Hi Guys, At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector. I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows"). The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line. How the hell do you combat this bull shit? I have to say I'm amazed that a school with so little money is happy to throw it away to M$ (despite the heavy discounts they get for the licenses). Peter.
On 30/09/13 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote:
The Burser, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
He has a point. You call up a random IT company — they are a Windows shop. The reality is that there are more Windows shops than Linux shops.
From his perspective, it’s about redundancy. He can throw out one lot of IT people, replace them with another lot, and they will still be able to support the system.
He can’t find a Linux shop just by walking up the street or finding the first IT company in the Yellow Pages.
Jeremy Visser <jeremy@visser.name> writes:
You call up a random IT company — they are a Windows shop. The reality is that there are more Windows shops than Linux shops.
From his perspective, it’s about redundancy. He can throw out one lot of IT people, replace them with another lot, and they will still be able to support the system.
The term for this is "fungible", which everyone should use more often because it sounds like Dr. Seuss made it up.
He can’t find a Linux shop just by walking up the street or finding the first IT company in the Yellow Pages.
Cyber gets half a dozen cold calls a week by people doing that. I guess whichever dodgy SEO we're paying is doing their job.
On 30 September 2013 18:20, Jeremy Visser <jeremy@visser.name> wrote:
On 30/09/13 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote:
The Burser, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
He has a point.
You call up a random IT company — they are a Windows shop. The reality is that there are more Windows shops than Linux shops.
From his perspective, it’s about redundancy. He can throw out one lot of IT people, replace them with another lot, and they will still be able to support the system.
He can’t find a Linux shop just by walking up the street or finding the first IT company in the Yellow Pages.
Also worth noting that with Linux, you tend to get a huge variance in the way things are set up, depending on the sysadmins who created it. If you bring in a new Linux shop, they may well take quite a while to figure out how everything works, and then want to change it. Whereas with Windows, there's usually only one way to do it, and all competent admins will do it the same way and should be able to pick up where the last one finished. So, that's not a problem for Linux, as long as you do have a company who can manage your systems long-term - but I can see that lock-in effect being concerning for people. T
On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 18:20:54 Jeremy Visser wrote:
On 30/09/13 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote:
The Burser, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
He has a point.
You call up a random IT company — they are a Windows shop. The reality is that there are more Windows shops than Linux shops.
If you are trying to find people who will do the job properly then there's a much more even spread. I don't think that being unable to hire the person who runs the computer store down the street to fix your network is any real loss in terms of being able to have a network run properly.
From his perspective, it’s about redundancy. He can throw out one lot of IT people, replace them with another lot, and they will still be able to support the system.
Sure, there are lots of Linux companies competing in that space. We even have a luv-jobs mailing list where people can find Linux sysadmins.
He can’t find a Linux shop just by walking up the street or finding the first IT company in the Yellow Pages.
As has already been noted you can just do a google search to find a company like Cybersource. If you get Cybersource then things will get done reasonably well. If you get the someone from the store down the street to fix your network then the probability of success is a lot lower. But really the problem schools have is that they have no money to pay good people. A contract to replace a set of PCs in a school and set everything up is going to be profitable enough for a small company. But the ongoing sysadmin work that they really need isn't going to happen at a price that they want to pay. The advantage for Linux here is that you can install things and have them work for longer without being touched and that more sysadmin work can be done remotely. But they still need to pay for work. On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:33:19 James Harper wrote:
Basically you don't. Unless you can find a nearby school who is already running Linux and has senior staff willing to vouch for the cost savings they made etc, you aren't going to win this. Schools get MS software so cheap that the cost is unimportant, and doing what everyone else is doing is always the safest option. You need more expensive hardware to run most MS software when comparing to an equivalent Linux solution, but hardware is so cheap these days that that doesn't matter a great deal either.
It's not that the MS software is cheap (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't). It's that it's someone else's money. Given a choice between spending someone else's money and risking being blamed if something goes wrong with the money saving option most low level people will choose to spend the money. You need someone who has the power to do things to decide to save money. In terms of hardware whether it's more expensive depends on what you are doing. For a basic server something like a Dell PowerEdge T110 will do very well. With 2*3TB disks in a RAID-1 array and 8G of RAM such a system will cost about $1100 - there's not much money to save there, maybe a Linux server would only need 4G but you're saving about $100. If the Windows resource requirements go to something like 64G of RAM (EG for a terminal server) then hardware costs becomes an issue. Probably the biggest benefit for Linux in terms of hardware is that it runs really well on systems that can't run Windows properly. Most of the desktop systems in my house were given to me by clients who replaced them with more powerful systems to run a recent version of Windows. If there is a stockpile of old PCs in a back room they could be installed as Linux workstations. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On 2013-10-03 14:47, Russell Coker wrote: [...]
As has already been noted you can just do a google search to find a company like Cybersource. If you get Cybersource then things will get done reasonably well. If you get the someone from the store down the street to fix your network then the probability of success is a lot lower. [...]
Note that we've not been Cybersource since early 2011, since which we've been Cyber IT Solutions. -- Regards, Matthew Cengia
At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector.
Where is the school? Metro or rural?
I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows").
The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
How the hell do you combat this bull shit?
I have to say I'm amazed that a school with so little money is happy to throw it away to M$ (despite the heavy discounts they get for the licenses).
Basically you don't. Unless you can find a nearby school who is already running Linux and has senior staff willing to vouch for the cost savings they made etc, you aren't going to win this. Schools get MS software so cheap that the cost is unimportant, and doing what everyone else is doing is always the safest option. You need more expensive hardware to run most MS software when comparing to an equivalent Linux solution, but hardware is so cheap these days that that doesn't matter a great deal either. If you are dead set on trying, the I can offer the following suggestions: 0. Don't spread any FUD yourself. It's bad form. Most of my other suggestions are just variations on this. 1. Don't go around saying things like "winblows", "M$", etc. It makes you sound like an idiot. I'm assuming you know this, and you're just saying stuff like that on the LUV list because you are frustrated and it's the done thing here, and you wouldn't talk like this is a sales pitch to the school, but just in case... 2. Don't go around saying Microsoft software is crap. It's mostly not. I don't know of any FOSS that can touch Exchange, although I believe the situation is getting better. It's definitely bloated, to the point of ridiculous in some cases, but the generic "MS is crap" line isn't going to get you far. 3. A good windows admin is easy to find, cheap to employ, and can run a MS network with fairly little effort (a crap windows admin will fsck things up with ease, but that's true of any network). Don't try and argue that point. 4. You need real life case studies of schools that have made the switch. Or, set up a network and demo it. However good a salesperson you are, Microsoft are (probably) better, so talk won't get you far without something concrete to back it up. Linux is a much easier sell almost everywhere else because MS charge incredibly high prices for a lot of their software. A small business can get into a MS network quite cheap, but you outgrow the cheap pricing fairly quickly and then you are stuck with it. Most of this is opinion and experience. Take with as many grains of salt as you wish. And good luck! James
James Harper <james.harper@bendigoit.com.au> writes:
Basically you don't. Unless you can find a nearby school who is already running Linux and has senior staff willing to vouch for the cost savings they made etc, you aren't going to win this. Schools get MS software so cheap that the cost is unimportant, and doing what everyone else is doing is always the safest option. You need more expensive hardware to run most MS software when comparing to an equivalent Linux solution, but hardware is so cheap these days that that doesn't matter a great deal either.
IME nobody cares about license costs. What they care about is the cost of hiring someone to manage licenses / license servers and perform license compliance audits.
Copied to LUV-Talk. Honestly, I dont think its worth your effort trying to talk someone like the Burser to have Linux. Can you by-pass him/her? You really have to know who you are talking to... for some people its just not worth the effort. There are many strategies and what works for one will not work for someone else. Sometimes its just better to not tell them its Linux, set up the machine with Linux and it does the job - if its a server they wont know Talk Open Source Software, Ubuntu etc... Find someone who is likely to be willing to give Linux a try, can understand that Android = Linux (for the purpose of the argument here!!) instead of said Burser to talk to. Talk up application and systems like Scratch, Edubuntu etc .. Talk security - NO virus Show them the OpenCD Assure them they dont have to give up Windows Show them data that shows where Open Source software Linux is used very successfully: Top500 Supercomputers, Top website (Alexa), NASA, etc .... : assuming here that they are willing to listen. Tell them that Microsoft share of the Market is in decline and that MS soft share price is going down. Tell them like it or not, people are using PC's less and less, and Microsoft has only a small share of mobile devices (Tablet and smartphone) - ie: people will be using Windows much less, so getting to know another system is advantageous. Just some ideas. Cheers Daniel. On Mon, September 30, 2013 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote:
Hi Guys,
At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector.
I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows").
The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
How the hell do you combat this bull shit?
I have to say I'm amazed that a school with so little money is happy to throw it away to M$ (despite the heavy discounts they get for the licenses).
Peter. _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
On Mon, September 30, 2013 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote:
Hi Guys,
At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector.
I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows").
The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
How the hell do you combat this bull shit?
I have to say I'm amazed that a school with so little money is happy to throw it away to M$ (despite the heavy discounts they get for the licenses).
Peter.
Hi Peter, It may be worth a call to Mentone Girls Grammar School, which was for many years running on Linux with Mark (early MLUG days) as sys admin and maintaining the system remotely. Mark is now in the NT so I don't know if they still run on Linux, but he could certainly maintain the School from there. Andrew Greig
On 30 September 2013 17:51, Peter Nunn <pnunn@infoteq.com.au> wrote:
"Linux is no good in an education environment"
For your info: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_... linked from here: http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928
Quoting Peter Nunn (pnunn@infoteq.com.au):
Hi Guys,
At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector.
I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows").
The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
How the hell do you combat this bull shit?
Generally, you combat it via a long-term effort rather than a short one, where you allow bad solutions from other people to fail and cost far too much money, have working full-scale prototypes and workable rollout and lifecycle plans available for the next implementation when the other guys fall short, and be able to cite (in at least sense) comparable deployments elsewhere. Educational officials generally do whatever seems to best cover their arses at the time. Maybe your window of opportunity isn't now, but rather next time.
On 30 September 2013 17:51, Peter Nunn <pnunn@infoteq.com.au> wrote:
**
The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line.
What are the risks that matter to him? Make sure to address *his* top concerns, as opposed to say concerns that other people might have. Then maybe try to put these risks in perspective. e.g. (example only, answers need to be adopted for individual case) Risk: Linux will disappear tomorrow: What is the chance this will happen? Incredibly small because so many big companies use and support it. What is the damage? The server would continue to operate as before. You would eventually buy a new server (probably for cheaper then the original server) and copy the data across from the old server, and life on the planet would continue. How to minimize the damage? Backups, train staff know to do restores, train staff to do basic maintenance, etc. I think part of the problem is that some people subconsciously might think: Risk: Linux will disappear tomorrow: What is the chance this will happen? Very high, everyone knows only hackers use it. What is the damage? We would lose all data on the system or be held to ransom by some hacker. Everyone would blame me for choosing Linux, I might lose my job, etc. How to minimize the damage? Prey. Also that point "Everyone would blame me for choosing Linux" could be the *real* risk that concerns him. As opposed to the concerns he may willingly tell you.
On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:51:35 Peter Nunn wrote:
At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector.
http://progressivedirection.com/wrong-cloud-nec-ultranet-victoria The above page is worth reading. While there is a difference between cloud services and local application the same principle applies. One issue with applications is licenses, if the license is determined to be invalid then software stops working, for example I believe that all recent versions of Windows make it really difficult to take hard drives from a broken system and put them in a working system to resume operation. http://vaaconsulting.com/ Another issue is proprietary data formats. If you have a corrupted NTFS filesystem then you will probably find it difficult to find someone with relevant skills to try and extract data. For Linux you can directly hire people who have contributed code to the Linux filesystems in question (see the above for an example). You can also hire people who have read the code and know how it works. For example some years ago I fixed a couple of Linux systems for clients which had ext2 corruption that couldn't be fixed with e2fsck (it seemed to be a combination of a kernel bug and a e2fsck bug), I didn't have any great knowledge of ext2 (I've never contributed a patch) but I have read the source. If one of my clients has a corrupted NTFS system then I know that I can't read the NTFS source or hire anyone who's contributed code to the NTFS project. I do know people who've reverse engineered NTFS code and I could try tracking down contributors to the NTFS drivers for Linux, but that wouldn't be as good as talking to MS employees. The same applies all the way up the stack, I've got the source to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and LibreOffice and I can probably hire people who have experience working on those projects. Some years ago I was in the first week of a new contract when I had to track down a problem with Veritas VXFS corruption on a filesystem that had an Oracle database. Everyone else in the sysadmin team didn't want to touch it so I volunteered (it was one of those jobs where you get 1 month's pay and a security escort out of the office if you mess up). Fortunately VXFS mostly fixed itself (the Veritas support people weren't very helpful) and then Oracle came good once the filesystem was fixed. But I had no good options for fixing such things myself. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
participants (12)
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Andrew Greig -
Brian May -
Daniel Jitnah -
David -
James Harper -
Jeremy Visser -
Matthew Cengia -
Peter Nunn -
Rick Moen -
Russell Coker -
Toby Corkindale -
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