LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Drury <idavid@smug.adelaide.edu.au>
  To  : Richard Russell <richardrussell@mail.com>
  Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 01:38:05 +0930 (CST)

Re: An Idea...

Hi,

> The Market:
> Any business, organisation or group who wants a basic, simple server. They
> need things like SMB, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, HTTP, Proxy/Cache, Firewall, DHCP,
> DNS, etc, etc, etc -- all things that most servers can do (NT, NetWare,
> Unices, Linux). However, they have neither the time nor the expertise to
> maintain even a server of this simplicity (and paying for the service of
> configuring and maintaining their server is expensive with current
> mechanisms -- even remote administration). They want their server to be very
> reliable, UPS'd and backed up, and don't have any major special cases (eg,
> they don't need to use Linux for development work, and don't need Exchange
> server, and so on...) I imagine that there would be a large number of such
> organisations out there... although I may be wrong -- please feel free to
> contradict me... Actually, this idea would also extend to any large
> organisation which would like to replace their departmental NT servers with
> administered Linux boxes...

The answer here, contract support, since I work for a company that does
it, it works well. The then also get support for their desktop
PCs. Companies like to see a real person knock on the door and fiddle with
the box for a while. Remote admin is a nice idea, and works well, but it
is hard to convince a client you've done anything if they never see you
actually do anything, and never see any effects of your remote
administration. People are funny like that.

> dynamic IP, but static permanant is better). The Client simply needs a means
> to shut the server down (in case they need to move it, or something),

Which they won't follow, won't be able to read the simple instructions,
will power off anyway, or the cleaner plugs the Vacume cleaner into the
UPS and overloads it.

 they
> need access to the tape drive, so they can swap the weekly/nightly backup
> tapes,

Which again they will be incabable of following the simple instrucctions
of how to change. Sorry to be so negative, but it is bitter personal
experience, and reems of tech support anecdotes. Visit www.rinkworks.com
for extensive examples.

 and they need a network to attach it to. As well as this, the client
> doesn't really want to invest in Computer hardware that will go obsolete
> within a few years, so the system is provided to them as a service, with a
> monthly fee for providing the hardware, network connection and the
> administration (basically like outsourcing for small business)

Now that is a good idea, if you can make a stron financial argument here,
many compainies will go for this.

<SNIP on the rest>

I actually think this is a good idea from the technical standpoint, and if
such a system existed, it'd help sysadmins accross the world, particularly
in large organisations. The business side of things in your proposal will
be the uphill work, as I stated before, remote admin is a good idea, but
companies like to see a person with a floppy disk.

If you did develop such a distribution system, either GPLed or for a price
I'd be on the queue to get it. You'd probably make more money selling the
product than the service.

Just my 2c plus GST :)

cya

--
David Drury

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