[ubuntu-uk] Redundency was Going back to the Dell deal...

[Ian Pascoe]

Hi Mark

I understand why you keep re-iterating the point about business direction
comes before personal belief, in this scenario, and hold no ill will towards
you for it.  To be honest it makes sense.

My comments were just to point out that there are organisations out there
that have taken the software route already successfully, and that there
concerns are elsewhere.

Will you consider Alan P's suggestion of constructing a blue print for a
micro distro?

I just been googling a bit and found one or two projects that are router
facsimiles but nothing that seems to replicate exactly what you describe -
but of course if someone knows better ....

E

-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[mailto:ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com]On Behalf Of Mark Harrison
Sent: 11 September 2007 18:23
To: British Ubuntu Talk
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Redundency was Going back to the Dell deal...


Ian,

I agree - my concern is not that I know anything BAD about the software
clustering products... it's that I need to buy a "service that lets me
sleep at night without worrying the phone will ring at 3 in the morning"...

... that means that the choice of support provider (whether internal
staff or external company, BTW) needs to be 100% confident that this
kind of solution will "just work and stay working."


I guess where I differ from a lot of the Ubuntu users is that I have a
set of decision criteria that run:

- Reliable
- Supportable
- Cost-effective


The reason I run Ubuntu for my servers is that it is:

- Reliable (0% unplanned downtime this year - 30 minutes planned
downtime, and that to install and test a new set of stored procedures on
the database server)
- Supportable (either from Canonical or a growing number of third parties)
- Cost-effective


This is something that many on the Ubuntu list may find distasteful. I
care very little about "free as in speech." Many in the Linux community
have told me that I "should" care about this, and given me lots of
"moral reasons."

Don't get me wrong - I care about morality - I spent a while before
going to Uni working in an orphanage in Zimbabwe, where the concerns
were about having enough food to eat, and books at school - and "in my
own time" I am happy to campaign and evangelize for Open Source
software. However, when I work for the company, I have a clear
responsibility to use what, in my judgement, is going to be the BEST
solution for the company.

The reason I chose Ubuntu rather than any other Linux distro (and over
the past 13 years, I've used Red Hat, SuSe, Gentoo and Debian, as well
as SunOS, Solaris, DOS, OS/2, NT, 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista and whatever
the thing that Sequents used to run was called) is that, of all the
Linux distros, Canonical has (as far as I can tell) the clearest vision
of where it wants Linux to go... and seems to understand that the way to
get more traction in the market is to appeal to people like me rather
than preach to me and tell me I'm wrong.

Many of the good Linux consultants I know (Nik Butler, Alan Pope, for
two, both being active on this list) seem to either share this view, or
be professional enough to supress any "preaching instinct" when talking
to me :-)


When it comes to network infrastructure - I find it notable that there's
an "Ubuntu Desktop" (well, more than 1 - Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.) and an
"Ubuntu Server" edition... but not an "Ubuntu network infrastructure
edition".

It would be an interesting "micro-distribution" to take Ubuntu Server,
rip out most of it, and add in a few odd packages so that a box (or
pair) were optimised and hardened for:

- Firewalling
- Load-balancing
- SSL acceleration
- IDS

I have little doubt that there WILL be such a thing, and once there is,
and a growing number of firms offering support on it, I will be ready to
make that move.


Regards,

Mark


Ian Pascoe wrote:
> Hmm Ok, that fairly well answers my post of a couple of minutes ago.
>
> My only comment to the software load balancing, compensation clauses being
> pushed out of sight for the moment, is that there are a number of clusters
> out there run by various companies blah blah blah and they seem to use the
> software with quite high efficiencies.  Now these clusters are sized from
> the small 2 node jobs up to the 125+ ones.  In fact the most quoted common
> concern appears to be that of both hardware failure and reliable backups.
>
> Ok, Ian is leaving the house so you can get the compensation clause back
out
> now
>
> E
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
> [mailto:ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com]On Behalf Of Mark Harrison
> Sent: 10 September 2007 21:57
> To: British Ubuntu Talk
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Redundency was Going back to the Dell deal...
>
>
> Alan Pope wrote:
>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> On Mon, 2007-09-10 at 21:28 +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Others may have a different opinion, and if they're prepared to
>>> underwrite (with funds lodged in an escrow account) my company's loss of
>>> income were we to have any downtime because of an Ubuntu failure, I'm
>>> willing to read their support proposals :-)
>>>
>> Do Cisco do that?
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Al.
>>
> No, nor did I ask them to.... any more than I'd hold Canonical
> responsible for use of Ubuntu in any place where their own consultants
> hadn't specified it.
>
> However, the VAR who installed the Cisco 11000s (the LBs that Cisco had
> bought from Arrowpoint and re-branded) for us - THEY did :-)
>
> And, indeed, the following year, I got £210,000 in compensation out of
> them (not for the Load-Balancing, BTW, but for another "site not as
> promised" claim).
>
> I got a fairly good bonus that year :-) :-) Ah, the glory days of the
> dot com boom, I miss them :-(
>
> Of course, the supplier in question went into Chapter 11 shortly
> afterwards, and never really came out of it (their assets are owned by
> C&W now), but not because of that particularly warranty, I stress :-o
>
> Mark
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
>
>
>
>


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