MS Beta Software To Manage Unix/Linux Systems

Tumbleweed writes "The Cross Platform and Interop team at Microsoft today announced some new beta products for managing Unix/Linux systems from MS Operations Manager 2007, as well as connectors for HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console. Both betas are available at Microsoft Connect (search for systemcenter), according the blog."

Manage Unix/Linux Systems?

[apoc.famine]

Wtf? The gui tools available NATIVELY don't allow for any comprehensive management of Unix/Linux systems. Less is more, terminal is faster, text over ssh, bash scripting - the entire culture of *nix is anti-gui.

How the fuck is MS going to make a gui to manage such systems?

Or are they just reimplementing an ssh terminal?

Keep away

[Wowsers]

I dual boot Linux and Windows, the less Windows knows about Linux on the system all the better, especially when you consider Windows wants to do stuff like on re-installing Windows, install it's boot loader over the better Linux one. Who knows what Windows would do to file permissions.

Re:Manage Unix/Linux Systems?

[PPH]

Command line or GUI, what Microsoft needs to do is to restrict the number of options available when administering Unix/Linux systems to the subset available for Windows. Then, the next question is: What can you do with *nix that you can't do with Windows (ignoring the crippled interface)? If the answer to that is: Nothing, then the next question is: Why not just use Windows?

Re:"Resistance is futile..."

[ClickOnThis]

"You will disarm your command prompts and escort us into Linux as root. If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you."

I think MS would like to destroy Linux whether anyone "intervenes" or not.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I do wonder whether this is another "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactic. Or at least an attempt by MS to create a "view" of Linux that it can control, perhaps in a way that is unflattering to Linux.

This may be a good thing in the long run

[mlts]

Devil's advocate here:

Long term, this might be a help for Linux and other UNIX variants. A lot of companies are required, either due to regulations, contract or their own corporate policies to perform audits on computer systems. Having a "one stop shop" by MS where someone can punch a button and generate a report on vital machine statistics for every single thing hooked up to the corporate network, down to the USB powered urinals, regardless of OS being run, will allow IT shops more freedom in choosing operating systems.

Having OS independence for this tool would allow a shop to use Linux for a number of servers, but when audit time comes around, it will be as easy to print out a report about the machine's and how it adheres to corporate policy as the Windows machines. Audits of machine and network infrastructure security are a critical part of a lot of businesses and any tool that allows this to be made easier is definitely a help.

Using a tool like this, a business can not just say to a prospective client that "all our network connected computers have antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software installed that are kept updated", but actually show it, by showing a report that even the Solaris boxes have Mcafee installed [1] with current vdef files.

[1]: Yes, we all know about UNIX boxes and viruses, but there are lots of times when virus scanning software has to be present on all machines due to contract or legal reasons, even if the installed program just takes up space in /usr/local and the only thing it does is fire up a cron job to update the virus definitions and occasionally run a filesystem scan.

Re:Manage Unix/Linux Systems?

[zappepcs]

Indeed... webmin can be quicker for stuff you can't remember the command line for, but it is ALWAYS best to learn the text/terminal/shell commands for the very same thing.

I like a lot of webmin, but would rather just script quite a bit of stuff where I can. Much simpler than clickety clicks -- YMMV

The REAL question is: Are there *ANY* *nix system admins out there that WANT MS to manage their systems? My head about exploded when I read the title. On second reading, well, it makes sense to be able to deal with all things in the data center. I'm just not sure if MS has the m4d sk1l5 for doing so. I have yet to see a well managed MS data center installation.

Just an opinion

Re:Chose Wisely

[houstonbofh]

Many people. Have you ever used MOM or something like it? There are no FOSS products that can give an overview and easy management of a hundred or so Linux systems like MOM, or BMC, or CA or Tivoli can do with Windows. Attitudes like your are why FOSS is so far behind. Many people want an easy way to manage 100 desktops before they deploy 100 desktops. And while Microsoft makes some crappy products, they are always easy. Microsoft could own this market very fast, and that should scare you. The fact is that all the easy ways to manage a large number of Linux systems are closed source. Why is that? PS: If I am wrong, please post some links. I hope I am wrong, because SSHing into all the systems I support is killing me.

Re:Manage Unix/Linux Systems?

[InlawBiker]

Because then, theoretically, you don't have to have both Linux and Windows people on staff. I.T. managers want to hire less people, not more, and the Windows guys are usually cheaper.

Re:Chose Wisely

[Kent Recal]

Many people who want to deploy "100 desktops" (or rather "100 servers" in this context) will first want to hire competent staff to manage said hosts.
For OSS unix-management stuff I'd point to puppet, cfengine, FAI (debian specific) and others. As usual there is not "one tool to rule them all" but a set of building blocks that competent staff will assemble into something suitable to the task.

Re:"Resistance is futile..."

[mrbluze]

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I do wonder whether this is another "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactic.

It is. Microsoft is trying to create an abstraction layer to Linux. This means that, gradually (or in one foul swoop), Microsoft can replace all the abstracted functionality with its own code. That's if anyone bothers to use the product. Why anyone would want to introduce this kind of level of inefficiency is beyond me. Linux is perfectly able to be managed through its own interfaces - with free updates!

If you want to control Linux from a Microsoft system (or OS X), then there already are X clients around that work very well. I guess integration is where Microsoft is going to push its claim for usefulness.

I also wonder if this is leading down a path of stupidity. I doubt, in the long run, it's efficient to have too many diverse platforms running in a workplace. This introduces too many unknowns and makes it a nightmare to manage.