Re: choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Tomer Perry, from the post of Sat, 05 Apr: Ira, xcat now went through major changes, and its now under EPL and hosted at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/ Though, xcat1.3 ( based on the old version) is still there. Hey, TomP! good to hear from you... yeah, I forgotto mention... the NAS server I'm going to install this on, was installed with Ubuntu by the previous admin, and for a long list of reasons I'm not changing that now. Xcat is oddly only available in RPMs. I'll be looking at Cobler and Rollout (I see OscarOnDebian is in early beta, and I want something more solid). There's a chance I'll be scrapping this attempt later today and going for CentOS 5.1 and Xcat (among other reasons because I remember it supports Bladecenters well). Last and least, I'll do vanilla kickstart if all else annoys me :-) Thanks, Ira. -- Brand X Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Hi, I also agree with Noam ;) additionally, puppet give you free inventory tool :) I myself don't use Cobbler, I found it too heavy for my needs, I've created a ruby erb template for my kickstart and pull it out of a simple sql db - works great if you want to have customize options for different hosts (even RHE version or arch) but still use one kickstart over a cgi script, I use puppet to do all the rest. if anyone is interested I can send you the script. Ohad On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 7:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Beware of Tivoli Provisioning stuff.. I spend few days with it, and with CentOS 5 (and 4.x). It sucks. really bad. (I haven't tried the latest version which came 3 months ago though). It craps the network config files, xorg.conf files etc.. Thanks, Hetz On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. my blog (hebrew): http://benhamo.org = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Ira, xcat now went through major changes, and its now under EPL and hosted at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/ Though, xcat1.3 ( based on the old version) is still there. Tomer Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Beware of Tivoli Provisioning stuff.. I spend few days with it, and with CentOS 5 (and 4.x). It sucks. really bad. (I haven't tried the latest version which came 3 months ago though). It craps the network config files, xorg.conf files etc.. Thanks, Hetz On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Tuesday 01 April 2008 00:41, Amos Shapira wrote: Oh good - all the points given against using Google web applications PLUS having the opportunity to use Lookout, get infected with viruses, and always worry that they will pull out another hotmail.co.il on you :) I suggest you first read/hear the relevant data, analyze it, and then criticize. Cheap popolism is maybe fun, but very counter productive. For people who just have to use Exchange this might be a good go-between as managing a private exchange server can be indeed a major resource drain (with the caveat that the connection to it is reliable). Well, it's 2008, and the solution this time will be hosted in Israel. I suggest not to remain entranched into ideas and things that happened 5 years ago, without being able to re-examine beliefs. I'm not sure you can save on these anyway - you'd want to backup e-mails even from your hosted solution, wouldn't you? And you'll have some sort of a shared file server anyway (which will require all of the above). All you save is the headache of having to figure out the right click path whenever you have to configure the damn thing, and understand the quirky MS network terminology. No, the backup solution will be provided as a service most likely. No need to buy a LTO library, backup software, software contracts, backup server, sysadmin with relevant knowledge, etc etc etc. Exchange backup (without taking it down and at brick level) is a very different beast to backup and maintain compared to a file server. --Ariel -- Ariel Biener e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: http://www.tau.ac.il/~ariel/pgp.html = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
Howdie folks! 1. a client of mine is a budding startup, and they got to the point where they no longer want their mail services hosted, but locally installed and providing the full outlook experience. In simple words - calender sync, common folders. stuff that's not readily available with IMAP alone. The offer for Exchange will entail buying two servers and lots of software licences and I'm hoping not to go there. I've looked into Open-Xchange (Ugly, community version doesn't support their outlook connector and no community connector to be found), Scalix (Ugly and expensive) and Zimbra (Donno if ugly, but still pretty expensive). Everyone tells me that free/busy files on a samba share don't really work. any other solutions or maybe recommendatiopns from a real-life experiance with the above three? 2. Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? Thanks, Ira. -- Back from the dead Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
With due respect to budding startups, and aesthetic judgements aside, both Scalix and ZImbra provide reasonably good products for a reasonable amount of money. We - internally - are using Zimbra and are pretty happy. Up until a few days ago, we were running community edition (free) and are now switching to a full commercial version for a variety of reasons. M - Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdie folks! 1. a client of mine is a budding startup, and they got to the point where they no longer want their mail services hosted, but locally installed and providing the full outlook experience. In simple words - calender sync, common folders. stuff that's not readily available with IMAP alone. The offer for Exchange will entail buying two servers and lots of software licences and I'm hoping not to go there. I've looked into Open-Xchange (Ugly, community version doesn't support their outlook connector and no community connector to be found), Scalix (Ugly and expensive) and Zimbra (Donno if ugly, but still pretty expensive). Everyone tells me that free/busy files on a samba share don't really work. any other solutions or maybe recommendatiopns from a real-life experiance with the above three? 2. Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? Thanks, Ira. -- Back from the dead Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ---MAV Marc A. Volovic Swiftouch, LTD [EMAIL PROTECTED] +972-544-676764 = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
Why would they insist of the mail service would be local? It'll raise many new concerns: availability, backups, data corruptions.. If it's just a need for shared calendar and central mail storage, I'd be using Google for domains. Should be free of charge for small companies. IMAP/POP3 is supported and there's also a new outlook-calendar-sync software; but I prefer to use the GUI for calendar stuff. I bet your alternative solution don't suggest the SMS-on-appointment feature, not for free at least :) - Oren On Monday 31 March 2008 11:40, Ira Abramov wrote: Howdie folks! 1. a client of mine is a budding startup, and they got to the point where they no longer want their mail services hosted, but locally installed and providing the full outlook experience. In simple words - calender sync, common folders. stuff that's not readily available with IMAP alone. The offer for Exchange will entail buying two servers and lots of software licences and I'm hoping not to go there. I've looked into Open-Xchange (Ugly, community version doesn't support their outlook connector and no community connector to be found), Scalix (Ugly and expensive) and Zimbra (Donno if ugly, but still pretty expensive). Everyone tells me that free/busy files on a samba share don't really work. any other solutions or maybe recommendatiopns from a real-life experiance with the above three? 2. Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? Thanks, Ira. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Oren Held, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: Why would they insist of the mail service would be local? It'll raise many new concerns: availability, backups, data corruptions.. I have warned them against all those, and begged them to reconsider (I hate maintaining Mail servers, even if I've done it flawlessly for over 10 years now) If it's just a need for shared calendar and central mail storage, I'd be using Google for domains. Should be free of charge for small companies. I suggested that too. they didn't want the security risks and the google branding on their Emails. They are willing to shell out thousands of dollars for an inferior solution (IMHO, especially if you count cost) I bet your alternative solution don't suggest the SMS-on-appointment feature, not for free at least :) One can always improvise with Twitter, no? :-P -- Waste of space Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:39:44PM +0300, Oren Held wrote: If it's just a need for shared calendar and central mail storage, I'd be using Google for domains. Should be free of charge for small companies. Before I answer this, I need to disclose that I am extremely anti-Google. However, I think that it's important to say this, and that it applies to ALL of the free webmail providers, not just Google. As someone who has been involved with a lot of commerical research over the years, I would NEVER want to use a email service I did not control for my company's email. Google and all the others, data mine your email. They claim that it is for advertising purposes, but one can never be sure. Just knowing what a company is discussing, can give you insider information. For example, I worked for a place that had a particular computer. It was used for a specific purpose. If we had joined that companies public user list, we would have been advertising that we were developing a product. No one could figure that out just by knowing that we had that computer. However the project leader was a well known expert in their field, and knowing that he had one would be enough for the competition to connect the dots. How hard would that be for someone scanned their email? It's been done in other venues, IBM had a free patent search database before the USPTO. They data mined the queries and had a group working on using the results. If someone did a search which could be used as an idea for a product, they took it. It was both legal and ethical because they said something in their TC. Another case are domain registrars who data mine whois requests. If you search for a domain that is not in use, the registrar holds it and raises the price. :-) There is a company which sells a product that blocks these kind of security holes and does not let you send attachments, discuss confidential keywords, etc on free mail accounts. I bet your alternative solution don't suggest the SMS-on-appointment feature, not for free at least :) Ooh neat. Sounds like a good one to me. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
- Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? no ideas anyone? I guess I'll go with Xcat... -- The eighth deadly sin Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Monday 31 March 2008 13:46:36 Ira Abramov wrote: If it's just a need for shared calendar and central mail storage, I'd be using Google for domains. Should be free of charge for small companies. I suggested that too. they didn't want the security risks You can take out the quotes. gmail uses the google login, which means that if I get your login (by a cross site scripting attack; by a phishing trick; by a vulnerability in any of the google services) I got full access to your corporate email. Also, your security nazi^H^H^H^Hadministrator has no control over the login policies, password policies, or anything else that has to do with security, oh, but they are allowed to bang their heads to the wall if something goes wrong and they need google's help, because talking to the wall is the equivalent of google human support (unless they're lawyers in which case google will be happy to comply). There's also no backup and no archive. and the google branding on their Emails. This is no small matter. I can't see why a company will agree to having their emails having sent on behalf of [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Plus, most of what GSM wrote (including the full disclosure about not liking google). They are willing to shell out thousands of dollars for an inferior solution (IMHO, especially if you count cost) If they consider email a critical part of their daily work, maybe shelling out some money makes sense. Although with FOSS products you usually get to try it before shelling out the money (e.g. Marc's note). I bet your alternative solution don't suggest the SMS-on-appointment feature, not for free at least :) That *is* a killer feature, I'll admit. - Aviram (who uses google calendar exclusively nowadays) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Monday 31 March 2008 15:28, Aviram Jenik wrote: and the google branding on their Emails. This is no small matter. I can't see why a company will agree to having their emails having sent on behalf of [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Why would it use @gmail.com? I was talking about Google for domains - or maybe it has a new name (http://www.google.com/a), which can take control of @your-domain.com.. I don't think that there's a Google branding anywhere. - Oren = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Monday 31 March 2008 11:59, Marc A. Volovic wrote: With due respect to budding startups, and aesthetic judgements aside, both Scalix and ZImbra provide reasonably good products for a reasonable amount of money. I think Scalix is overpriced. It wont be noticeable if you do not have many users. I don't think it's cheaper than MS Exchange 2007. Also, if you're gonna be at Tech-Ed on Sunday, Microsoft Israel is launching it's hosted exchange service, which gives you a full exchange server and experience, on their infrastructure, which in your case, might be more suitable than maintaining the thing yourself (it most certanly be cheaper if you take into consideration the overall maintenance of a mail system: storage, backups, system administration, upgrade path of hardware, maintenance contracts for hardware, etc etc). --Ariel -- Ariel Biener e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: http://www.tau.ac.il/~ariel/pgp.html = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Ariel Biener, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: Also, if you're gonna be at Tech-Ed on Sunday, Microsoft Israel is launching it's hosted exchange service, which gives you a full exchange server and experience, That's the same comapny that just 3 months ago shut down Hotmail.co.il with a week's notice, without a chance for the users to backup their data or forward it to hotmail.com? on their infrastructure, which in your case, might be more suitable than maintaining the thing yourself (it most certanly be cheaper if you take into consideration the interesting that they are finally leaving their product bastion and trying the water of the services pond. Could it be Google Envy? Does anyone know if Oracle ever managed to steal any customers with their hosted mail solutions? overall maintenance of a mail system: storage, backups, system administration, upgrade path of hardware, maintenance contracts for hardware, etc etc). This client decided quite definitly they are against any and all hosted solutions, but I'll definitely give them a heads-up about this. Is this advertised somewhere? -- Handle with care Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
poppet - Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? no ideas anyone? I guess I'll go with Xcat... -- The eighth deadly sin Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ---MAV Marc A. Volovic Swiftouch, LTD [EMAIL PROTECTED] +972-544-676764 = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
Why would they insist of the mail service would be local? It'll raise many new concerns: availability, backups, data corruptions.. If it's just a need for shared calendar and central mail storage, I'd be using Google for domains. Should be free of charge for small companies. IMAP/POP3 is supported and there's also a new outlook-calendar-sync software; but I prefer to use the GUI for calendar stuff. I bet your alternative solution don't suggest the SMS-on-appointment feature, not for free at least :) - Oren On Monday 31 March 2008 11:40, Ira Abramov wrote: Howdie folks! 1. a client of mine is a budding startup, and they got to the point where they no longer want their mail services hosted, but locally installed and providing the full outlook experience. In simple words - calender sync, common folders. stuff that's not readily available with IMAP alone. The offer for Exchange will entail buying two servers and lots of software licences and I'm hoping not to go there. I've looked into Open-Xchange (Ugly, community version doesn't support their outlook connector and no community connector to be found), Scalix (Ugly and expensive) and Zimbra (Donno if ugly, but still pretty expensive). Everyone tells me that free/busy files on a samba share don't really work. any other solutions or maybe recommendatiopns from a real-life experiance with the above three? 2. Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? Thanks, Ira. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of groupware, choice of provisioning server?
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 5:39 AM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Ariel Biener, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: Also, if you're gonna be at Tech-Ed on Sunday, Microsoft Israel is launching it's hosted exchange service, which gives you a full exchange server and experience, Oh good - all the points given against using Google web applications PLUS having the opportunity to use Lookout, get infected with viruses, and always worry that they will pull out another hotmail.co.il on you :) That's the same comapny that just 3 months ago shut down Hotmail.co.il with a week's notice, without a chance for the users to backup their data or forward it to hotmail.com? on their infrastructure, which in your case, might be more suitable than maintaining the thing yourself (it most certanly be cheaper if you take into consideration the interesting that they are finally leaving their product bastion and trying the water of the services pond. Could it be Google Envy? Does anyone know if Oracle ever managed to steal any customers with their hosted mail solutions? I don't know how about you but as early as circa 2003 I became a bit familiar with the hosted exchange server market available in the US (the startup I worked for in Israel used a hosted exchange server in the US, the connection went up and down like a 2 cent whore, so the frustration saved from the network admin by not having to maintain it was replaced by the frustration of 15 users for not having a reliable Lookout connection (and Lookout, being a typical MS application, not coping with this very well)). For people who just have to use Exchange this might be a good go-between as managing a private exchange server can be indeed a major resource drain (with the caveat that the connection to it is reliable). overall maintenance of a mail system: storage, backups, system administration, upgrade path of hardware, maintenance contracts for hardware, etc etc). I'm not sure you can save on these anyway - you'd want to backup e-mails even from your hosted solution, wouldn't you? And you'll have some sort of a shared file server anyway (which will require all of the above). All you save is the headache of having to figure out the right click path whenever you have to configure the damn thing, and understand the quirky MS network terminology. --Amos
Re: choice of provisioning server?
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 11:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. You can look at it both ways. We use puppet (still learning it) to provision a few Xen guests remotely. Right now we base the install on an existing Xen image (because cpan install is such a mess that the external software provider just dropped us an image). Just yesterday I noticed something called rollout ( http://dparrish.com/category/projects/rollout/). It's a rip-off of provisioning software developed in my previous workplace which is used to provision 500+ physical RHEL servers (compiled locally from source). The original code is a bit horrendous (being developed by system admins, not programmers) but does the job extremely well. (to clarify, my experience is with the original code, yesterday I just noticed this web site and from the description (and having heard the name of the author before) I'm sure it's just a copy of what I used there over a year ago). The idea is that you sort of assert what software should be installed on the server (be it rpm's, cvs checkouts or whatever) using a giant Perl Hash to describe individual machines, classes of machines and software packages. It can also control any bit of the system configuration and the idea is that you can just kickstart a machine and it will automatically pull down the perl script and configuration at the end of the kickstart process and install everything from there. Individual software package have an opportunity to plugin their own iondividual configuration into the mix and since it's all in perl you have full flexibility to do anything you like (including hacking your foot off with a Swiss Army Chainsaw, of course). The idea is that you should be able to just turn on the machine and forget about it - remember the context it was developed in - 500+ servers which could be literally on the other side of the continent and you want to allow the ops people to just kick-start a replacement server during the night until someone can come over to look at the problem in the morning. You can still update configuration from it later (e.g. add another package or change a config and re-run rollout to apply the change) but this is used mostly during development. For production or staging use it is expected to be used from kickstart, as lint will accumulate over time (it doesn't know about removing unused packages left behind, for instance, or removing old version of the configuration). I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Sounds like rollout is just what you want. Cheers, --Amos
