BearItAll wrote:
> Not wanting to be anti-MS-IT-Staff, but I think everyone in this
> buisiness knows already that on average UNIX/Linux IT folk tend to be
> more switched on to IT tasks.
Whatever that means.
> But having said that I don't know of any UNIX/Linux IT person who
> doesn't
> get great pride out of the fact that they have very little or no down
> time.
If Linux email servers crash as often as Knode (email client), their uptime
is horrendous.
> But it means I get to treat and diagnose any problem very early. That
> in
> turn has given me a down time record of 8 hours in 4 years and two
> lightening strikes account for most of that.
2 hours per year = 99.977% = approaching but not quite Ivy League
The two Windows file servers I use at a client (generically referred to as
the J: drive and the S: drive) have been rock solid for the 7 years I've
worked with them. I know one was an NT server, the other Win2K. I don't
know the actual downtime, or if they're rebooted from time to time, but
they're always running (except when one filled up and crashed - nobody got
fired either, despite losing lots of data and spending days restoring and
negatively impacting several hundred people.)
> Now, I do have to deal with quite a few Windows IT staff. Some are
> very clever, some are absolute crap. But there is one thing that they
> all have
> in common. They all wait for the problem/fault/errors to arise before
> they
> go looking for them.
Which has nothing to do with Windows. This is where you go cola on us, and
your post turns into a typical cola idiot rant.
> That to me is the main difference between the Windows IT mentallity
> and the UNIX/Linux mentality. It is also a major part of the reason
> why MS Win
> servers have such a bad reputation in the general office environment.
pfffttt! MS sells more server units, at a greater cost per unit, than Linux
could dream of.
> I have no doubt at all that many of the Windows server problems could
> be foreseen in the same way as Linux server problems, but they simply
> do not
> do it. Even as I lecture them to try to get them motivated into
> wanting fantastic uptime records, I know by the look they give that
> 'This is not the Windows way to do things'.
Now you're an IT psychic! Hallelujah!
> Downtime costs money, Windows gets lots of down time, Linux gets very
> little, it doesn't get very little because our hardware is better, it
> gets very little because it attracts the sort of staff that are
> willing to put
> in the effort early in order to save them the sleepless nights at a
> later date.
More bullshit. Work habits have nothing to do with an operating system.
Either you're dedicated and conscientious or you're not. You are. I am.
The Windows sysadmin I deal with regularly at one client is not: he
maintains a few Win 2000/2003 Citrix servers for various apps I develop, and
he's very lackadaisacal about doing anything on time, let alone ahead of
time.
> Do you know any Windows IT people? Well ask them a question, ask them
> how confident they are that they can recover their full system from
> the backup. Offer them one hundred pounds to perform the full
> recovery 'now', so that
> they down't get a chance to doctor the backup, you want them to
> recover
> their normal daily backup tape. I bet you both socks they wont take
> that
> bet. I didn't offer £100 (I'm a poor IT person) but I have offered a
> slap
> up indian meal many times, but never had to buy it.
>
> How can they do that? What sort of mentality does it take for an IT
> person
> to sit there day after day, not knowing if their backup tapes can be
> used
> to bring the system and data back to how it was at the time of last
> nights backup? Could you live like that, I know I couldn't. I have
> had many a sleepless night over IT problems over the years, but I
> will never be caught without my safetynet, and I am certain that the
> vast majority of UNIX/Linux IT folk are the same.
I disagree with you - it's the rare person who has a full backup at the
ready at all times.
> How about Budgets then.
>
> My budget here, when I arrived they had a massive IT budget, it was
> sort of assumed that IT costs a lot and there's no choice but to pay
> it. Within a
> year I had cut the IT budget to less than a quarter and improved
> uptime,
uh oh - there's another IT superman on cola! (Rex Ballard is the first, of
course.)
> and put in place a very secure set of safetynets which are tested
> regularly. I can sleep at night very well.
Try eating pepperoni pizza at 10pm...
> So this nonsense about Windows IT being cheaper than Linux IT, is
> pure crap. Yes the staff will cost more in salery, but the savings
> from uptime and hardware costs make it an excellent investment.
What's clear is the cost to migrate a company's IT operations (and I assume
enduser apps) from Windows to Linux is more costly than upgrading them to a
new version of Windows. At least that's what the various TCO studies say.
The Munich fiasco (6 years and counting to migrate 14000 desktops) seems to
bear it out.
> But all of this uptime generates a problem unique to UNIX/Linux.
> There is a mentality in general management that if the servers and
> computers are not going wrong then the IT staff are not doing
> anything. They have an idea
> that we only work when they is a problem on the system.
You have an odd 'general management' at your company.
> I think I have convinced mine over many years, but I could understand
> if others around the world are having more trouble convincing their
> management that the fact that they have a lot of uptime is proof that
> the IT folk are doing their job, downtime is a failure of the IT
> task. This again comes
> from a Windows-like mentality, where the system goes down, the IT
> person
> turns up and fixes it, then they proclaim him/her a hero for fixing
> the system.
Blaming Windows for someone not being proactive? How bogus. You UNIX/Linux
people really *are* maniacs.
> I tell them though that he/she isn't a hero, he/she
> failed to keep their network in proper working order, some problems
> are inevitable, but if you see your IT staff firefighting a lot, they
> are doing a crap job of looking after your system.
Only Unix/Linux heroes are real heroes. You're a real hero, BareItAll.
> (I'm not very popular at IT staff parties).
Most Unix/Linux people aren't popular. The scraggly beard, the pot belly,
the wrinkled clothes, the awkward social skills, the frothing anti-MS
hatred, the totally unjustified condescending attitude (which you displayed
right on cue)...
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