Migrate from windows to linux in telco company
 

Hi all,

I need to know some information as this is the widely renowned place for linux related stuff. I am sure of getting something out of you all.

I work in a telco company with around 5 thousand users and we are seriously thinking of shifting from windows to linux platform. So to present this we have to find out if any other big organization or telco based company are fully running under open source platform.

Waiting for your kind response.
Thanks in advance.

One thing I like to clear that we are already using linux for our critical servers and now want our users to migrate to linux also. Its a huge task and need your professional opinions.

Do you have a distro in mind or are you looking for opinions? I'd suggest going with whatever your servers are on - your techs will already know the OS.

You will need to list all of the apps your staff currently use and find out if there is a Linux equivalent, whether you need Wine/Crossover Office (and if the software will work under either of them), or whether the software can be ported over. You will also need to organise "cheat sheets"/documentation and in house training sessions for the staff.

You will then need to thoroughly plan out your migration - who gets switched first and why? Do you want to hit 3 people in each section at any one time or do whole sections. Who is mission critical and what happens if they have problems. Do you have a back out/rollback plan. Will you need to keep some Windows PCs around or just switch everyone and hope there are no problems. I would assume that someone has carried out a cost-benefit analysis....?

BTW - I have moved your post to Linux-Enterprise as I think it fits better there.

Hi, thank you very much for your reply.

I haven't planned that migration yet. Just now I have to propose the management that we want to migrate users from win to linux and these are the benefits and these are the large multinational renowned companies that are fully running under open source so that if anyone challenges then I dont become a fool for proposing this.

I need some solid ground to convince my management for this migration to become reality and then I will think of these issues you stated.
Now I am looking for large organizations running fully under open source solutions specially telecomm companies.

Thank you.

I've seen some companies switch to Linux desktops for end-users to reduce the risk of widespread virus outbreaks, un-authorised installation of illegitimate applications etc and reduce the need and frequency of deploying security patches etc, but have all of their users connect to Citrix for their applications from their Linux machines. Means that there are then only a handful of Windows servers to manage and the Linux desktops pretty much look after themselves once they've been initially set up.

Oh...and by the way, I believe Google inc. are fully open source, with all of their staff using linux desktops.

Hi, not only Google inc. is fully running open source, but I know 2 small telecommunication companies are fully running open source, for the employee, also.

But you have to study this proposal carefully first, also the migration depends on the jobs of your staff, and the size of the company.


As a jok, I heared a strong hearesay says: Microsoft is running Unix for its web servers, who would stick with windows then. looooool

This is a very good topic.I would like to take your attention about the following point.In windows you can make a domain and you can restrict users access through a group policy but in Linux you can't do something like that. am i right??

Not exactly, but you can try selinux.

If you are using LDAP, one can control user access via netgroup policies in the /etc/security/access.conf and /etc/security/group.conf files. Mixing and matching local users and LDAP-only users has administrative merits.

You might try searching for "redbook migration linux" on the net. IBM has a redbook published on the migration process.
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstract...6380.html?Open

I think they also have one as well that concentrates on migrating from AD to Linux ldap.

Hi tanveer,

Migrate to Linux is a good options, but the most important thing is the productivity of the company.

Before migrate to Linux, migrate their IE, Ms Office, and etc kind of non-support-Linux applications first, it can reduce your company performance impact. If your users have big problem then migration is not suitable for your company. Remember softwares is helping people, not give them trouble.

We wait for your good news, I begin to open a OSS company to supply OSS solution as well.
Good luck Regards,
Ks

:) thanks for all your inputs.
I have finalized my OS to switch users from XP, it is opensuse. because joining in windows AD from Opensuse is much easier than ubuntu as it has GUI for that and also good WLAN support.

The most critical part in this is applying Windows Group policy for these linux users as like they cant change their wallpaper,screensaver, WLAN certificates, SSO pages and its making me crazy day by day.

Currently working on scripting to do all these above upon user login as different users will have different options and shares upon login which will be the toughest work to be done.

Post your valuable suggesstions for helping me onwards in it.