Quelle: CIO USA
Do you find that you're incapable of stopping upgrades? Do you spendmuch of your day patching security holes? Do you have a vague sensethat you're spending too much money on software? If you answered yesto any of those questions, you may have become overly dependent onMicrosoft. Here's a handy 12-step program to cure your condition.
STEP 1 We admitted we were powerless tomanage our Microsoft software.
Many CIOs feel they are in a double bind with Microsoft products. Thesoftware itself seems always in need of security patches. The Windows2000 server, for example, currently has 154 files available fordownload at Microsoft.com, nearly half of which are security updates.
Windows XP makes things worse. The product's new subscriptionlicensing model has raised the ire of many executives because theyfeel it forces them into frequent upgrades in order to get theirmoney's worth. But in a recent CIO survey, a majority (65 percent)admitted they weren't considering any alternatives. "A lot of us willjust cry foul but then pony up," says one CIO.
STEP 2 We came to believe that a powergreater than ourselves could restore our IT department tosanity.
Linux is that power. It is less expensive to acquire. It takes up lesshard disk space and requires less memory to run. There is elegance inthe open-source code license: You can have the source code for free,allowing you to upgrade or patch systems as you like. The only rule isthat when you develop something new out of the source code, you mustshare that code with everyone else. Many developers believe thisopen-source model makes Linux inherently more secure than aproprietary operating system.
"We think we'll get blazing performance," says David Larsen, directorof IS in Murray City, Utah, who's starting a migration to Linuxdesktops. "The other thing is, Linux is being taught in schools. It'sgetting easier to find skills. It's something whose time iscoming."
STEP 3 We made a decision to turn ourlives over to Linux as we understood Linux.
This is the hardest part of running a Microsoft-free shop: deciding todo it. Linux has a geek's reputation. At the same time, manyexecutives have a crude interpretation of its value tocorporations - "It's free, and therefore it's cheap." Slowly, thatmentality is changing, but it's still true that there first must be awholehearted and willing embrace of Linux as a legitimate enterprisereplacement for Microsoft. This journey usually starts with a techexecutive playing around. Maybe it's a Linux firewall on a homemachine. Maybe it's a Linux desktop on an old Pentium that wascollecting dust. But it starts at the top. A Microsoft-free IT shopcannot exist without the CIO reading up on and understanding the powerof the alternatives.
STEP 4 We made a searching and fearlessinventory of our network, applications, processes andbusiness rules.
Do this, literally. Write down everything. A migration away fromMicrosoft requires very real proof that the move will make yourbusiness better. But you can't prove your case without a list ofwhat's being replaced and why.
STEP 5 We admitted to ourselves - and toour CEO - the exact nature of our information systems'failings.
Victims of a hack or virus have likely already done this as anecessary step in the recovery process. To others, the major failingis this: They are locked into a Microsoft-dominated architecture thatfeeds them insecure, bloated code. Another failing is the needlesscodependencies of Microsoft products.
Perhaps the most expensive failing of CIOs' Microsoft-dominated ITshops is the upgrade cycle. "There's no other compelling reason toupgrade Office except to maintain compatibility with everyone else,"says Larry Shutzberg, CIO of packaging maker Rock-Tenn in Atlanta.
STEP 6 We were entirely ready to haveLinux remove all these defects.
If step 3 was "Decide to do it," then Step 6 is "No, really decide todo it." Psychologically preparing your company to create aMicrosoft-free shop will require a complete rethinking of entrenchedtechnology and business biases.
First, you have to plan a phased approach to taking Microsoft productsoffline.
This occurs application-by-application. Firewalls first.
Then mail servers. Then Web servers. Generally, the desktopOS - Microsoft's monopoly - is hardest to eschew, and so itcomes last.
STEP 7 We humbly asked Linux to remove Windows, Apache to remove IIS,Evolution to remove Outlook, Netscape 6.1 to remove Internet Explorerand StarOffice to remove Office.
With the game plan in place, set up a "sandbox" in one corner of theenterprise - a couple of servers and desktops, and some other hardwarefor networking and firewalls. Here, the various Linux applicationswill be brought online, tested, tweaked and prepared for deploymentthroughout the network.
STEP 8 We made a list of all business units we harmed and became willing tomake amends to all.
Prepare memos that list ways a particular application improvesoperations - whether it's saving disk space (Red Hat Linux distributionis about 25MB; Windows XP requires 2GB), memory, acquisition costs, orupgrade and maintenance costs. One CIO, though he thinks it's doubtfulhe could migrate away from Microsoft, says a major benefit would bethe time he'd take back for strategic planning. Right now, he wastestime figuring out how to proceed with nonstrategic products likeOffice.
STEP 9 We made direct amends to those business units (except when to do sowould have gotten us fired).
Give them all of that freed-up disk space back. Return money saved onlicensing (most Linux applications require a capital purchase andsupport, but little in the way of ongoing fees). At the film companyDreamWorks, Ed Leonard has ported the entire graphics animationdepartment to Linux; Shrek was created on a "renderfarm" (a powerful,refrigerator-size rack of servers) that had 800 processors runningLinux. Leonard took the money he saved by not having maintenancecontracts and used it to buy far more inexpensive Linux PCs. He saysthe money he has saved will allow DreamWorks to replace desktops andthe renderfarm every two years instead of every five.
STEP 10 We continued to take inventoryof the switch to Linux, and when we muffed it, we promptlyadmitted our error.
Now be brutally honest. If a conversion to Linux doesn't save money orimprove the business, admit it in your analysis - and possibly stop theprocess. You're not doing this as a crusade. In many cases, honestlyadmitting it was an even swap will win more supporters than trying tofudge benefits that may not be there.
STEP 11 We prayed for knowledge ofbusiness goals and the power to carry them out.
Now you can put the documentation to work. Show what moving to aMicrosoft-free shop can do. Turn all that data into a slickpresentation created on StarOffice Impress. Michael Tiemaan, CTO ofLinux vendor Red Hat, recently did such a presentation for a customer.The customer had done a high-volume transaction on a $2.5 million,32-processor server using Windows applications. Even then, thetransaction took two weeks to finish. Red Hat and the customer puttogether an alternative: 10 two-processor servers running Linux. Alltold, it cost $500,000. The transaction now completes in one day.
STEP 12 Having had a spiritualawakening, we vowed to carry this message to other IT shopsand practice Microsoft-free computing in all ouraffairs.
Tiemaan arguably is in a position of power on this, but when hereceives a document in a "proprietary data format" - that is, .doc,.ppt and so forth - he sends a courteous reply to the person asking herto resend the document in a nonproprietary format. Most of the time,this is a painless exchange, he says. "To run a Microsoft-free shop,you simply must be disciplined about it," Tiemaan says. "When I camehere, I ditched my Windows system, and I haven't looked back."