Let The Debates Begin!: Windows Goons VS. Linux Fan Boys.

Here’s where I am going to sound like an effete jackass, but here it goes….

I am neither.

I am a standards person.

I believe that business, and yes this is ALL about business, is best achieved when I as the IT MGR/CIO get to determine what is the best arrangement for me, rather than to have a vendor decide for me what they feel is the best way to do things and accomplish my goals.

I like interoperability, and operating system agnostic applications.

I like apps that talk to other apps with minimal integration because they are standards compliant, and the highest possible security.

I believe in inexpensive software and finding the least expensive way to accomplish the desired goal without having to find something that is simplified.

I believe that security through obscurity is a GOOD thing.

I believe that a homogeneous environment of any kind is a disaster waiting to happen.

I believe that putting too much stock in one vendor is a bad decision for business.

I believe that we, as in IT need to be flexible and easily adaptable to the ever changing business objectives, which cannot happen in a situation where you are dealing with proprietary products that are resistant to standards and attempt to keep you in revolving doors of their upgrades and planned obsolescence.

I believe making your life easier as an admin through homogeneity is a prescription for the unemployment line.

I believe systems do not need to be overly complicated and that this debate is not a religious one, and anyone who puts themselves in any particular camp and refuses to look outside is a hack at best and missing out on doing really exciting things as an admin and most importantly, learning about new technologies and ideas.

I see this as playing it safe, accepting mediocrity and making sure your systems run as the lowest common denominator, and while your uptime might be out to 5 9′s, the level of services you provide is less than it could be.

Commence the flame war.

Regards,

The Slothman

Karl,

I wasn’t so much pointing at you with my comments on the MS or Penguin crew, because you’ve demonstrated that you’re open to ideas, thus this blog!

But rather there is a MAJOR segment of our industry that is so tied up in the religious discussion of MS v. Linux/Mac and it is useless. If you’re going to design your systems to buck MS…well then you’ll miss out on some things. And vice versa!

But if an admin is not worried about the cost of all their MS licensing, for the sake of simplicity then they are making a huge mistake and exposing themselves to a world of problems.

Case in point, our Project Management software here is currently in a version(haven’t upgraded to the latest which doesn’t do this) that is HEAVY on ActiveX and written solely for IE. I don’t want to use it because it has opened us up to a lot of spyware/adware/bugs because of the reduced security needed for the app to run right…..What about Slammer??? Remember that one?? Run that homogeneous MS environment with a lot of SQL server going and a new type of Slammer bug shows up…guess what…you’re out of business for a while!

You’ve pointed out some Mac bugs…I am sure those bugs can work on their Xservers and down their xRaids.

It’s a matter of having all your eggs in one basket for the sake of convenience.

I use the MS example because they tend to use the same core components in all their applications, so in essence whether you think you’re not all in one basket or not, you really are. Would anyone of us feel secure if we put all our apps on one physical server??? HELL NO! That is so 1997! It is the same mentality and methodology is all I am saying.

My purpose for these posts is not to sway anyone, rather to get people to realize the real challenges to IT and that is to get things standardized and for our own personal careers to be as diverse as possible because like it or not, we all hit the job market at some time and the more skills, the better.

I hope my brash nature in the way I communicate doesn’t offend anyone, rather it makes them think introspectively about their careers, what they do and the value they add to their employers as well as the possible fun they can have with their jobs by doing new and exciting things.

JUSTBLAZE:

The trick to working with Open Source software, is to find ones with great seed capital, like Zimbra, Scalix, to name two, and that have large communities of other admins out there in the trenches.

Find those two things, and your support is there.

Just like the development and licensing, the openness of Open Source is all about the Community. You need them, and they need you.