Three Windows to Linux Migrations (and Vice Versa)

daria42 writes "In this extended article, ZDNet Australia goes under the hood of three enterprises that moved their back end servers from Windows to Linux and open source software. Two of the companies ended up eventually going back to Microsoft, with the third one still going strong with Linux."

Switching, one program at a time...

[babbling]

I agree. Most free software can also be run just fine on Windows, so it would be a good idea for any organisation switching to slowly replace each server with free software before migrating to Linux. Once everything is running free software on top of Windows, switching to Linux should be fairly painless.

It was about the applications not the OS

[LWATCDR]

For one company it was all about Exchange and Sharepoint. Which are two weaknesses with Linux right now.
Thunderbird is a great email client as is KMail. I use Thunderbird as my email client. What it lacks is the intergration of calendering that Outlook plus exchange offers.
You can talk all you want about how a Calendar should be a stand alone program but Outlook as made the intergration of of the two very useful and in some cases mandatory.
I have looked and looked for a good open source alternative and couldn't find one that was currently complete and worked for both Windows and Linux.
Sharepoint also doesn't have a good open source alternative.
Not every company needs these programs but it seems like a good number do.
Now the other company that complained about needing three passwords for it's vpn? Well they sound like they needed someone that knew how to setup LDAP.

Here would be a great project of an Ubuntu like disto. A small business server that included LDAP for a single sign on, Samba, a Sharepoint like portal, a CRM like Sugar or Tiger, optional VPN, and mail server with calendaring integrated right from the start.
I want one.

Re:Skill problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely. Any of what was described is workable by Linux. I know, because I've done it. The fact the the heads weren't willing to put the effort into it is their own fault. I would be more than happy to run my business on MS, but the fact is, it is NOT a stable or safe environment. I got so sick of the reboots and viruses and support of so many desktops that I went to RedHat and a central Xserver. I almost put myself out of a job as their are some days that I get NO support calls because everything just works. It's too bad that more companies can't be willing to put forth the effort because, in the long run, it would only make open source, or Linux in general, more robust and ready for an "Install and Work" OS for business.

Why does it have to be either/or?

[denverradiosucks]

I hate Microsoft as much as the next slashdotter, but being an IT manager, I wouldn't want the headache of using one OS.

Linux has its advantages. I was able to scale an old Windows 2000 server, Windows NT Server, and a useless company proxy server into a single, consolidated Gentoo System. Does that mean I want to switch everything else, including our accounting databases over to Linux? I couldn't handle the headache. Microsoft's AD is easy to use, we have 2 2003 DC's, including one Terminal server. There is no way I would use something line Wine to get Great Plains working with any sort of consistency. They work reliably as they are now, upgrading to service pack 1 was easy, and managing user accounts is simple (not saying account management in linux isn't).

To the company's that switched from one OS to another, mixed environments are easier, at least for me. Each OS plays an important role, and has advantages/disadvantages. Sure, you had to pay $1,000's to buy Windows software, but you would probably spend that much hiring Linux guys to come in and support your system because there isn't enough expertise to handle these systems. It's a two way street I have found.

Any sort of penetration into

Re:There and back again... A Hobbits tale

[ElleyKitten]

The problems with Linux for the two companies that switched to Windows wasn't switching headaches - the one company had used Red Hat for three years, and the other one since '99. Their problems were that they wanted features they weren't finding in Linux, but did find in Windows. Your advice for switching is solid, but it's not relevant to the problems brought up in the article.

Interesting notes

[tweek]

While I'm a Linux/UNIX guy through and through, I understand times when Microsoft makes sense. If your core comptency is Windows, why the hell would you switch without expecting growing pains.

Having said that, and not begrudging the first two companies for switching in the least, let me point out a few problems I see (based ONLY on the article body) that stood out:

Austereo:
"For example, remote users struggled to grapple with a virtual private network (VPN) login system that required three different passwords to establish a connection"

- I'm curious what VPN solution they were using. I would think that from a pure cost perspective, going with a hardware VPN solution that provided hooks for existing authentication integration would have been a wiser choice.

""We were assured that there were procedures and processes you could follow to recover down to the individual message, but when it came to reality, it was a lengthy process and an absolute nightmare.""

- This is most definately a problem with most entirely opensource solutions. Zimbra has integrated message level restore into its product but having dealt with most open-source imap solutions, I have a feeling the solution had to be developed in house. I know how to read maildir filenames but YOU tell me what the hell email this is:

1145900957.V804I55c4037.mail.servername.com:2,

""Importing our network environment and applications onto a new platform required some fairly specific skills," he adds, "and those skills were not abundant within the group."

- This is the crux of the problem as mentioned earlier. I don't think they had the skillset on hand to manage the infrastructure.

The other problem I see near the end of that page is that they did a full desktop migration to Linux. This was probably the biggest mistake they made.

Coffey:

"The way they set up their Linux-based infrastructure had promoted the silo mentality; information wasn't stored in any sort of intuitive manner, and it wasn't easy to access information across the various geographical areas. If you weren't in the Brisbane office, for example, you couldn't access that information. There was just nothing from the information point of view that was encouraging collaboration."

- Poor design can happen in Windows just as Linux. This isn't a Linux-only problem. Sounds like a lack of planning or initiative to do things right from the start. I understand that business moves fast but you end up shooting yourself in the foot and having to redo things if you don't think about these things up front.

"After four months, Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange Server 2003 had replaced now-discontinued Linux servers to provide a consistently managed, centralised messaging infrastructure across 20 Coffey offices. "Previously, all the e-mails were effectively stored on the desktops and there was no central location of the data," Parsons explains. "That's a nightmare both because of litigation, and because of duplication across the company and all the problems that duplication brings."

- Sounds like someone needs IMAP and not pop3. There are also plenty of turnkey email solutions for litigation archiving as well. Most of these implement a SMTP gateway to your existing system.

""They initially thought Linux was going to be a cheaper platform," he says, "but as soon as they started to expand they became aware that the hidden costs of Linux were all over the place -- not only in real dollar terms, but because they weren't using the environment intelligently because of the [limited] skill sets.""

- Again it looks like another case of lack of skillset available.

Wotif.com:

Nothing specific jumped out at me. One thing I thought was interesting was the amount of planning(!) that went into the switch. I also notice mention of actual vendor support contracts.

"Wotif's strong adherence to plain-vanilla J2EE development"

"Oracle10g Standard Edition"

"We did a very critical pilot for th

Re:Linux still stuck as a server

[cranos]

The main problem I see from the two companies that went back to windows is a complete lack of planning on the initial Linux install. As someone else has pointed out, the Windows migration seems to have been planned out to the letter whereas the Linux migration was carried out in the heat of evagelical ardour, never a good thing. If the Linux migration had been planned out as well as the Windows migration appears to be, would they have had the same issues?