An interesting Revelation For Network Admins

Hescominsoon

Hescominsoon

CGA\TOJ Hosting Manager
I just did my annual update to the Linux Counter Project which is located at counter.li.org. Once i finished my updates I was quote shocked at what I found. Out of all the machines I manage in one form or another(at least server wise) more than 90% are Linux boxes. Some of my clients have two Linux servers. Desktops are overwhelmingly Windows however. Out of 13 servers 10 of them run Linux. That’s quite amazing when you think of it. I did not have any agenda when doing this..i simply chose what i felt was the best tool for the job. Of those 10 Linux boxes there’s 4 dedicated firewalls, 1 web hosting server, three file servers, and one dedicated mailserver. The distributions represented are Astaro(1), Untangle(3), Debian(2), Centos(1)(running the Zimbra Suite), SME(1), and Zentyal(2), of former e-box fame. That’s an amazing variety that I was quite surprised to see presented. Going about my daily business it’s easy to not really realize your layouts sometimes until you do an independent audit like this and then have it stare back at you..:)

from: http://www.emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com/archives/2632
 
Are your E-mail servers running on the Linux boxes? If so, I assume the Windows users are running Outlook and connecting via POP3?
 
yes it's Centos 5x 64 bit as the base OS the groupware suite is Zimbra. Internal access is done via https in web browsers. External is either https OR secured IMAP(for staff that want their e-mail on their smartphones). Outlook is no longer installed.
 
Interestingly enough, I feel non-Windows servers have almost zero business in an enterprise computing and software environment. Too insecure, and there is just no good replacement for Active Directory in a mixed environment, lol.

My personal opinion, though. :)
 
I'm a Developer now but I used to be a fill-in sysadmin where it was an almost all Microsoft environment, so Active Directory and Outlook... but my development machine was Linux so I used OWA in my browser, or the buggy Evolution E-mail client that came with Ubuntu that used OWA but presented it in the same bsic configuration as Outlook or Thunderbird.
 
Well, yeah that's the problem...the mixed environment. Problems tend to occur when you have information traveling through 2 or 3 intermediary layers just to make something work, haha.

I'm sure a totally non-MS architecture could work efficiently (and securely, that's the tough part), I just haven't seen any businesses do away with them entirely.
 
I think part of the problem comes from the fact that Microsoft products and open source products represent two utterly different business models. Without going into which I think is better, as I don't want to trigger a Microsoft vs. open source debate, I will define it thus:

Microsoft's business model is to sell the completed product while keeping the design and implementation details confidential. It's like selling someone a car with only a few indicator lights and the hood welded shut. In order to integrate a non-Microsoft product in a Microsoft environment (or vice versa) one has to rely on whatever services or interfaces Microsoft has elected to make available.

On the other hand, the Open Source model gives the software away for free or for a smaller cost, relying instead on support to generate revenue. It's like selling someone a car with a set of shop manuals, tools and gauges with a 24 hour support line that's paid for with a subscription. It's much easier to integrate 3rd party applications with it because one can access the structure and design of the product in order to design a way to interact with it at a more efficient level. (One could even modify the product itself.)

This is why it's hard to integrate the two seamlessly... they're just totally different philosophies in Software Development.

So the result is that we tend to see 3rd party products basically being designed to conform to whatever standards are necessary to interface with Microsoft products, and sometimes that also means living with certain limitations in capability and performance because it's really all based on how much Microsoft wants to enable in its design, and it hardly has an incentive to make it easy!
 
Lloren said:
Both have their place for sure. No tool fits all jobs.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It's why I've never understood the factions that form... some people absolutely will use nothing but Linux, some regard Linux as silly and pointless in a world where there's Windows.

I say, go with what meets your needs and leave the arguing to the fanboys. :)

Edit: In my personal computers I have 2 Linux machines, 2 Windows XP and one Windows 7.
 
I should add - I don't feel that I have a preference, so I hope I didn't come off that way.

My experience has been, though, that in a mixed environment there are a lot of problems in doing things securely. For example, you often end up with SAMBA, LDAP, and all kinds of other voodoo creating 3 or 4 layers between one thing and the next. Problems happen and it's hard to troubleshoot, and passwords easily end up in clear text files via CRON jobs unless utmost care is taken.

I guess to me it just seems like a silly way to run a network. It isn't about how secure things are individually, it's about making resources available across a common login.

Has anyone used Novell or other directory structures (other than Active Directory) that have worked well in mixed environments that they could recommend?
 
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