[Samba] Horrible Linux/Samba vs Windows political battle - can you help?

[Collins, Kevin]

Gregory,

I am the System Manager for a 45 person Consulting Engineering firm that is spread across three locations.  We use Samba to provide file/print and authentication services for the entire company.  I have one PDC and two BDCs tied together over three VPNs to make it all work.  We still have one Windows 2000 server in our network, but that is to support a couple of License Managers for our CAD software and to maintain Anti-Virus on our desktops.  It does not serve any other purpose than that.  (In fact we've thought about running these services from inside a VMWare virtual machine on one of our Linux boxes.)

We moved from a Windows NT/2000 server controlled setup about 4 years ago.  Quite frankly, we haven't looked back.  We've enjoyed higher stability and performance from the Linux setup.  Our Samba servers are running RHEL3, but we're moving those to Debian during our Christmas break.

The only problem that we've had is support.  By that I mean, I can pick up the phone and call any Computer Consultant firm in the city and get someone who "knows" Windows.  I can't do that for Linux.  But what that has made me do is become a better administrator in the first place.  I do more research, testing and planning now than I ever have.  I found that I was using the outside support as a crutch.  Now I'm not.  Don't get me wrong, the support isn't non-existent - just look at this mailing list.  But it's just not as easy to procure and waiting is almost always involved.

Will we ever go back to Windows?  Who knows.  But I do know one thing.  That move will cost us a ton of money.  Right now on Linux, I'm getting file and print services, e-mail, content filtering for e-mail, firewalls, routers, on-site and off-site backups/archives and VPNs mostly for just the cost of the hardware (we use Scalix for E-Mail).

I don’t know if this will help convince your boss that he can trust your decisions, but I hope so.

--
Kevin L. Collins, MCSE
Systems Manager
Nesbitt Engineering, Inc.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregory A. Cain [mailto:greg at gregorycain.net] 
> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 7:50 PM
> To: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] Horrible Linux/Samba vs Windows political 
> battle - can you help?
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> I am currently the IT Manager for a 30-person architectural 
> firm. About
> 5 months ago we hired a new employee. He is quite good at 
> what he does. 
> He is also extremely opinionated, particularly when it comes 
> to computer software, including server software.
> 
> I'm running the office server functions on RedHat, Fedora and 
> Trustix servers. He has managed to convince my boss that 
> there are serious problems with these servers and with Linux 
> in general. After having worked here for over 14 years, I 
> would have hoped my boss would have more trust in my choices.
> 
> In any case, I now find myself in the position of having to 
> defend my position here. My boss has gone as far as to hire 
> an independent consultant to evaluate our whole network 
> infrastructure, simply on the basis of the new employee's 
> statemenets about the worthlessness of Linux. I do not relish 
> being put in this position, however I'm going to take a stand.
> 
> If there is anyone reading this who works in the field of 
> architecture or engineering, and with CAD or BIM software, 
> who is using Linux as your server software, I would sure be 
> appreciative it if you could write a testimonial for me to 
> help me convince my boss that migrating from Linux to MS 
> would be a horrible mistake.
> 
> Also, if you know of any other resources that might be 
> helpful to me, I'd greatly appreciate hearing from you.
> 
> ANY help would be MUCH appreciated!!
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
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