an NMCI supported platform. Other systems will be tolerated for the time being but you have to request special "legacy" status.

          This sucks as an engineer as you will not be able to match a solution to a problem but will instead be forced to reach into a very small and restricted toolbox.

  • Unicenter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RobertNotBob ( 597987 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:58AM (#5126776)
    I seem to remember Unicenter for Linux being out years ago. Has anybody here been using Unicenter on Linux?

    • It did and does. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 )
      As Unicenter was originally coded for Unix it was an easy step for them.

      Additionally, HP OpenView also already has Linux support. But, people need to remember, HP openView is a Network Management application while Unicenter is an Enterprise Management application. They are not the same.

    • Re:Unicenter (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tet ( 2721 )
      Has anybody here been using Unicenter on Linux?

      Nope. Unicenter(-TNG), Tivoli and OpenView all epitomise products designed to sell to management. They cost a fortune, and provide negligible benefits over what can be accomplished using a handful of homebrewed scripts. Yes, it's all in a single supported bundle, but have you seen the cost? Yet management lap it up. Sometimes I despair of the IT industry...

    • Re:Unicenter (Score:4, Interesting)

      by shippo ( 166521 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:02PM (#5127184)
      I had the misfortune of using this pile of junk a few years ago, but not on Linux, but on a variety of other systems such as HPUX, Solaris, Windows and even an IBM mainframe. Quick frankly the most over-hyped, memory hogging, very expensive pile of crap I've ever had the misfortune of using.

      The software on any machine consisted of agents that reported back to the main system via SNMP (security hell!). The UNIX agents were not only huge memory hogs, but on most systems I worked on returned figures that were completly meaningless to the well being of a modern unix-system. The Windows ones were even worse when it came to grabbing memory.

      The main purpose of Unicenter was to allow CA to charge high amounts of money for on site support. The manuals were just so appallingly bad that on site support was the only option. Even training courses seemed to concentrate on using the minor components that no-one in their right mind consider in enterprise environments.
    • Yes. I have.

      Thank you for bringing it up. Now I will have flashbacks, and have to go back to therapy for a few months to get the nervous tics to stop.

      More seriously, though, I shouldn't complain. It prolonged the project I was working on for many months, and I bill by the hour, the flakyness and flaws of Unicenter made me a lot of extra money.

      Ultimately, it is possible to get Unicenter to work "well" on Linux, but if my experiences are typical, it takes a lot of time, money, and a crapload of workarounds before it does what its supposed to do.

      I should, in fairness, point out that we were early adopters, had a very customized and not completely standard Linux setup for, and that we got CA to fix some bugs that we ran into. Future users of Unicenter on Linux may have a less bumpy ride.

  • Hewlett PaQard (Score:2, Informative)

    by mirko ( 198274 )
    I got rumours about rumours that HP might do something similar with Openview.


    Seems that it already exist as we use it on dozens of our servers on a daily basis !?
  • I've avoided several otherwise promising server products because they only run on Windows.

    I like to spend my weekends with my family, not hunting for boot disks at 3am on Saturday morning in an darkened office block.

    I hope the trend continues...

  • Linux Acceptance (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kc8ioy ( 640909 )
    I have always been whating to see the day that Linux is fully accepted by Businesses and hardware companies. Maybe, this will be one step closer to Linux becoming the next "Standard" operating system for businesses. Maybe hardware companies will be sure to make their devices fully Linux compatible, or at least capable of having drivers written. Remember those days when winmodems were unheard of and internal modems all actually had hardware somewhere in them? I just hope that this won't make Linux get commercialized too much.
    Opening windows is bad for computers and air conditioners!

    • It's All Good (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gerry Gleason ( 609985 )
      The main point here is that IT departments understand that their support costs will always be less if they have fewer distinct environments to support. Mid to large size organizations need some flavor of UNIX to support enterprise applications because reguardless of MS marketting and FUD, there just isn't anything better for infrastructure. The only realy problems are the hoops that MS makes you jump through to support their protocols in another OS. IT managers and engineers know this, and MS has pissed them off repeatedly and at every opportunity. The only people who are really happy with Windows are end users and IT people in MS only shops, and most of them because they don't know any better.

      Back when I started my career in the late '70s and early '80s, the prevailing wisdom was that nobody could get fired because they bought IBM systems, but I found their dominance disturbing and felt it held back progress. At that time, I speculated that IBM's days of market dominace were numbered, but I wasn't confident enough to predict their downfall in about ten years. With MicroSoft in a similar position today, I am willing to make predictions. Things are moving faster, so I give MS less time, probably 5-10 years from now. The very thing that propelled them to the current position, the desire of managers to standardise on one OS, will lead to their downfall just as quickly. Linux is much more ready to move into the desktop than Windows is to take over enterprise server apps. While Sun and IBM can say, go ahead and run Linux, but buy our hardware for the performance and support. MS doesn't have this lever, so when the fall, they will fall hard.

      Although I actually do think it is likely that Linux will become the new standard, and probably one or two distribution vendors will win big time, I don't think you should worry about commercialization. The commercially oriented vendors and support houses will go this way, but that's already what they do. The core development will remain with the widely dispersed project teams, and GPL (and similar) licensing guarantees that it will remain so. I would worry if one company hired everyone in one of the core teams (kernel, Gnome or KDE for example), but that isn't likely to happen. They don't need to hire the whole team to be influential, just hire people to work on the areas valuable to them.

  • Microsoft TCO makes linux success inevitable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Argyle ( 25623 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:04AM (#5126825) Homepage Journal
    I work as a CIO in large corp and know the costs involved with running a Microsoft centric enterprise. The TCO (total cost of ownership) is unsustainable. Microsoft is increasing these costs yearly with limited benefit outside the Outlook/Exchange arena.

    Money, not reliability or security, will be the reason corporations switch to linux. The upcoming rise of network computers ala Citrix will also reduce the value of a Windows-centric enterprise.
    • network computers ala Citrix

      I thought that idea died already in the early 90s...

      • Not at all. Citrix Metaframe is allegedly gaining ground - simply because the idea is a good one. You don't use all the resources on your computer - so running several on a large box makes sense. Application/patch rollout becomes easier.

        However, web applications are even cheaper :)

    • Re:Microsoft TCO makes linux success inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:46AM (#5127085) Homepage
      Since you brought up the TCO model, let's follow this through. The logic is that MS is increasing TCO annually while providing little improved capabilities. This is 100% correct but isn't where the real TCO problem is. Microsoft's hitting us with 4%-5% per year in increase. The real problem is that in most enterprises you have over 22 business systems drawing resources and contributing to the sprial (they even sometimes require you implement more MS stuff):

      * Desktop OSes
      * Server OSes
      * Messaging (mail servers)
      * Databases
      * Office Suites
      * Web Servers
      * Enterprise Network Management (Tivoli/Unicenter)
      * Accounting (sometimes ERP usurps this)
      * Order Entry
      * Billing (it's amazing how few comapnies use their accounting systems for cutting invoices)
      * eCommerce
      * Content Management
      * Inventory Management
      * Manufacturing (MRP)
      * Sales Force Automation (sometimes CRM)
      * Helpdesk
      * Customer Service Automation (sometimes CRM)
      * Internet Browsers
      * Groupware (outlook, groupwise or notes)
      * Misc. Productivity Apps (project management, CAD, graphic design, etc)

      It seems to me that the proliferation of business systems is really a core problem in ever-spiraling TCO. What really gets me is the ammount of patchwork integration out there. I think the root cause of the TCO spiral is that most managers missed the lecture about "Be very careful spending today's money to get ROI on past purchases!" It never ceases to amaze me how well protected lousy, non-integrated, buggy legacy systems are by the IT departments that foist them on the rest of the company.

      I'd love to work with a company that wanted to shrink the number of systems from 22 to a more manageable number.

      $G

      • Re:Microsoft TCO makes linux success inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:28PM (#5127364) Homepage Journal
        I'd love to work with a company that wanted to shrink the number of systems from 22 to a more manageable number.

        We have:
        * Databases
        * Enterprise Network Management (Tivoli/Unicenter)
        * Accounting (sometimes ERP usurps this)
        * Order Entry
        * Billing
        * Inventory Management
        * Manufacturing (MRP)
        * Groupware (outlook, groupwise or notes)

        Running off 1 AS/400 And:
        * Sales Force Automation (CRM)
        * Customer Service Automation (CRM)
        * eCommerce
        * Web Servers
        * Messaging (mail servers)

        Running off another AS/400. Our software for the first is custom made for us by a company in California, but everythinng gets entered into it. It's very propriatary to our industry, and it does everything from front line customer service, to billing. It'll even create invoices in PDF format and email them directly to the customer from within the app.

        If you want to shrink everything, think about AS/400. They're really good workhorses. Disclaimer: I don't work for IBM, but I used to.

        • If you want to shrink everything, think about AS/400. They're really good workhorses.


          What kills me is the number of companies that don't realize how much less it costs and how nimble you can be to go this route. Of course, it's not cool, sexy nor require a big 5 consultant.

          $G
          • I think they see the big $$ up front costs. Our 2 servers + software came to just over $1M. But they service over 400 users. Yearly the licensing comes to about $40k, including hardware service contracts. To do the same thing in the MS world, you'd need individual servers for each app/function, but you'd also need more than 1 admin. Yearly would be over $300k for licensing, plus admins.

            I think some places get scared at the up front costs, not realizing they'll pay more in the long run. Personally, I think these big black monstrosities are much cooler than some rack mounted beige box. :-)

            • I don't know what type of services are required by those 400 users, but I bet I could build a network of PCs with Linux and get the same level of service. $1,000,000 seems like a lot of money to me for a couple servers. I've setup million dollar servers before, a Sun database for a startup and an SGI reality monster, but I've never messed around with a mainframe. But I have yet to find anything that is more fault tolerant than a cluster of PCs designed the right way the first time. Failure MUST be planned for. So as long as we do our job what is the benefit of having a mainframe over a bunch of PCs besides the TCO?

              PCs: $0* initial, $120k/year TCO
              MFs: $1M initial, $?/year TCO

              *This assumes you have a bunch of PCs already and doesn't take into account the design and implementation cost of the network.

              It would take you at least 5 years to make back your initial investment, assuming MFs have a lower TCO. With PCs you get the latest technology (fast chips + buses) at a discount, but you have to manage the extra hardware. You almost need to have the system manage itself and report on statistics, parts failure, etc. so you can make the proper purchasing decisions. So with PCs you get more work (which can be done by computers), but you should save a bundle and be extremely scalable, limitted only by current technology (because its totally modular).

              Not saying mainframes are bad, I'm sure there are certain situations which require a mainframe, but I don't know what they are. I only know about processing data, dealing with nets and the separation of the logical services from the physical infrastructure that provides them. And that PCs are really cheap. :)
              • But I have yet to find anything that is more fault tolerant than a cluster of PCs designed the right way the first time.
                You haven't been around long, have you? (just kidding) AS/400s aren't true mainframes anyway - they are midrange systems. It's kind of interesting that you locked into the hardware side of things. In IT, the real expense is the cost of the system meaning the applications that are being run on the hardware. The hardware is just real estate. You can have well done PC systems. You can have poor mainframe systems. The AS/400 example cited was perfect - it was an example of a company that had simplified the number of applications required to run the business to a handfull, and could therefore run them on a couple of AS/400s (I'm sure with a small IT staff). I think the IT world is too trained to look at TCO without including their own salaries - hence the pervasiveness of microsoft based junkware applications. Sure those PCs are cheap - but what's it cost to keep them running? What's it cost to upgrade? How often do you upgrade? What about rolling out software... and so on. And then you factor in that with PCs you generally have a hodge-podge of 18-27 different non-integrated business applications, I think most PC based enterprises have paddled up shit creek further and faster than just about anyone. The longer I'm in the business (I sell enterprise software that is mostly PC based) the more I see that businesses should pay attention to the software they run first, and look at hardware and platform as real estate.

                I only know about processing data, dealing with nets and the separation of the logical services from the physical infrastructure that provides them. And that PCs are really cheap. :)
                • Yes, but the software you mention has value because it takes input from the proper channels, processes it and outputs it to the proper channels. That software could be written in any language and run on any OS, but its value would generally be the same as long as it does what it was designed for. All I'm saying is it doesn't matter how much your software costs or what "features" it boasts, it only matters if it does its job and uses your hardware to process the data. Afterall that is what you are paying for in the first place. So I don't see why leveraging free software on cheap comodity hardware is such a bad idea once you reallize that the software running on top of it doesn't matter as long as it just works. As long as it processes your data.

                  Or do I have it all wrong. Is this business software doing something other than processing data and sending it to the right people?
                  • All I'm saying is it doesn't matter how much your software costs or what "features" it boasts, it only matters if it does its job and uses your hardware to process the data.


                    Actually, features in software matter quite a bit. I'd hate to buy a billing system that didn't have the feature that lets it, say, print - if you wanted print invoices. Free software is fine. So is proprietary if it gets the job done. The situation I am lamenting is where companies use a "whatever works" attitude and end up with a morass of incompatible, non-integrated systems that don't work without egotistical, petty dictators making them work. And it happens all the time. Hodge-podge solutions are very expensive.
    • The TCO is unsustainable

      What you are leaving out is crucial to this discussion. Businesses have a LOT of money tied up in applications that are either MS made or on an MS platform. It takes a LOT of time and a LOT of money to switch. This often times offsets any short term TCO benefits of *nix. You CANT plan an IT strategy five years ahead. It just dosent work.

  • Not enough documentation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Amsterdam Vallon ( 639622 ) <amsterdamvallon2003@yahoo.com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:07AM (#5126847) Homepage
    As a developer, I'm asked on average of once or twice every year to suddenly pick-up a new technology and learn it within a couple weeks so that I can write a new program for release 6-12 months later as itself or jointly with the hardware guys.

    When it comes to good, thorough documentation and API releases, I've always thought that this is an area where Linux is truly lacking. Hypothetically speaking, I think a coder learning Java for a new Windows P2P program that he must write would have a much easier time than a programmer who must learn Perl or C on his Linux box and create a network-intensive application that installs and runs the same way on all distributions of Linux, as well as Mac OS X.

    I figure opinions from the "non enlightened", as many of you will probably call me, will help you to improve Linux, especially its documentation and user-friendliness.

    • Re:Not enough documentation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:27AM (#5126958) Homepage Journal
      This is one of the reasons that I love Java. Everybody who writes code in Java puts in javadoc comments directly into the code. Java comes with a tool that pulls out these comments [sun.com] and makes web pages, pdfs, or pretty much any other format documentation out of it. Sun does this with the java.* classes [sun.com], I do this with my classes [ostermiller.org], other third party libraries all have this. Because the documentation is in the source, it beats external documentation like man pages. It sure makes programming in Java a pleasant experience.

      I still recommend that if you are using Java, Linux is the way to go. The Java from Sun runs on Linux just as well as any Windows platform. It beats Java for Windows 9x by a mile. If you will only use opensource software, GCC's Java compiler [gnu.org] (get a nightly build and compile it yourself rather than relying on what comes with your distribution, as those are older) is getting pretty darn near usable. It works for 97% of my stuff now. Similarly, the classpath libraries [gnu.org] are reaching a point where I can usually substitute them for the sun libraries.

      • Many programming languages have functions similar to javadocs. Perldocs, PHPdocs. I believe Doxygen works on C++.

        Not everyone writes comments that support these tools however (myself included) which dilutes the dopumentation process.

        • Re:Not enough documentation (Score:4, Insightful)

          by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:44PM (#5127500) Homepage Journal
          Not everyone writes comments that support these tools however (myself included) which dilutes the dopumentation process.
          I agree, its partly a cultural/precedent/ease-of-use thing. Because Sun includes the tool by default and uses the tool extensivly for all their stuff, far more Java programmers use it. In many ways, the advantages of Java don't come from the programming language, but from common practices that are associated with Java.
      • And yet still, all these years on, there's still no core (distributed with Java) way to get documentation directly on the command line (aside from generating a bunch of HTML files and calling lynx on them). The man page for javadoc even says: "javadoc parses the declarations and documentation comments in a set of Java source files and produces a corresponding set of HTML pages describing (by default) the public and protected classes, inner classes, interfaces, constructors, methods, and fields.". And most of that is too low level for your average programmer who just wants a synopsis.

        I'll take my perl man pages over javadoc any day of the year. Perl ships with tools to turn your documentation into man pages, text, HTML and LaTeX and CPAN is full of tools to convert to many other formats. They may not be quite as cross referenced automatically and have wizzy features like tables and other things that javadoc covers, but they are available right there where I program - in a shell. No browser required. And they work just fine over ssh thank you. Not only that but perl documentation just seems easier to figure out what's going on to me in general, because they encourage you to include a synopsis of how this module should be used. Java programmers seem happy because the Java doc tools are better than what C or C++ offers, but there's a whole other world out there that you're missing.

    • Re:Not enough documentation (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PrimeNumber ( 136578 ) <PrimeNumberNO@SPAMexcite.com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:53AM (#5127130) Homepage
      Although Linux can be frustrating at times for new users (it was for me years ago), most of my frustration as a developer with MS products have been for the reasons you have stated.

      One thing I have noticed about Linux documentation is that it will usually come in one of these forms:
      • man pages
      • info pages
      • how-tos/readme
      • HTML or postscript file with full documentation in an indexed format.
      Also a big help are one gazillion web pages devoted to any Linux specific topic, programming or otherwise.

      Microsoft languages and API documentation have been really frustrating for me personally, either because the documentation source example doesnt work as it should, or a kludgey workaround is assumed to be acceptable get everything to work for MS oses 95 through XP. Check out differences in RAS implementation from 95 to XP as an example.

      At least in linux IHMO the solution(s) usually isn't limited to purchasing a proprietary 3rd party hack to get an app out in a timely manner.
    • When it comes to good, thorough documentation and API releases, I've always thought that this is an area where Linux is truly lacking. Hypothetically speaking, I think a coder learning Java for a new Windows P2P program that he must write would have a much easier time than a programmer who must learn Perl or C on his Linux box and create a network-intensive application that installs and runs the same way on all distributions of Linux, as well as Mac OS X.
      Wow. I've always thought that one of the benefits of programming in C on Linux was the wealth of documentation available! For starters, there are man pages documenting every system interface and most of the C libraries.

      And since Linux is a Unix clone, you can pick up any book on Unix programming and it will apply to Linux as well (I recommend books written by W. Richard Stevens, especially "Unix Network Programming" for the case you site above).

      So yes, I believe you are "non enlightened". Perhaps you just haven't been doing much Unix programming. Believe me, there is a wealth of information out there.

    • I know it's a hassle, but there's been more than a few times where I didn't really understand what was going on, and was able to look up stuff in the source code. Granted, this isn't the most user-friendly form of documentation, but it is a nice feature to have available.

  • Stone soup? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bunyip ( 17018 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:08AM (#5126848)
    Just curious, I download a free operating system, then buy:

    - Tivoli / Openview / Unicenter / whatever
    - Oracle / DB2 / etc
    - Storage manager (Veritas?)
    - Enterprise backup software
    - Four other things I forgot
    - yet more stuff
    - yada, yada, yada
    - etc, etc

    Once you add a gajillion dollars worth of 3rd-party software, do you still have a free-OS?

    FWIW - I'm pro-Linux, I just don't recognize it beneath all this other stuff.....

    Alan.

    • Re:Stone soup? (Score:2, Informative)

      by tewfik ( 643344 )
      The power of Linux resides more in the open source concept rather than in it being free software. You might say the distiction between the two is not that obvious. But again I'd rather see the costs cut as a nice side effect.
      Off topic I got...
    • - Tivoli / Openview / Unicenter / whatever

      - Oracle / DB2 / etc
      - Storage manager (Veritas?)
      - Enterprise backup software
      - Four other things I forgot
      - yet more stuff
      - yada, yada, yada
      - etc, etc


      Yes, you might want to waste money on this software, but think of the alternatives:

      1. You could pay out the nose for Windows *place version here* Server instead of using Linux
      2. Pay a ton for SQL server (or still buy Oracle) instead of using Postgres or MySQL
      3. You don't NEED Tivoli / Openview / Unicenter / whatever, but you could spend even more money with the Windows versions (or clones) of this software. Better yet, use some freeware or WRITE YOUR OWN!!!
      4. Backup software .... that comes with Openview ... and it is sweet ... but I had my own scripts that I used instead of openview for ears on a network of about 100 servers that made up over 400 partitions that needed backed up everynight. Also, Amanda (free with Linux) does the job here very well.
      5. Use more free ware
      6. Write more of your own stuff
      7. yada yada yada
      8. etc, etc, etc

        So yes, there is a BIG reason to use Linux instead of Windows ... it is MUCH cheaper over the long haul ... and a Linux admin can administer MANY more Linux boxes versus the number of Windows boxes a Windows admin can manage.

    • These applications/systems will improve the reliability of your system - at least that is the justification. Since we're focusing on TCO, the free part is not too interesting. It's the part about "how good is it?" that's interesting.

      Also, Microsoft has a tradition for a forced upgrade policy. That rubs many companies the wrong way. You'll find systems developed and put into production in the 80s and 70s still running, at less cost that reimplementing them with current technology. But those systems usually do not run on a Microsoft platform.

    • Re:Stone soup? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jschrod ( 172610 )
      A free OS is not the interesting point for enterprises. They couldn't care less.

      It's the ability to run Unix functionality and Unix application software on cheap Intel (IA32) hardware. OK, one doesn't have enterprise-strength HA, double-precision performance, etc. But it saves a hell of money.

      In a recent benchmark for an automotive company, a Linux cluster had (for easy crash simulation models) the same performance for a third of the price of large proprietary Unix boxes. That's what counts. (Sorry, can't be more precise due to an NDA.)

  • Empirical Evidence (Score:5, Informative)

    by DASHSL0T ( 634167 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:08AM (#5126851) Homepage
    If anyone doubts Linux' inroads into the corporate environment, just read today's release from HP. HP now says they have 2 BILLION in annual revenue attribuatable to Linux. http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030121/tech_hewlettpackard _linux_1.html

  • Really? (Score:2, Funny)

    by gazbo ( 517111 )
    One for those of you who dress nicer than me.

    But I didn't think that vagrants had Internet access...

  • I am an advanced MS system administrator at a fortune 350 company using mostly visual basic for application and office productivity development.

    Before linux can EVER make it onto the desktop, somebody is going to have to come up with some type of scripting language besides C. I need the ability to interact with the inputs/outputs of the office productivity tools (delete, copy, etc) and linux just can't do that yet.

    I will definately check out linux in a few years, but it looks like this egg is still about only 2/3rds baked.

  • Financial Corps (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:20AM (#5126910)
    Large financial corps have been aggressively looking at clustering linux for future generation platform. All the work IBM and research facilities have put into clustering linux has proven it's reliable and scalable. There is no equivalent in on windows. How many windows clusters are listed in the top 100 supercomputing clusters?

    Microsoft won't win in this area for several reasons. Large grid and clusters sometimes require really low level tweaking to optimize performance. When you start getting into shared memory architecture, windows is still 10 yrs behind. Plus, the researchers and high end computing need access to source code to tweak and optimize. Microsoft is it's own worse enemy in this area. MS effectively locks themselves out of the supercomputing world due to their business practices.

  • to any of us 'selling' open source to 'The Enterprise'. We've been finding increasing acceptance recently amongst medium size businesses in the UK, and a willingness in the media to accept that Open Source is 'Enterprise Ready', which, of course, it has been for years.

  • CmdrTaco dress code (Score:5, Funny)

    by lovebyte ( 81275 ) <lovebyte2000@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:23AM (#5126937) Homepage
    CmdrTaco wrote:
    One for those of you who dress nicer than me.

    According to this pic [cmdrtaco.net] that includes many people!

  • Just don't pick redhat for a distro. (Score:4, Informative)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:26AM (#5126952) Journal
    Redhat recently changed their support policy. They now will only support releases for one year [redhat.com] with errata. Are you nervous about switching to a .0 redhat release? Well now you have little choice.

    Actually, you have a choice, you can switch to their advanced server line for at least $800 per server. They will support each rev of that product with errata for up to three years. As for desktops installs...

    Imagine if Microsoft only supported an OS for one year from release...

    I am not happy at all [weaverling.org]

    • They now will only support releases for one year with errata.

      If you find yourself in this situation, just download a free copy of the latest and greatest version of Red Hat from their website and tell yourself it's a patch.

      • It's not that easy. Drivers for my EMC SAN aren't out for 8.0 yet. Doing this to dozens of servers takes time. Testing dozens of web sites to see if anything breaks between apache 1.3 to 2.0 takes time. I still have one server running 6.2 because of some crap software on it that won't run under lk 2.4 or the new glibc or whatever (but that does need to be attended to, I admit...). 6.2 is ancient now, but kill 7.3 and 8.0 at the end of the year???
    • Imagine if Microsoft only supported an OS for one year from release...

      Have you ever read the warranty you found in the box of your Microsoft product?
      This states that the software will function for 90 days after purchase.

  • Why use either .... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by johnlcallaway ( 165670 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:30AM (#5126969)
    We have been using NetSaint for years ... it runs on Linux, Solaris, and NT and exceeds our needs. It is tremendously configurable, supports remote reporting nodes, and is extremely light weight.

    My prior exposure to Openview, Unicenter, and Tivoli are that they are bloated monstrosities better suited to pleasing upper management types who like pretty pictures (has anyone actually found 3D flythroughs to be effective?) than to sys admins and NOCs. They take way too much effort to setup, and suck system resources like crazy. Plus, the damn things cost a fortune to purchase and support.

    So .. anyone care to tell me why I really care about this report, other than it showing how companies are taking Linux seriously? Because if they are, then it is time for them to start taking other Open Source software seriously, view what the competition provides, and start making their products more usable. I used to hear a saying, putting a dress on a pig doesn't make it a prom queen. Well, dressing up a pig using Linux doesn't get it a date on my server.

  • Openview (Score:3, Informative)

    by ChiefArcher ( 1753 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:38AM (#5127008) Homepage Journal
    Openview is already ported to solaris.. and most of the backend stuff it does is written in PERL.. So how hard is it to port to linux.... probably not hard at all.

    The only thing i like about openview that would be useful is it's SNMP MIB Browser... no one else has ever come close to it.. although i haven't searched in the last 6 months

    ChiefArcher

  • It's part of the plan here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slutdot ( 207042 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @11:41AM (#5127035)
    Ever since linux was introduced into our environment about a year and a half ago, linux has grown to be a major part of our organization. We proved to upper management that linux was a viable solution to MS products, not only in cost but in functionality for many situations. We have 6 RH servers now and more are forthcoming. It's a nice change since this makes me a linux professional instead of a hobbyist now. Granted, we have about 90 NT/2000 servers but 6 can be considered a nice start when a couple of years ago, my manager was telling me that he didn't trust open source because "if it's free, it can't be any good".

    We're about to hire three more engineers and as part of the requirements to work here, a candidate must have at least a functional knowledge of linux or unix. That's a major step in the right direction for an MS shop.

  • We've been sneaking in Linux now for a few years.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eaddict ( 148006 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:00PM (#5127167)
    All we had to do to get 'approval' was do proof-of-concepts. Now that HP Omniback (aka DataProtector) [hp.com] supports Liunx, SAP [sap.com] runs on Linux, and we can do 95% of our job on the desktop using Linux we are past the sneaking in. Linux is still a pain to configure due to the many flavors. I also wish tools/applications would install easier. We'd don't have DLL hell as much as we used too - now we have gcc hell!

  • Tivoli is an update; Client for Notes IS new (Score:4, Informative)

    by GerardM ( 535367 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:30PM (#5127380)
    Tivoli already runs on Linux for quit some time. The importance of the news is in the widening of the support.

    Notes client will be introduced by IBM. This is really important news as it makes it not mandatory anymore to have Windows on the desktop.

    http://www.internetwk.com/story/INW20030119S0001

    Thanks,
    Gerard Meijssen
  • Enough with "enterprise" already. It mostly means "business," but then it also covers a few other larger groups, like schools. "Business" is good enough. Does anyone ever ask what enterprise you work for?
    • No, "enterprise" doesn't mean "business", "Enterprise" means "big". It's basically (in this context) a category of business software which is distinct from SOHO (small office/home office) software. (At least, it's distinct in theory -- in practice, there's a lot of overlap, and a lot of business software that doesn't fit neatly into either category.)

      Does anyone ever ask what enterprise you work for?

      Does anyone ever ask what small office/home office you work for? No, the question doesn't make sense. It makes an unwarranted assumption about the size of the organization you work for (among other problems). Doesn't mean you don't work for a place that uses enterprise software (or SOHO software).
  • For particular niches, Linux is already attractive. We have a server farm of around 100 Xeon rackmount nodes that comprise our server farm. We have a batch queuing system which doles out user jobs to some of these machines, and others are allocated for interactive use. We are running a mix of in house software, shrink-wrapped software, and open-source software written by others in our industry. Linux has proven to be as useful for these tasks as our commercial Unix versions have been. In fact, I would say that these Linux machines do over 90% of what our Solaris servers do.

    There are a few drawbacks to Linux at this junction. The major thing that our Linux servers cannot do is handle large-memory footprints, above the 3 - 4 GB RAM level. This is more of a limitation of the 32-bit PC hardware than of Linux itself. For our large memory jobs we run on our large memory Suns, but all the other jobs use Linux as the computational platform. We do not run Linux for our file servers, as we've encountered problems with the NFS implementation on Linux that Solaris doesn't seem to have. Other than that, Linux gets a big thumbs up.
  • I use linux in enterprises and have been using it for 3 years.

    It isnt any different to deploy than any other Unix technology (okay, its easyer). Its a killer proxy, redirector, webnany, IDS, Web Server and i have it serve all collaboration facilities for VERY large companies (Like, one of the largest autopart builders in latin america).

    Im tired to see "oh, it wont be adopted until it looks like w2k admin interface"....

    Get a LIFE you MS BIOTCH.... if you dont learn linux, real Linux, and the network protocols you are deploying (which is actually the difference between de3ploying in win vs lin -that you have to know the protocol, and wtf you are doing in Linux-), you will go out of the market and the biggest box youll be able to deploy will be a fucking xBox.

    We already won as far as i can tell. More and more ppl in large enterprise environments are looking into migrating all infrastructure to Linux. We have proven ourselves worthy.

    For the sick bitches not wanting to accept this reality, i recomend another industry or a move to desktop system's support, where you can still go click-click and have your wonderfull users finally copy paste that spreadsheet into your mommas POwer POint.

    +5, Offensive

  • Tivoli TME10 ManagedNode support was ported to Linux back in the olden days by one Mike Poag, a Level 2 CSR in Austin, Texas. I think he got the ORB (which was not Java at the time) running on Linux originally through iBCS, but I don't recall from which architecture. This was readily possible because Tivoli TME10 is a CORBA-based application which used primarily shell scripts and perl scripts for its methods at the time.

    Any customer with a large installation (the kind that costs ~5M rather than just a half mil or so) has been able to get Linux support for a long time. I know it's becoming an official product now and thus is newsworthy but let's look at some facts; No one has had a shop with enough linux to justify using Tivoli to manage it until fairly recently, and anyone with a shop big enough to need Tivoli has already had TME10 (or whatever it's called now) or that crap from CA (Unicenter-TNG) for some time now. In addition Tivoli has loads of opportunities for customers to come and meet service reps and company mucky-mucks (at one such event, I happened to meet the VP of the company which led to us having several discussions about what was wrong with customer support. Martin Neath, he's a great guy, and he has a great first name, since it also happens to be my own :)

    Anyway amusingly Tivoli also supports or supported OS/2 for two reasons: First, IBM bought them. That much is obvious. Two, the UK Post system uses OS/2 extensively.

    Now for those who are claiming that Tivoli is just stupid bloatware and doesn't provide any value which equals its cost; You don't know jack. Oh, it's a big, complex product which can be difficult and is always expensive to implement, but you are forgetting what it gives you; seamless management support of an absolute shitload of different operating systems. They may have dropped some platforms by now but it used to support Pyramid, Convex, SunOS4 and 4, AIX 3 and 4, HP-SUX 8, 9, and 10, NT, OS/2, Linux, IRIX (latest couple of major versions) and a bunch of Unixes which I can't even remember. You could do software distribution, software inventory of all nodes, hardware inventory of windows machines, and so on... Security with ACLs implemented through RACF on non-NT platforms, job scheduling, very granular resource monitoring... And what's most significant, if your machines were properly maintained and patched, and your network wasn't horribly screwy, then it really wasn't that tough to get going.

    Once you have tivoli going, one person can reasonably manage tens of thousands of nodes (save for hardware issues) from a single interface and the nodes need not be the same operating system, yet they still appear the same to the Tivoli administrator.

    Finally, Tivoli uses its own GUI description "language" and then renders to local Graphics APIs, unlike Mozilla (Sorry, couldn't resist a dig) so you can make cross-platform customizations (Especially if you write any new methods in perl) and deploy them across varying platforms; It doesn't matter WHAT platform you bring your changes to. All this from a common codebase across ALL platforms, mostly built with gcc, last I looked. How can you hate it? Because it costs money? This is the really real world. Because it's big and "bloated"? It does an IMMENSE number of things, and it's a general-purpose CORBA-based framework for distributed application development, it's GOING to be big. It's a complex system.

    Me? Martin Espinoza, former Level 2 CSR. Lived and worked in Austin, TX just around the corner from the office so I could walk to work, which I did once barefoot with wet hair in below-freezing weather. TX ain't always over a hundred, remember.

  • Actually, the people who use openview probably don't dress any better than you (unless you're naked, in which case, there's probably a few that can match you). It's usually used in the Network Operations center, and if the guys in ops wear better clothes than your average admin or code monkey, it's news to me.

    The guys who buy openview probably dress better, but then the same can be said for most of the guys who buy anything for enterprise, including the hardware to run Linux.
  • Seriously. What utter shite. F*cking expensive, locked in, proprietary, difficult to manage, difficult to implement shite at that.

    Big Brother is your friend...

    Look. I work as an admin for a f*cking big multinational. 100,000+ employees. The "corporate standard" network management system is tivoli, but nobody uses it cos it's shit, expensive, overcomplex shit. Big Brother OTOH is rife throughout the organisation. Used unofficially everywhere.

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