Archive for the ‘network management’ Category

AT&T suffered a major service outage on May, 25 affecting 1.5 million customers using their U-Verse VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Service. The 4 1/2 hour outage was blamed on a “server crash” .

Excuse Me ? A Server Crash. One lone, humble server causes a outage that takes down customers in 22 states. Really?

While we cant address the massive AT&T infrastructure we can use this incident as a teachable moment.

Even with the best equipment available server outages happen. This is why (especially with mission critical services) server clustering and the elimination of single points of failure  is almost a requirement.

Clustering allows for statefull failover between hardware if a member node in that cluster fails for some reason. Meaning if one of the servers in the cluster fails the other node(s) take over without missing a beat. While clustering is a requirement for a mission critical delivery of services, it is not the only consideration.

Part of effective network architecture is to reduce or eliminate single points of failure in the infrastructure. The problem is that when some network designers look for single points they don’t extend their view all the way to the edge of their delivery network. For instance, having a server farm is great but when it is held together by one switch you still have a single failure point that can take down the entire delivery system.

There are many ways to design in redundancy to the environment but it all starts with a comprehensive analysis of your infrastructure to discover those single failure points.

Once those failure points are found and eliminated the network is well on its way to becoming a dependable platform to run your business.

I actually had a small business customer  ask me recently

What is so good about open source software?  I mean,  isn’t it DANGEROUS

I kinda chuckled and asked her where she heard that.  She directed me to Microsoft’s Compare site.
I was frankly floored by the half truths and blatant  distortions that I found there.

First for the record.  Alegria Tech supports and manages Microsoft Widows based technologies as well as Mac OSX and Linux.  We believe that there is no such thing as a one sized fits all solution for businesses.  Each organization has different needs that must be addressed.   A bulldozer is not the right tool when a garden shovel is called for.

As I visited  the site … I was drawn to the “Compare to Linux” section.  Microsoft  made the choice to compare to Red Hat Linux (RHEL).  Truthfully if this is a fair comparison in my opinion as RHEL is as much of a closed source system as Windows Server.  They touted a report written in 2005 by Ideas International and commissioned by Microsoft  indicating that Windows was more cost effective that RHEL.  They are likely right.  RHEL is the most expensive Linux distribution available at over 2400 per year.  What Microsoft does not say that this is for 24X7 365 support.  If you didn’t want the support option you may download CentOS which is the base RHEL distribution without the Red Hat support hooks for FREE  and use it on as many computers as you would like.  This simple distortion is the basis of their entire cost comparison.

Microsoft goes on to state that widows provides lower downtime that RHEL.  I am not sure that this is a supportable fact.  I have servers that have up time of over 2 years.  I have never had a Windows server come anywhere close to that type of performance .

They go on to provide some other “facts” that are simply not correct like Windows being easier to administer than Linux or changing package configurations “void the support agreements” or   “when migrating between Linux distributions, costs were often significant, with a wide [cost] range at the high end.” (from the Microsoft website)

I think that a real comparison of costs is in order Lets take this scenario.

A newly formed small business is desiring a simple to manage operating system for their new infrastructure.  The company projects 35 users over  the next 3 years.  Their business needs are basic email with some collaboration features like shared folders.  Document management and controlled web access is important.  For the user desktops they want a basic office package.  Cost control is a major factor

There are many ways to meet the needs of this organization.  We will focus on 2 options. Option 1.  Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 R8 with Windows7 workstations and Option 2 ClearOS and Ubuntu 10.04 Workstations.

Lets start with the servers. Both of the Server operating systems are designed to meet the needs of a small office (under 50 users) they both offer:

• Centralized Administration
• Mail, calender management, and instant messaging within the organization
• Printer management
• Web services
• Firewall
• Content management and team work spaces
• Antivirus
• Remote desktop management
• Virtual Private Network support

Both Windows SBS and ClearOS do these basic functions very well for a workgroup server.  The business can grow and thrive using either of these solutions.  But while SBS only offers these functions, ClearOS brings its own additional tricks to the party like:

• Firewall with intrusion protection
• Antimalware as well as anti-spam
• Database (extra on Small Business Server)
• Web Proxy services

So far the systems are pretty even.  Lets look at another metric System Requirements:

The Microsoft SBS has some pretty reasonable  hardware requirements:

• 2 gHz (x64 processor) or faster for a single core 1.5GHz for a multicore
• Minimum 4GB Ram
• 60GB HD Space

ClearOS Is about the same

• 2GHz processor
• 1.5 GB ram

Note an important difference.  ClearOS does not specifically recommended a 64 bit system. This means if there is existing (older)  hardware  laying about it could be used to support the server .  This could represent a cost savings to the client

Lets look at some of the important basic services starting with the biggie – the all important email services

SBS uses a limited version of Exchange 2007 to manage email services and groupware functionality.  It is a powerful platform that is very able  to manage the needs of our sample organization.  It is fairly complex to manage in its native form but a lot of that complexity has been hidden by the SBS interface so it is fairly manageable for a small shop.

Clear OS uses a application called KOLAB groupware for email serves.  It offers about the same feature set as exchange with Outlook.  While not as powerful as the almighty Exchange (and I mean that in a good way) it will more than meet the needs of the organization.

Web Services are another big point that managers look to when deciding on small business servers.  ClearOS offers APACHE which is (arguably) the de facto standard web server with  54.5% of market share (as of March 2010).  IIS is offered on SBS (24% market share).

Again both of these are fine services … with the edge going to Apache just in sheer number of installed web servers.

We can go on … but ClearOS and IIS are so evenly matched the final analysis comes down to Cost.

Lets cut to the chase

Windows Small Business Server Standard (without database) 1089.00 and for the 35 users @77 per CAL 2695.00 making your investment 3784.00 (without hardware)

Clear OS for the 35 users…well 0.00 (it is open source)

Let’s see 3784 VS 0 with a slightly better feature set Winner is ClearOS.

Lets move on to the desktop … and this will be quick … The sample company needs a basic office package and email … we can do that.

We are looking at Windows 7 Vs Ubuntu 10.04.  We could spend days talking about the differences between these 2 systems things like Ubuntu requiring 4.1 GB less disk space for a basic install, being about 22% less memory dependent than Windows 7, Ubuntu as a Linux based OS is more secure than Windows) but lets leave it to these being 2 very powerful and capable operating systems with a wealth of application support.

Each has a  office software system that offers  the basics of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation with some light desktop publishing.

Microsoft Office 2007 is the leading product for SBS (although there are other applications that do the job very well) For Ubuntu Oracle Open Office is the leading product (By the way Open Office will run on Windows 7 also).  The have different looks and feels but at the end of the day they do the same job.

Like the servers … Price is an issue:

For Windows 7 Professional (brought through OfficeMax) will run 299.00 Per copy or  10465 for our 35 employees in addition we will need to purchase 35 copies of Office Small Business 2007  at 259.00 each for a total of 9065. bringing your total for software only to 19530.00.  Now these prices will actually go down as you will need to buy workstations that will have a operating system installed  and most will come installed with windows 7  reducing these software costs some.

The cost of the Ubuntu 10.04 Workstation 0.  Open Office goes for 0.

Lets sum up:

To satisfy the requirements of the sample company we can go on the Microsoft solution for 23, 314 for workstation OS,  office suite and Server OS or 0 for the ClearOS and Ubuntu solution and NOT loose any functionality.

No wonder the Microsoft makes up their own facts about open source software.

The question that has to be asked is what about technical support.  This is a fair concern.  Microsoft does offer support on the SBS for 245.00 per incident   and yearly support options are available.  There is commercial support for both ClearOS and Ubuntu.

Of course Alegria Tech can support all of these products.

So to my client … Open source is only “dangerous” to Microsoft.  To the rest of us it is a cost effective and powerful solution to providing secure, functional and dependable software.

Managing a corporate IT infrastructure is much more than just making sure that everything works correctly.  It involves effectively managing the  most unpredictable component in the environment.   The User

Users will do all manor of crazy things on corporate networks.  We have seen full blown video games installed on users workstations, ebay sniping applications on CEOs machines and a host of “free and useful” web applications that do nothing more than gum up the operation of the workstations.

Here is a fact-most  users will follow any network use regulation that is in place.  IF they know about it.  That requires IT management to have a comprehensive enforceable policy that is written AND presented to the user.  Telling your users not to go to a website is not going to stop them from going there but having them sign a policy page that outlines specific sanctions for going to “restricted” sites will stop them dead in their tracks.

From a HR perspective a user generally can not be sanctioned with out a policy in place.  So it is imperative to have one.

How do you stop the silly little web applications?

Build effective computer policy using group policy management that restricts the ability of adding applications.  That does bring a little more work on the IT staff by requiring them to install applications for the users  but in the long run it is well worth the additional time to install an application or two for a user ranther than having to un-gunk a workstation full of crapapps.

no discussion of policy would be complete with out touching on the topic of web filtering.  Our official position is to step very lightly when considering web filtering applications.  The technical solution may work very well (most do).  But there is a very good chance of insurrection in the ranks.  Users will not appreciate web filtering as it will amount to management snooping in their eyes.

It is far better to control behavior with effective policy than with heavy handed (and expensive) filtering applications .  If you must use filtering applications,  publish a strong acceptable use policy and use the reporting functionality of the filtering application to go after the violators  of the policy.  Using that technique all of the users do not seem under constant scrutiny (even though they are).

Putting your policy together is a task that requires IT management to really take a hard look at the way that your organization works not just the IT infrastructure.  A well thought out network acceptable use policy should not hamper the way that users work but protects the company if a user chooses to go rouge.

Alegria Tech can help craft an effective acceptable use policy an install effective web monitoring and filtering.  Contact us for more information on how we can help !