From: "Geo." 

"Chris Robinson"  wrote in
message news:3E31129A.90C1A143{at}NOSPAMtotalise.co.uk...
> Here's a thought:  If Linux/ UNIX relies a lot more on scripting and, as
you
> say, less admin tools are developed as a result of this then would it not
be the
> case the for every Windows aAdmin you may well nedd two Linux Admins (the
idea
> being that the Windows admin tools save a significant amount of time).

I don't think so, the scripting issue is dealt with one time when you
configure the system, after that it would work about the same as any of the
tools designed to replace scripting requirements. There may be a difference
in initial setup time, for example take NT and RedHat off the shelf CD's
and try to setup your system and it may take longer to get RedHat scripted
but you will spend more money with NT because you go out and buy many of
the tools that you replace with scripting on Redhat.

The real question is can you script it for less cost (in your time) than
purchasing an admin tool. And after looking at Veritas backup 9 for NT I
think the price structure for NT tools has really gotten out of hand lately
so it may be cheaper to script it now. That's a tough question to answer
without doing it first hand and actually seeing how much time and cost is
involved in each.

> Also, a
> lot of IT departments have scaled down due to the fact that so many more
things
> in a Windows environment are automated (software patch deployment, domain
admin
> tools etc) - would IT departments need to scale-up in order to switch to
Linux?

Once the initial setup is done I think you would find that maintenance
requirements of personel pretty much depends on the admin and how much he
has automated.

Patch deployment is an issue on both platforms, Microsoft certainly isn't
makeing it easy by releasing a service pack every 3 months like they used
to so you end up with lots of separate little patches that need to be
applied. This takes a tremoundous amount of time even though you only have
to click to apply one because you have to hunt them all down and keep track
of what is and isn't installed. I still can't trust windows update because
it relies on registry entries instead of checking actual file versions so
it's easy to mess it up.

I don't know firsthand what the patch situation is like on linux but I do
know OS patches come from one place and web server patches from another and
I would think that makes things even more difficult but someone who runs
linux web servers would be able to answer how much pain there is better
than I can.

> Chris (n.b. these are just thoughts "thrown up in the air" -
they may well
be
> crap :oP)

they were good questions where the answers may not be as obvious as it
seems at first. I will tell you something else though. The thing that takes
more time than anything else is dealing with issues like spammers and
spyware. I spend way more time banging heads with spammers, spam and
spyware related customer complaints, and reworking spam filters than
anything to do with managing OS functions. My systems pretty much maintain
themselves and email or page me if they need me.

Geo.

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