In every aspect of life there’s an ideally suited tool for the job. Around the house we have a whole range of cooking, gardening and D.I.Y bits and bobs, in sport we use specific types of fitness equipment and attire for our chosen exercise, an artist uses a certain type of brush for a certain type of paint and a photographer has a selection of lenses for different types of shoot. It’s exactly the same in the world of computing.

Apple produce beautifully designed machines running an eloquently superior operating system inherently suited to media, arts and the home, their business platform is correspondingly swish in it’s intuitive ease of use however Microsoft hold a throttling 90%+ market share of the enterprise desktop, why so?

People just associate Microsoft with business software, it has a legacy of suitability and has more than evolved into it’s niche. Their Active Directory is unmatched as an enterprise network operating system and the offices of the world communicate to each other via a back end MS Exchange email solution, Apple obviously realise this. Rather than trying to create a matching solution Apple merely facilitate symbiotic MS Exchange connectivity from their own mail systems, in fact thanks to Exchange integration the iPhone is well on it’s way to completely taking over the hand-held world of pocket business communication, why even try to develop a rival when you can become equally as prominent by riding the success of some else’s existing product.

And Linux? Linux is the engine of the computer world.

The majority of web servers run Linux, as do the majority of in-house application delivery and development servers, there is nothing as stable, as reliable or as cost effective as a server running Linux, it is most definitely the right tool for the job,

Moving forward from the the back end away from Linux application servers, MS Exchange and the Active Directory we end up at the enterprise desktop. There’s no doubt Microsoft Vista was a lemon, they most definitely shot themselves in the foot there and it’s bloated unsuitability will probably go down in history as Microsoft’s worst ever operating system (aside from Windows ME of course). MacOSX is a superb platform but due to it’s requirement for pure Apple hardware just isn’t an option for a sizeable mainstream business looking for a cost effective I.T strategy (although any design, photography, music or general media company worth it’s salt obviously operate from a Mac base), and Linux? Who runs a Linux desktop? Well, not too many people yet, but they will do, Ubuntu is coming.

At $200 a pop (average) for a single licensed Microsoft unit running their corresponding Office suite the figures can most certainly start to add up. Ubuntu Linux is free. Ubuntu brings the inherent stability of Linux to the desktop and unlike it’s virus prone alternative an Ubuntu client isn’t going to go down with the latest computer equivalent of swine flu. Thanks to products such as Likewise Open Ubuntu will also seamlessly authenticate to the MS Active Directory and pull mail down from MS Exchange, contrary to popular belief it actually get’s on quite well with Microsoft’s back end business systems, and vice versa.

Any successful decision in the world of computing begins with having the insight to select the most suitable system for the intended end use, which is actually not as convoluted as many would imagine. The following breakdown covers all aspects of computing with a simple three option ideal suitability list..

• Apple – Home use & laptops. Media (home & business) – video, music, design, arts, photography, handhelds (iPods & iPhones).

• Microsoft – Back-end business services – Active Directory network management and MS Exchange email systems.

• Linux – Web & application servers, Ubuntu business enterprise desktop clients.

With our tailored Ubuntu client build Too Much Green are the tool for the job when it comes to providing Linux based enterprise desktop solutions, this isn’t sales pitch (well, not much) we just know our place. We’re not here to try and take over the world of computing, just to point it in the right direction and help it on it’s way.

There’s no doubting the ubiquitous predominance of Microsoft® Active Directory™ (AD) across business enterprise networks of the world (well done Microsoft), however in the emerging new age of browser based cloud application delivery an Ubuntu Linux desktop client is a distinct no brainer, why pay good money for software licensing and expensive high end hardware to (basically) just run Firefox?

As an innovative and forward thinking Network Manager you’re impressed by the TCO savings and increased stability an Ubuntu enterprise platform will bring, you’d like to look into adopting an open source strategy but you’re confused about implemented integration with your existing AD infrastructure. You’ve heard cross-client AD authentication is possible but aren’t sure how much work it will involve and have no burning desire to drop your poor technicians into the depths of  command line confusion for Windbind, SAMBA and OpenLDAP, well the good news is that you don’t have to, Identity Management Solutions from Likewise will save you (and them) from a world of pain. Likewise are sector leaders for facilitated extension of Microsoft networks and provide truly secure Kerberos staged integration with your AD environment for Linux®, UNIX® and Mac through a three tiered application suite.

Base user credential authentication comes via Likewise Open which is FREE to download and presently supports over 125 different platforms, it’s sociably available through the Ubuntu apt-get repositories and offers a user friendly domain join GU for those preferring to work with the mouse rather than the CLI.
Moving up the scale to their chargeable mid ground is the UID-GID module offering increased flexibility of administration for UID, GID & OU values via an MMC snap in.
At the top of the tree is the all encompassing Likewise Enterprise providing fully comprehensive administration for centralised ease of deployment and infrastructure management.

Likewise offer a most reasonable range of varying service plans and support contracts starting from basic online self-service How-To’s and leading up to contracted 24/7 live response. Their pricing structure is extremely competitive with a perpetual server licence for their top end Enterprise solution pitching in at only $299, this also includes 1 year product support. Further information, contact details and on-line demos are available on the Likewise website.

Too Much Green are staunch advocates of Likewise. We include and configure base Likewise Open AD connectivity as part of our tailored O-Build service and would be more than happy to discuss Ubuntu & open source migration and integration strategies with you.

Feel free to contact us anytime (details via the Solutions page)

This was mentioned briefly in the Linux section however it’s such an incredibly cool and inspiring story I felt it most definitely warranted further expansion with a dedicated post.

I was highlighting cost savings in relation to software licensing against an open standards platform as adopted by the French ‘Gendarmarie Nationale‘ (National Police Force) over the past few years, the results are literally amazing.

The Gendarmarie accountant was becoming somewhat ‘ennuyé’ at continually having to shell out for MS Office licenses so decided to give Open Office a spin, he liked what he found and it all started there. Open Office was rolled out first followed by planned migration of the desktop OS from XP to Ubuntu. Combined inception of a web based core system meant local platform specifics at workstation level were opened up to anything with a browser and of course they chose Firefox, matched with Thunderbird e-mail (obviously) for their IMAP mail platform, ideal. To date only 5,000 of the Gendarmaries 90,000 computers have been ‘open sourced’ with an estimated 15,000 tagged for migration by the end of this year, even so since 2004 they’ve racked up savings of  around €50 MILLION from previously expansive licensing and support costs, project that onto the full 90,000 units and  it’s quite something n’est-ce pas?

Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard (cool name) of the Gendarmarie recently presented a keynote speach at the annual  NOiV conference for open source standards in Utrecht, amongst an extensive breakdown of decisions for (and roadmap to) their adoption of open standards are some classic no brainers for anyone contemplating a similar strategy. Reassuring and obvious comments (aside from the quite staggering cost savings) which should prompt anyone not to look too deeply into technicalities, sometimes the most simple observations are the most poignant, in the words of Xavier himself -

“Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority.”

“Previously, one of us would be travelling all year just to install a new version of some anti virus application on the desktops in the Gendarmerie’s outposts on the islands in French Polynesia. A similar operation now is finished within two weeks and does not require travelling.”

“This year the IT budget will be reduced by 70 percent. This will not affect our IT systems.”

“Users need no training to use a web browser.”

Classic lines. In the evolving world of browser based application delivery from the cloud Linux is the cost effective King and a decision to adopt it will without a doubt reduce your IT expenditure, the bigger you are the more you’ll save, it’s a no brainer. Amidst the financial chaos of 2009 everyone is looking for ways to save money which is why examples like this are welcome, reassuring, inspiring and why I write about them.

*LINK* – For anyone fluent in French the man Xavier’s full report is viewable in PDF format HERE.

*LINK* – Story as reported by OSOR.EU HERE.

I set up a workgroup print pool for the surf camp office today, and of course being Mac based as they are now it was a breeze, mostly, until I tried to get the shitty old XP box to play too.

The camp has moved over to a predominant Mac base in the admin office (wisely) which makes everything not only more funky but inherently more stable and easy to work with (apart from the lone shitty PC and Rafas grotesque laptop) as such the print share from Joes 20″ iMac was shooting sheets of A4 out from Larrys Gmail in no time, all thanks to Bonjour.

Apple have had proprietary zero-config file & print share protocols going on since the days of Appletalk in the 90′s and Bonjour (formerly ‘Rendezvous’ ) is their present incarnation. Bonjour has been included since OSX 10.2 and I’ve been a huge fan since first using it for the design office printers at the National Railway Museum (where I discovered it by accident…!), it really is as simple as clicking the + sign in the add printer utility and selecting your desired unit from the list, if it’s pre-shared (configured by clicking Printer sharing under ‘sharing’ in System Preferences on the Mac it’s connected to – duh..) it appears just the same tagged to the machine name, one click, installed, sorted, no local driver stupidness required and you’re off and printing.

Ok I thought, that’s the Macs sorted, I’ll just install Bonjour for Windows on the XP box and set that up too…..HAHAHAHAHAHA.

HA HA indeed…..after F1-ing past the ‘CPU Fail’ message, ignoring the random 2004 system date, waiting for the virus checker to load (or whatever it was doing) and clicking through various error messages in Spanish once the mouse decided to work I finally managed to get the Bonjour app installed and fired up (it always feels odd running Mac software on a PC, even Quicktime feels wrong), right then, there was the printer…..Ok, connect…ah….I need the .inf file from the XP driver, no problem (break….search, download, extract), click, click (again) there we are, all installed, says it’s ready (I think, in Spanish?)….let’s try a test print…..click…..hmm….nothing, nada, zilch…..fk all….no lights, sound, movement, nothing in the print queue on the iMac….nope….Ok…let’s try again (and so it continued)…..after an hour I gave up, my life is too short and PC’s are just something I still find myself spending too much time with….why do I even bother? Why does anyone? I keep trying to convert them and it does work to some degree but for fucks sake…..look, here’s how it is, Windows computers are problematic in the extreme and deliberately designed to make your computing life as complicated and frustrating as possible, just don’t go there, they will without a doubt go wrong and you’ll lose evenings, days, full weekends and cumulative months just trying to get the fucking things running correctly without even getting close to using the programs (that’s if you can actually manage to get them installed), if you own a PC just cut your losses, sell it now and buy a Mac, you really won’t regret it I promise you 100%, I mean come on….OSX is built on UNIX…..that should be enough in itself, and you do have an iPod don’t you?

Jesus, how many times……