Linux To Take Over Microsoft In Enterprises 237
shougyin writes "For years, Linux has enjoyed much of its success as a replacement for Unix. Companies turned to Linux to replace Unix servers, or for new deployments within a Unix-heavy environment. Linux is still king there, but it's starting to encroach on Microsoft as well. Big companies are planning overwhelmingly (76.4%) to add more Linux servers in the next year, and less than half (41.2%) of the companies are planning to add Windows servers in the next year. Even more interesting, nearly half (43.6%) are actively planning to decrease use of Windows servers in the next year."
Re:ActiveDirectory - the last missing piece (Score:5, Interesting)
Once Samba4 is released, these Windows servers could be replaced as well.
Samba 4 has been in various stages of alpha for the last five years - or is it six?
Personally, I have considered a Samba 4 installation in only one place - a volunteer organisation that simply didn't have the budget for anything else. I'm still sniffing around for a surplus Windows Server license to replace it.
For an alpha release, Samba 4 is remarkably usable. However the time and effort that I have spent installing Samba 4 would have cost this organisation a fair bit more than the cost of a Windows Server 2008 Standard license. I don't see that reducing a huge amount even when Samba 4 is released - there's a lot of configuration involved to get DHCP, DNS and Samba 4 talking to each other properly.
wake me up.... (Score:4, Interesting)
wake me up when Linux starts taking over Microsoft in Desktops.
I'm happy about it, but not surprised. As the old generation of IT admins go away, newer ones are more flexible and have ways of saving money without MS in the equation. Linux is not the only solution, but one competitive alternative. Different is the Desktop, partially because it is not baked up big companies like the kernel and enterprise tools are. Canonical is an exception, but sadly a more or less lonely one.
survey says... (Score:2, Interesting)
I could see both big and small companies reducing their amount of microsoft servers in the future for a couple of reasons.
1) They are joining their BPOS cloud services and therefore have less need for their own in house MS production servers. Large % of big business is joining the cloud.
2) The new server topology for exchange requires whole new separate servers or hyperv virtual servers for edge (either way its a separate server license) in addition to their CAS, hub transport, mailbox servers, etc.
Re:ActiveDirectory - the last missing piece (Score:4, Interesting)
I've installed Samba4 on a test site. Installation was quite easy, even considering the DNS integration. However, I couldn't manage to set up DHCP with dynamic DNS updates. Though I see that they are adding an embedded DNS server into the Samba4 distribution (as they did with Kerberos and LDAP servers), so it should be much easier in the future.
Also, Microsoft tools for administration are seriously better than anything Samba4 has.
I am a nonbeliever (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not trust such assessments as much I do not trust assessments which point in the opposite direction. As much as I would like to see OS prevail CS, I do not believe this will happen any time soon or even in the distant future (under the assumption that our economic regime will not change).
Anyway, a major show stopper for small business to convert to Linux-based infrastructures is the SBS from Microsoft. Small companies have as a service infrastructure these SBS servers, which provide a mail directory service, calendars, address books. It provides web based access to these services as well as an Outlook integration. And it comes with share-point, which is also a requirement. And finally it works with all these smartphones, especially Blackberries and iPhones.
Therefore a migration effort has to take into account that the same functionality has to be provided with better QoS. While better QoS ist not the problem, the same functionality is a serious problem. Especially when it comes to more detailed properties.
But even worse, migration cannot be done in an overnight attempt. These always fail and in the end you loose a customer and they switch to MS for the rest of their lives. Therefore you need a soft migration strategy. And this is the key problem here.
While you can provide most features with lets say egroupware (which is not such a good idea, a servlet based approach would be better) you still need IMAP (dovecot), SMTP (postfix) and LDAP to model the mail service. Egroupware can also provide these calendars. But how do you replace Sharepoint? And especially how do you integrate with Sharepoint? While you switch to webdav oder sftp etc. the client's clients will not switch (at the same time). So you still need to integrate both services.
I have not seen any generic strategy for this problem. And honestly there are hundreds of thousands of small companies using SBS. And bigger companies use similar services.And the Blackberry-integration into a replacement infrastructure is very important as all these business guys use it.
Re:News for Nerds: (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting enough, I was surprised to learn that some rather large institutions run their programs inside cygwin inside windows.... So all they are doing is replacing the windows machine with linux instead of running the java inside of cygwin, which makes perfect sense. As to why they were running the program inside cygwin inside windows to begin with, I have no idea.
Re:survey says... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wake me up.... (Score:4, Interesting)
SAP R/3 was always a Three-Tiers-System, so it was "cloudy", before the term was coined. You have your big database server, you have some application servers hooked to the database, and you have clients which in turn connect to the application servers. When you connect to a R/3 system, it is never clear which dialog server you get connected to. That was so in 1995, and it is still so in 2010.
High redhat costs (Score:2, Interesting)
RedHat support cost is killing the opportunity to increase linux in enterprises... Windows licenses are cheaper!
Re:News for Nerds: (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I have seen.. the "decrease" in windows installs is because of data center consolidation and closing of offices that had a BDC. Yes more companies are looking at linux solutions for the back office, But it's not the picture they paint.
Windows is losing simply because of scaling. All companies are scaling back and if they reduce the number of servers at satellite locations, those are expensive licenses they will not have to pay.
Granted, I personally think it's retarded as hell to shrink your network like that and remove BDC's.. I experienced that at AT&T in the early 2000's we removed BDC's from offices that had less than 1000 employees. office downtime went up because when T1's to the nearest divisional office went down, productivity at that office usually took a crap. a small BDC is cheap and can serve as the office print server as well as file storage. but no, all that moves from local to at the end of a T1 or a T3 and now everything is slow as hell. Every try to support 10 users on citrix over a T1? It's painful for everyone involved.
No yet (Score:1, Interesting)
Growing (Score:4, Interesting)
Bias much? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:High redhat costs (Score:3, Interesting)
How much do windows licenses cost and how much does RedHat charge?