[GLLUG] Advice (and hopefully a fieldtrip)

[Dpk]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 10:13:40AM -0500, Jeff Vanderlaan wrote:

   [snip]
   We have 43 sites, with almost 6000 desktops, and potentially 18,000
   users.  (We currently have about 5,000 active accounts) We are
   running Microsoft Windows 2000 servers with Active Directory.  All
   the sites are connected with either full T1 or fractional-T1's
   (minimum of 384k).
   
   I am interested in talking to anyone who is currently using Linux
   in a production environment.  If anyone could offer us a chance to
   see it at work that would be even better.
   
I would be willing to offer some insight.  We currently use Linux for
anonymous FTP, DNS, DHCP, and SQL services.  We are also in the
processes of integrating Linux into our NIS+ (central user account
database) environment so we can extend our Linux infrastructure to
web, Windows file/print sharing using Samba, network printing
services, and mail.  Much of this will be done over this winter break
even. We have 2000+ computers on a 10/100 Mbps network with a 1 Gbps
backbone and 5000 user accounts.

We are a big Sun/Solaris shop... many of the service management
strategies will not change in migrating to Linux primarily because the
software we use on Solaris is free software developed and heavily used
on Linux.  The benefits are numerous for us:

- We won't need to compile and bugger with oddities getting the
  software to run properly on Solaris because they will be
  pre-packaged and heavily tested within the Linux distribution,
  saving us time and lessening the management burden.  

- I can purchase server-quality PC-based systems that perform better
  and at a fraction of the price.  This allows us to buy multiple
  servers for load-balancing (furthering performance even more!) and
  fulfills our requirements for failover/reliability.

- In choosing the Debian Linux distribution, management and security
  of the base operating system is significantly better and easier for
  our needs when compared to Solaris.

I stated specific services above for a reason, because I wanted to
clearify that we are using Linux for specific things.  We will still
have a strong presence of Sun/Solaris in our core and for our needs
and purposes, the two complement one another quite well.

I can discuss in further detail some of those reasons outside of
email.  I would also be willing to provide a tour/demo after the
holidays.  Let me know if you are interested.

Dpk