Hypothetical: You need to set up the IT infrastructure (email, file sharing, etc.) for a new company. No restrictions. No legacy application support necessary. How would you do it? What would that ideal IT infrastructure look like?I decided to sit down and think of my ideal setup — based on quite a few years of being a vice president of engineering at various companies — and document them here. Maybe you’ll find my choices useful; maybe you’ll think I’m crazy. Either way, these are good things to consider for any organization. Run services on your own servers
The first thing I’m going to decide on, right up front, is to self-host as many services as I possibly can. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hypothetical: You need to set up the IT infrastructure (email, file sharing, etc.) for a new company. No restrictions. No legacy application support necessary. How would you do it? What would that ideal IT infrastructure look like?I decided to sit down and think of my ideal setup — based on quite a few years of being a vice president of engineering at various companies — and document them here. Maybe you’ll find my choices useful; maybe you’ll think I’m crazy. Either way, these are good things to consider for any organization. Run services on your own servers
The first thing I’m going to decide on, right up front, is to self-host as many services as I possibly can. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hypothetical: You need to set up the IT infrastructure (email, file sharing, etc.) for a new company. No restrictions. No legacy application support necessary. How would you do it? What would that ideal IT infrastructure look like?I decided to sit down and think of my ideal setup — based on quite a few years of being a vice president of engineering at various companies — and document them here. Maybe you’ll find my choices useful; maybe you’ll think I’m crazy. Either way, these are good things to consider for any organization. Run services on your own servers
The first thing I’m going to decide on, right up front, is to self-host as many services as I possibly can. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Any organization that creates and promotes industry standards should operate in an open and transparent way. Any lack of visibility will cause tremendous doubt and concerns around those standards. Case in point: the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). A few weeks back, I wrote about one of their most recent standards—Electronic Media Extensions (EME)—which sought to create a standard framework for Digital Right Management (DRM) on the web. When the W3C officially approved this standard, it generated massive backlash from every corner of the technology world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks back, I wrote that “choosing Microsoft Windows for your organization should get you fired.”It’s a statement that, while certainly a bit on the inflammatory side, I completely stand by—mostly due to the known insecure nature of running Windows as a server operating system.What I didn’t do was give specific examples of what to move your existing Windows-based infrastructure to. Sure, the obvious answer for most SysAdmins is simply “migrate the servers over to Linux.” But what about specific server applications that your organization might already rely upon? That’s a whole other can of worms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks back, I wrote that “choosing Microsoft Windows for your organization should get you fired.”It’s a statement that, while certainly a bit on the inflammatory side, I completely stand by—mostly due to the known insecure nature of running Windows as a server operating system.What I didn’t do was give specific examples of what to move your existing Windows-based infrastructure to. Sure, the obvious answer for most SysAdmins is simply “migrate the servers over to Linux.” But what about specific server applications that your organization might already rely upon? That’s a whole other can of worms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)—the organization with the purpose of standardizing aspects of the "Web"—voted to endorse DRM on the web. It’s a move that is in direct opposition to the W3C's mission statement—and puts them squarely on the wrong side of history.Specifically, what the W3C is approving is a specification called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)—an extension to existing HTML to make implementing playback restrictions a "standard" across all web browsers. Contradictory statements from the W3C
These sorts of restrictions (DRM) are, by definition, created for the sole purpose of making it harder for people to see/hear/consume some piece of content—a movie, a song, a book, an image, etc. —often based on their hardware, software or geographical location.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops:
You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.
I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops:
You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.
I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops:
You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.
I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of yet another ransomware attack—this time named NotPetya—I have a special message specifically for those of you working in organizations that continue to run Microsoft Windows as the operating system on either your servers or your desktops:
You are doing a terrible job and should probably be fired.
I know. That’s harsh. But it’s true. If you haven’t yet replaced Windows, across the board, you absolutely stink at your job. For years, we’ve had one trojan, worm and virus after another. And almost every single one is specifically targeting Microsoft Windows. Not MacOS. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you run a website of any significant size, odds are you utilize some form of content management system (CMS). Wordpress, Drupal, or the like.And, if you don’t use such a system, you probably employ rather extensive use of some form of server-side, scripted, page generation. PHP, ASP, Ruby… the list goes on and on.There are many scenarios where such a system makes a great deal of sense. But I’m here to tell you, right now, that it is highly unlikely that you actually need them… at least for the majority of your page. And, what’s more, if you migrate away from a CMS system you can not only make your webpages smaller and faster-loading for your visitors… but you can save significantly on your server infrastructure costs as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bandwidth, storage space and computing power (CPU/RAM/etc.) on your web servers represent a distinct and noteworthy cost for any company with a major online presence.As traffic to a company’s website increases, most opt to throw money at the problem. More servers. Caching systems. More bandwidth. But these are Band-Aids—temporary solutions to the problem, solutions that will only suffice for so long before yet another round of "throw money at the problem" is required to keep up with ever-growing web traffic. The real problem is simple: Your web pages are just plain too big.Way too big. Enormously large. The average website is 2.9 MB in size (as of May 15, 2017). And that's just the average—an average that is growing. Fast.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bandwidth, storage space and computing power (CPU/RAM/etc.) on your web servers represent a distinct and noteworthy cost for any company with a major online presence.As traffic to a company’s website increases, most opt to throw money at the problem. More servers. Caching systems. More bandwidth. But these are Band-Aids—temporary solutions to the problem, solutions that will only suffice for so long before yet another round of "throw money at the problem" is required to keep up with ever-growing web traffic. The real problem is simple: Your web pages are just plain too big.Way too big. Enormously large. The average website is 2.9 MB in size (as of May 15, 2017). And that's just the average—an average that is growing. Fast.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the challenges of implementing and utilizing Linux across a large organization—an organization where there are many different people with significantly different computing needs—is ... packaging.Seriously. Packaging is a big problem.Just as an example:Let's say you are in charge of IT for a 1,000-person organization. Your server needs dictate that you'll need (or at least likely want) a server-oriented Linux distribution with some sort of paid support contract. Easy enough. You can choose Red Hat Enterprise or SUSE Linux Enterprise. Server needs met.RELATED: Review: 5 open source alternatives for routers/firewalls
But what about the marketing department? Does an enterprise-grade, server-focused distribution make sense for all of them? Probably not. Maybe you can standardize on one of the media production-focused distributions—or perhaps the community-driven sides of the enterprise distribution you already chose for your servers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Online ("cloud") file storage services are undeniably handy—for individuals and large organizations alike.Being able to toss files (spreadsheets, images, backups, etc.) somewhere, especially if that somewhere is easy to share with those you interact and work with, is crazy convenient. It certainly beats the pants off tediously sending files to your co-workers via email (or, worse, sneakernet).RELATED: Engineering firm uses cloud storage to speed file loads, and then unplugs its MPLS net
Services such as Google Drive and Dropbox are easy to setup and use. And as a result, just about everybody (and their dog) have an account on one or the other. Many companies even utilize one of these for storing files across their organization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I'm a Linux user. And, as the old adage goes, "I don't do Windows." This is not an article about how Linux is superior to Windows. Truth be told, I don't begrudge any person's choice of computing environment—be it Windows, Mac, BSD, Amiga. What each person uses is truly up to them. Me? I use open source. I use free software. I use Linux. So, what then, do I make of Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux aka WSL? For those unfamiliar, the WSL is basically a compatibility layer within Windows 10 that allows you to run Linux binaries. The end result is that you can run a full Linux shell, complete with Linux terminal applications, on a Windows PC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sometimes, if you want something badly enough, you need to get off your lazy tuchus and make it happen yourself. For years now, I've been hoping and pining (and often complaining and whining) about how much I want Linux-powered... everything. Not Android. Not ChromeOS. Real Linux. The kind of Linux you have full control over—the sort you'd install on your desktop PC. And when I say "everything," I mean everything. The set-top box connected to my TV. My game consoles (including handheld game consoles). Tablets. PDAs. Home server. The works. All of it. Running Linux and free software. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I'm not much of a ChromeOS user these days. Almost every aspect of Google's services has been removed from my life (Google Search, GMail, etc.), and, well, I just don't have much need for a system centered entirely around Google at this point.But I had the chance to use the Acer Chromebook R11 (the CB5-132T-C9KK model), so I decided to see just how useful it could be for someone like me—someone who really doesn't use Google other than for YouTube and the occasional Hangouts video chat (for the friends I can't seem to persuade to use anything else).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's been many years since I regularly used Ubuntu. Back in "ye olden times" I would consider myself one of the most outspoken advocates for Canonical's Linux distribution—often proclaiming the (near) perfection of Ubuntu—but those times have long since faded into the mist. Nowadays, I use Ubuntu only when there is a good reason to review a new release—which has happened less and less. And even in those cases, I tend to use it sparingly. There were many reasons for that change. Mostly it boiled down to a general disagreement with the direction Ubuntu was taking.+ Also on Network World: Lessons learned from the failure of Ubuntu Touch +
I wasn't a fan of their in-house developed desktop environment (Unity). I didn't like how slow it was. I didn't like how buggy it was. I didn't like how un-customizable it was. I guess it would be fair to say, "I didn't like it." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bryan Lunduke