From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Aug 10 03:55:39 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id DAA21401 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 03:55:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from tuminfo2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (tuminfo2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de [131.159.0.81]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id DAA21360 for ; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 03:55:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hafner@informatik.tu-muenchen.de) Received: from hprbg5.informatik.tu-muenchen.de ([131.159.0.200] EHLO hprbg5.informatik.tu-muenchen.de ident: root [port 3912]) by tuminfo2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de with ESMTP id <109864-219>; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 12:54:33 +0000 Received: from hafner@localhost by hprbg5.informatik.tu-muenchen.de id <7619-22585>; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 12:54:20 +0200 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: help in convincing management not to supplant Unix with NT References: <199808090309.WAA00774@gforce.bellsouth.net> <199808091300.JAA04256@lucy.bedford.net> From: Walter Hafner Date: 10 Aug 1998 12:54:19 +0200 In-Reply-To: djv@bedford.net's message of "9 Aug 1998 15:33:00 +0200" Message-ID: Lines: 91 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.3 - "Vatican City" Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG djv@bedford.net (CyberPeasant) writes: > Now is a good time to change jobs. One of the reasons that NT is > used to replace Unix is because pointed-headed managers think they will > be cheaper to manage. They intend to fire all the Unix people, and hire > "certified droids". They have been assured by M$ marketers that it > will be cheaper to run NT. *sigh* the managers secretly believe that > the new pimple-faced NT dweebs will be more docile and easily controlled. > This is correct. > > Challenge them to provide a /single/ technical reason to run NT on > a server. This won't work though, they already have the evidence. > Evidence doesn't matter to these types. They have a "vision". Pfui. Just to tell another story from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen ... I have ca. 30 webservers running happily on three machines (x86 Solaris and FreeBSD). No special attention required, they just run. Now the University administration wants a webserver for sensitive data, accessed only behind the firewall, that separates the administration network from the university network. They asked me (the University WWW representative) for advice. Under the restrictions that they have to - access Oracle and Ingres databases - have several online-forms, from simple mail-feedbacks up to user-dependant database queries and updates etc. I told them to get a Unix workstation - any kind of commercial unix will do. If I remember correctly I told them to get a cheap Solaris machine (SUN or x86). I mean: I/O is a no-issue, but they need professional support, which is why I didn't recommend FreeBSD. Support is very important for administrations and the like... I recommended Unix because of the highly dynamic contents of the pages (Query forms based on user-accounts, built online via CGI) and the database interaction (imho this interaction needs to be highly customized and I don't trust MS ISAPI for such a task) Guess what: It'll be NT. The reasons as they were told to me: 1) The university administration already runs a TCP/IP based NT network and they want to do all the security stuff based on the NT accounts (Yeah, I TOLD them what this means for the security of the network) 2) Administrations need solutions that are completely standardized. By 'completely' they mean, that scripts written by the staff are a complete no-no. The staff could be changing and the scripts aren't maintained anymore. So no Perl scripts, no add-ons like PHP for the database stuff etc. (Yeah, I TOLD them what database interaction means without customized scripts) 3) They already have lots NT users, so teaching one of them to become WWW administrator shouldn't be too hard ... (Yeah, I TOLD them ...) 4) An NT WWW server surely fits MUCH better into the existing NT network (At that point I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry ...) Well, I didn't try to convince them any longer, when I heard their reasons. Best of all: Apart from me, they didn't ask anyone else for advice. They came up with that all by themselves. Still, it's got to be NT. And yes: I handed them the Kirch article. What did I do? Despite my job of being the one who helps all the University staff out of their WWW troubles, I told them quite clearly, that I won't help them with problems. That's fine, I was told. So instead of running a virtual server on one of my machines, they buy another server and think of hiring another employee just to run that server in case the users can't cope with it. That's about $60.000 a year just to avoid using Unix. *shrug* Oh - and I'm sure that they'll eventually convert back to Unix. Last information I heard: I had to explain the NT user that was appointed to manage the admistration-WWW-project the meaning of HTML ("What's it for?") and had to recommend some courses to him ... nuff said. I mean: Here I am. 10 years of Internet experience, 5 years of WWW experience, 9 years of being a Unix-sysadmin, Masters degree in computer science ... and then this single story tells me how much my advice is valued. -Walter -- Walter Hafner_______________________________ hafner@in.tum.de *CLICK* The best observation I can make is that the BSD Daemon logo is _much_ cooler than that Penguin :-) (Donald Whiteside) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message