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Windows servers

From: "Brian K. White" <brian@aljex.com>
References: <20011104221700.A22522@egps.egps.com>
<3BE68FF3.AB3D0485@genesis1st.com> 
Subject: Re: Stop the Microsoft Incursion!
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 02:40:28 GMT


"rollee" <rollee@genesis1st.com> wrote in message
news:3BE68FF3.AB3D0485@genesis1st.com...
> "Nachman Yaakov (Yankel) Ziskind" wrote:
>
> > Our shop (which has our Unix box doing application/file/print
> > /mail/DNS services, etc.) just invited in a consultant... Of course,
> > his first 'suggestion' was to buy a new
> > Win2K server and assign it everything. In addition, he'd like to
> > replace the routers, hubs and backup software with stuff *he* likes.
> > $70k PLUS $125/hour installation time.
> >  my boss (who is *usually* quite reasonable [=listens to me]) told me
> > to 'have an
> > open mind', whatever that means.
> > Nachman Yaakov Ziskind, EA, LLM
>
> Don't ya hate it when that happens?  First of all, I am wondering why he
> brought in a consultant to begin with.  But, having said that,
> unfortunately, this seems to be an all too common occurence these days,
> when ya' have bosses who have become computer literate to even the
> slightest degree, and then, they think they know everything.  Because
> they do not understand Unix, they want to bring in that Nice Toy [NT],
> as they think they will be able to better understand it.  Also, some
> bosses don't particularly like the idea that with a Unix box, when they
> don't have a clue as to how it operates, then they are dependent on
> their MIS guy, and are at his whims.  I had set myself up this way on
> purpose at my last employer.  I was the only one who knew even how to
> boot the machine up, let alone make all the functions work.  I was the
> only one who had access to root.  I was the only one who performed a LOT
> of functions related to the system.  However, when we got a new
> President, he was one of those who thought he knew everything about
> computers, so he decided to force out the "computer guy" [me] and go
> with an on call computer repair service, as he thought that would save
> money.  Of course, I was shocked, and laughed in his face as I told him
> that he was basically nuts, that it would cost him thousands more
> dollars.  Well, to make a long story short, he also brought in a
> consultant after I left, and this person recommended that they scrap the
> Unix system and switch to NT.  Of course, nobody bothered to try to
> figure out how they were going to get remote sites working as they had
> been with the Unix system.  Their accounting system was down over a
> month!  They couldn't print checks, etc.  Vendors went unpaid.  Oh it
> was hilarious to me.  So, even if I was unemployed, I had the last
> laugh.  Bottom line, you are probably fighting a losing battle.  Send
> out your resumes and get the heck out of there while you can.

I suggest you simply capture these posts and let them speak for you.
You cannot say in exact detail all the myriad ways in which a move off of
unix will be costly, but you can say without hesitation that it will simply
be a big fat snarling hairball of problems and it won't be a one time hump
to get over either. It will amount to a severe hump initially, followed by a
continuous elevated level of problems forever after. Any expenses associated
with your unix system are an investment. you get a lot out of every little
expense. be it improvement or maintenance in hardware or software. with nt
you have expenses that spiral out of control because no one can really fix
the problems that come up. it's a continuous cycle of calling in guys who
scratch their heads and "try stuff" hoping something helps but they really
can't know, only grope and hope.

examples of my own (where I was the one groping and hoping):

problem: suddenly after a few months of working fine, no one can print from
the database application to the shared printer. it's of course crucial to
the business to be able to print out certain forms.
eventual resolution: uninstall the proper and current epson drivers for the
printer from all the PC's and anwer "yes, remove no longer needed files"
during uninstall, and leave uninstalled, or re-install as generic/tex-only.
turn off all spooling for this printer if it's installed in windows. in this
case the printer doesn't need to be installed in windows, only a lpt port
needs to be captured and mapped to the network share.
It took a long time to hit upon this, the customer suffered without his
printer, we were there several times, several hours total, because the
process of groping is slow and wasteful. You "try something" it seems to
work, until it doesn't... you start all over,...

problem: suddenly after a year of working fine, no one can see the windows
server machine which houses the data files of the database application. no
one can work. (the app is central to their business, it's where they "do"
the business)
eventual resolution: uninstall all network card drivers from server,
uninstall all TCP/IP from the server, re-install, reconfigure. worked ok for
a few weeks and needed to do the same dance again. has been fine since then
but really it could go again at any time. this is close to 80 or 90%
downtime when this happens. one person can work right on the server, the
rest of the office can do little more than twiddle their thumbs and take
phone calls, but not actually do anything about the phone calls.

such is par for the course in windows. when something works, it usually
works seemingly all by itself by magic, but if your needs are even slightly
outside the lines drawn by MS as "what most people want" and "what the
dumbest person can comprehend" then the problems are numerous, unpredictable
(we can't say what they will be now, they just *will* be), and largely
unsolvable by direct logical deduction. the tools are simply not there to
actually determin what is *really* wrong when something doesn't work, so you
are helpless to fix it. Any consultant who claims otherwise is either lying
outright, banking on the customer not knowing any better, or honestly
deluding himself.

by contrast, when something doesn't work in unix, 99% of the time the means
are there to track the problem down and it is just a matter of stepping
through a sequence of events and interpreting error messages and reading man
pages along the way until you find the real problem, and fix it. even if you
dont' know much about unix, this provess can be followed by anyone who is
fairly sensible and logical. it just takes longer because you will have to
stop and read a lot of man pages because 5 things in every message will be
unfamiliar to you. but the experienced guy does it the same way, he just
doesn't need to stop and learn how to cd to a directory or edit a file or
restart a process along the way.

plus, unlike windows, it is possible for people to know a *lot* of what goes
on deep in the guts, and so it is possible for you to post questions here,
and get real hight-test answers. this is just not available for windows.
there are people who have studied a lot, but it's not the same at all. you
still have a high percentage of unexplainable and unresolvable problems.
most of the few problems that ever even come up in unix are neither
unexplainable nor unsolvable.

--
Brian K. White  --  brian@aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx  Linux SCO  Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD  #callahans Satriani

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