| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Ealing Council Web Site Goes Kaput | |
| Posted by: | Chris Bell | |
| Date/Time: | 10/06/09 13:34:00 |
| Microsoft have already announced the numerical code for their projected next version, and Windows 5 or 6 follows their own numbering. I used to work for a very well known Broadcasting Corporation. The head of IT in our building showed me a huge bank of boxes running Microsoft, then pointed to an old box in one corner running Free Open Source Software that he said could easily do the same job. It is assumed that any Unix compatible will be used in an unfriendly environment, and security precautions are in place to cope. Modern distributions are supplied with even more embedded security, but it is not always enabled by default. Properly written and configured software is much easier to support than closed source, and there are plenty of competent engineers. I met a lad who was on work experience from school last week. He had read through the source code of the existing company database, compared it with the latest version of the database software, decided there would be no problem, built a pair of new computers with the latest version of the MySQL code, backed up the existing company database on to the new boxes, written his own test facilities, demonstrated that it would recover itself after some loss of data, and then retired the old boxes. I spoke to one system administrator working for a huge company that only managed to get support from Microsoft by stating the total number of boxes showing the same problem, and threatening to phone once for each of them, with no break after each previous call. |