“We use Windows/Linux/Unix/MacOS/Oracle/DB2/SAP/etc.”
“It has to be OpenSource”
“We don’t use Microsoft”
Do any of these sound familiar?
In the last few years IT seemed to have developed an almost religious approach to solutions and tools. Especially with the growth of the open source movement.
Don’t get me wrong. I like open source software and use a lot of it… at home.
When I ask the CIOs and administrators I’m consulting about the why I usually get the “because it’s free” answer. OK, companies these days cut the IT budgets and don’t want to spend any money if possible while at the same time demanding an upkeep or improvement of the current service level.
Using open source software can help cutting cost, if you’re willing to do without support or warranty. Another thing are the varieties of different open source license agreements. Some of them simply won’t apply to a business environment.
Using ideology or the most current hype is the wrong approach to any problem.
Start at the solution. Define what you currently need to solve and take your current IT environment into planning. Building a new solution from scratch isn’t the best idea, because you probably already have some of the components you’ll need to implement your solution.
Example: We were consulting a new customer who had some issues with the administrators workload. OK, that’s not very unusual. Most managers will lay off some IT personnel before decommissioning unused hard-/software to save money.
Well, it turned out they had no automated installation process for the workstations, no software deployment, no patch management, no document management, … and no budget.
At this point as a consultant you have two options: Pack you bag and go home, because no budget means no money for new contracts… or find out what they already have to reduce their workload, and cost structure, which will free money from the IT budget.
I usually tend to use option b.
Why? Because this is why they called us in the first place. They just didn’t know.
Most companies have a Microsoft Windows based environment. Yeah, I know they’re evil.. just like Google, Facebook, TimeWarner, Fox and George Bush jr. but in this case actually makes all of the problems listed above very easy to address… and the best part is, it’s totally free software.
Free? Yep, almost everything you need to solve this is already built into Windows Server, so the only invest in the solution is the time to install and configure.
- Automated installation is provided by RIS, ADS, WDS. RIS is a component of Windows 2000 and 2003 (up to SP1), ADS is part of the AIK collection which can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. WDS is the new service which was installed on ‘Windows Server 2003 with SP2 and is dedicated for installing Vista. All you need is a server (which is no DHCP) with a second partition with about 4GB of free storage.
- Patch Management can be done with WSUS, although it’s only for Microsoft products it will reduce the manual administration tasks on the workstations significantly. All you need is a Windows Server 2003 you can install an IIS on and a SQL Server 2005 (if you have on good, if not you can use the Express Edition in small and medium environments). Just keep in mind that you will have to authorize the downloaded patches before they can be installed.
- Document Management is more difficult. But as long as you only want to keep project documents organized and want to get everyone using the same document templates… why not use SharePoint Services? Like the other two it’s free and well documented and most importantly easier to manage than a loose fileserver with shared folders.
We could have tried selling some overpriced enterprise solution or opt with an all open source system, but using what they already have is the best approach.
The administrators don’t have to learn an all new software of operating system, but instead learn how to use their operating system more effectively. It will save them a lot of time which had been wasted with manual administrative work and allows them to spend more time on the really important tasks.
It’s basically like IBM said: “Find out how to make money with things you already have”, although I don’t think they intended to give you an almost cost free solution.