Small Business distribution

[Pedro I. Sanchez]

Darryl Moore wrote:
> Thanks Pedro, that looks very promising. I was also pointed to 
> http://www.contribs.org by someone else who made a private reply. Both 
> look great, unfortunately both also are targeted at windows 
> environments. I need something that is for a native Linux network.
> 
> I'm going to look into seeing if ebox can be patched to make it work 
> better on a native Linux network, it looks to be a little closer to my 
> ultimate goal.
> 
> cheers,
> darryl
> 
> 
> Pedro I. Sanchez wrote:
>> Darryl Moore wrote:
>>   
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Last week I posted draft network spec which I suppose was too detailed
>>> in many ways and not detailed enough in others as I didn't get any replies.
>>>
>>> Attached is a point form list for a basic small business network I'd
>>> like to provide. The basic setup includes a minimum of 2 servers (for
>>> service redundancy) and any number of workstations
>>>
>>> I'd like to work with anyone on completing this. If we can come up with
>>> a basic standardized set up then it would be helpful for all of us as we
>>> could say that it is supported by other vendors too.
>>>
>>> Here is what I'd like to do, and perhaps I should set up a wiki to do
>>> it, if anyone else wants to help.
>>>
>>> 1) decide if this assortment of applications and servers are the most
>>> ideal for most small businesses, make any changes to the list now.
>>> 2) develop scripts to install all these application on a clean Ubuntu
>>> installation.
>>> 3) develop scripts to customize them after deployment.
>>> 4) decide what additional scripts are needed for puppet and nagios and
>>> write them
>>> 5) decide what additional utilities businesses might need to do basic
>>> administration. An easy way to add/remove LDAP user & groups and manage
>>> group directories comes to mind.
>>>
>>> I'm not a Linux Professional (YET) but I seriously think there is some
>>> potential here, and am working hard to both get my Linux certifications
>>> and build this system. A week ago it sounded like there was a lot of
>>> interest in this. I am hoping there still is.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Darryl Moore
>>>
>>>     
>>
>> Have you looked into e-box (http://ebox-platform.com/)? It is 
>> Ubuntu-based and comes with a web interface for admin functions that 
>> facilitate installing/uninstalling software.
>>
>> You can extend e-box to cover any software that you want via a plugin 
>> architecture. In this way, rather than spending time in developing your 
>> own scripts to manage software you could contribute plugins to the e-box 
>> project.
>>
>> On the other hand, my approach to SME's would have different components, 
>> each likely being a self-contained solution, with integration services 
>> becoming an added value for my services company:
>>
>> o Network component (firewall, NAT, VPN, DNS, DHCP, etc.),
>> o VoIP component (asterisk, freeswitch, etc.),
>> o Application server component (mail, collaboration, LDAP, CRM, etc.),
>> o Client component (OO, mail client, etc.).
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>   
> 

Why do you say that e-box is targeted at Windows environments? It is a 
server, not a client, and it seems to me it fits well the "Application 
Server Component" I talked about before, even in a Linux-only environment.

-- 
Pedro