Ok, i'm not sure if this subject has already been covered elsewhere in the forum because im sure this comes up a fair bit.

Im predominately from a windows environment (workstation and servers) and have never really ventured into the world of linux besides mandrake 9. But i have recently been asked for a medium size business to do a full network rollout, implementation and configuration. Throughout the logistics stages (now -eep!) i began to wonder if there was really something better than windows after my win2k advan server crashed numerous times a week (*sigh* /reboot). The two products i am doing planning to use is either Windows 2003 Standard edition or Redhat ES 3 - with a windows xp pro workstation based implementation (btw i am familiar with samba and how it works so i have no worries if someone recommends it) Could anyone help a linux noobie out with why/not why i should use RHES3 over W2k3 Server from a technical perspective (ie dont worry about TCO and ROI considerations ).

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated, if not well thanks anyway

Luke

Hi Luke, and welcome to LQ!

I guess the first thing we'd need to know is what
services besides the obvious file and print services
you mean the box to provide.

Please elaborate on the logical layout.


Cheers,
Tink

yeah that probably wouldve been good hey :P

ok besides all the obvious services such as file, print, dns, dhcp etc. the company is a researching institute and (i assume) would require maximum uptime, efficiency and ability for the workstations to handle a large amount of throughput from the server. They are looking at having several servers clustered for the obvious things such as user authentifucation, dns, dhcp, file and print etc, and. The users will be largely involved with statistics, the fine details i am unsure of - i was more or less just asked to create the infrastructure and recommend them what os environment they should be under.

Not only for these reasons, but i am hoping to venture into a linux based server at home aswell and am just after a few reasons why to migrate from a windows server family. I thought this might be the best place to learn .

Also, what is Linux's answer to active directory?

thanks so much guys, i hope that gives a bit more detail

Luke

I'm not going to get too into this...but here are at least some obvious advantages.

My personal environment right now is a small Mandrake10/Redhat9 cluster...

I am running a virtual hosting environment on both, with load balancing for web traffic configured.
These boxes also run DNS/Mail servers/MySql Servers/IDS's, etc.

Other than my personal time, the only cost has been hardware, and that has been nominal as linux will run well without the GUI on a toaster. The uptime has been unparalelled thus far, I think I posted somewhere else in the forums that one of my servers has not been rebooted since the last clean install(about 6 months ago), that was when I migrated one box to Mandrake 10. I have not found a software yet that is linux based yet that will "make" you reboot to complete the installation. This is all too common in windows environments and leads to downtime. There is also the obvious cost effectiveness of stable free software. The only thing we pay for is verisign for credit card transactions and our bandwidth. The OS, daemons and tools are completely free, and relatively easy to maintain to the experienced user. As far as clustering, there are many free cluster software alternatives available depending on your industry. Many made specifically for medical research and other disciplines. There are also many free cluster distibutions available. For simple clustering you could even look into something like clusterKnoppix, which is a "live" CD OS for an instant cluster...you don't even "need" a harddrive. Other projects that I have run across are OSCAR(Open Source Cluster Application Resouce), which you can check out here --> http://oscar.openclustergroup.org/tiki-index.php and you may also want to check out the Beowulf community---> http://www.beowulf.org/ and ROCKS ---> http://rocks.npaci.edu/Rocks/ There are many more out there.

On the security end, most of the hits that I pick up with my intrusion detection system(ACID/Snort) are IIS hacks, which, if you are running linux you are'nt really vulnerable to. Also on the virus end of things linux is much less likely to be compromised.

Now don't get me wrong, there is quite a learning curve to linux, and I'd think that you would want to take that into consideration as well. If you are completely "green" and have never used the OS before I would think it would be nightmarish to jump straight into a beowulf cluster. But as far as deploying simple web servers with Mail/MySql/DNS it's really not all that hard. I don't want to make this too long but hopefully this gives you at least one honest testimonial to look at.

My background = I've been using linux for about 6 years now and I'm 31 years of age. I do all of my own IT work and am currently seeking employment in the industry. Learned everything I know from googling it and frequenting message boards. Just saying this so you know the resources ARE there even if there's not much commercial support.

If you have more questions about specifics or anything else keep posting and I will check back, not to mention that there are many very advanced users who frequent the site and can probably give you even more info than I can.

Alrighty, have a good day and best of luck to you.

linux_terror

That would be OpenLDAP, I guess.


Cheers,
Tink

thanks guys, thats greatly appreciated <:

im going to begin my linux venture

Good to hear Depriatz!

If you have questions down the road keep posting.

Oh, and thanks for the active directory answer Tink....guess I forgot that part in my longwindedness LOL

linux_terror