Whats best way to migrate a business to Linux

[PhilGQ]

Here is my problem.

My company is running a flaky old Windows Server 2003 setup which has a single core CPU and three 150GB disks its run out more than once and caused us to have to delete stuff. It is currently only used for exchange and a file server.

The problems start when I look into any IT project at work I am severly limited in what I can do. I want a back office system a Voip solution, an Intranet and space to store tons of scanning. We need to buy a new server but we have been quoted £5k+vat which is too much at the moment. Most of that is the Server 2008 licence and the cals. We have been getting buy using external storge devices etc but it can't go on I have to do something.

I want to consider an open-source aproach since it will be cheeper and less demanding on the hardware requirements
However I am not an IT guy, the chap that looks after the server and the folks at the maintance company are all Windows People so its going to be an up hill battle. I have been using Linux for about 7-8 years myself but not delved into the server side and rarly touch the command line.

Can anyone offer any advice as to the best direction for me to go, what the typical problems are with this sort of migration, compatability and that kind of thing. If you can suggest a particular solution RHEL, SLED/SLES, Xandros, MDK or what ever that would be usefull.

My main consideration is cost but it must be easy for us to administer as we have limited skills in the company when it come to IT.

Any help is apprecited

Phil

 

[FirebarUK]

I've migrated a number of small business to Open Source & Linux and the key is to appropriately map the requirements. What do they need to do with the solutions? What do they need to deliver to customers? Is there much information exchange between other corps? What systems must the new ones interface with?

One of the companies I did this for was using Windows across a small workgroup (10-15 machines). Turned out that they simply didn't *need* to be using Windows for what was required (including MS Office and the like). Their database systems were easily migrated and their bespoke Windows CRM solution was easily moved into Sugar CRM - and it improved considerably because of it. Compatibility wasn't an issue, any info they shared with customers and other businesses would be in PDF and .doc at worst.

One thing to ensure is that you use an LTS (Long Term Supported) distro, I tend to use Ubuntu Server LTS or CentOS.

Just some very hasty thoughts to get you started. They aren't in any particular order either

 

[PhilGQ]

Thanks for the info,

With regards to choosing a server distro, I am feel that we should use a GUI based system due to or inexperience on the comand line. How do CentOS and Ubuntu do on that score, I found clear ClearOS earlier today (used to be Clarkconnect) which is all graphical as far as I can see.

I have had a look at SugarCRMs web site a few times before, is it easily customisable? The web site focuses on Sales ledgers and that kind of thing, I am in financial services so its not a product in product out kind of business. Its more letters and document and managing customer data. If I find a VM of sugar CRM will I be able to get an idea of its functionality or does it need lots of configuration to make it workable etc.

I would love to drop windows on the client side as well, but it maybe to big a pill to swallow just now, I am thinking of maybe making linux an optional desktop and then pulling Windows later.

Do you do this sort of thing for a living, if so is their anything you can do for us, I see you are in Southampton, we are in Wolverhampton so not ideal I know.

 

[3dcandy]

Having a Linux server and windows clients isn't really a problem these days. Yes, it may take longer to get up and running as you don't know the Linux side as well (gui wise) but these days a lot of stuff has GUI support. Something like Ubuntu LTS would be good, I personally use Ubuntu 10.10 and the wife and son get along fine with it...

 

[PhilGQ]

I don't know about Ubuntu, I have been using the desktop version for years, (the current one won't load on my system). The server version is entirely command line based so I am not sure its right. I have MINT DEBIAN EDITION installed at the moment that might be an option.

Is virtualisation a good way to go for things like SugarCRM and Asterisk, using off the shelf appliances.

 

[randal]

I think you'll be fine with Ubuntu, there's endless resources out there should you or your IT guy need to do some reading.

To remove some of the unknowns I'd build a test platform on a spare machine and start using it, try to get it configured up to serve out some of the things you want to do in the office.

With regards to virtualisation, it really does depend on how much you want the one server to do and how much you want to control the resources. If the server is to be multi-role then I'd certainly consider something along those lines, but you are introducing more unknowns if you don't have the knowledge in the company to support it. Personally I think if you've run Ubuntu for years then you're probably of the right mindset to get your head around VMWare ESX (free from their site IIRC) bare metal hypervisor and the Ubunut LTS server.

I'd jump at the chance to set something like this up, sounds like you've got a pretty neat project on your hands with some real scope for cost saving and service improvement. Not jealous at all! <goes back to mundane corporate tasks>

 

[PhilGQ]

Hi randal

Do you think I could get away with an old dualcore desktop system as a server to run VMware on and all its appliances (extra RAM I am thinking)

 

[3dcandy]

what makes you think the server is command line? It may default to command line, but just install your choice of window manager (gnome for example) and it's up and running...

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop gives you almost the same as you would get "normally"

 

[randal]

For testing, or production?

I think that you'd struggle to run a production VMWare environment on a dual core desktop with CRM, F+P etc.. in a real life environment. How many users are we talking, and how utilised is the current setup?

What budget do you think you've got for hardware to make this work? I'd definitely be looking at a server class machine, or something with more than your average SATA 2 desktop disk throughput if you're running multiple VMs.

If most of your budget was licences, you stand to save a bundle by going open source. I'd invest some of that money in decent, supported hardware. No good in setting up this all singing, all dancing setup on hardware that's going to crater and leave you high and dry.

So role wise am I right in thinking you want a solution that'll run:

- Exchange
- F+P
- CRM
- Web (intranet)
- anything else?

Licence wise I'd say reuse your existing W2K3 licence for the Exchange server and run that in one VM. F+P, CRM and web services can all run on Linux. Partition those into VMs as you see fit, depending on hardware 2 machines maybe? Web/F+P on one, CRM on the other perhaps.

 

[sidethink]

I've helped a couple of friends setup their SOHO and SME's with some Open Source tools and I think a lot of the teething issues were around productivity applications.

If I were doing it again, I think I'd make sure that end users can get comfortable with Open Office and Thunderbird (or whatever) before migrating them.

Perhaps you could set a machine up with these apps and ask someone to try it out for a week or two? Ultimately most users in a SME environment dont care (or in many cases know) what OS they are running on, as long as their 'Word' files open and they can interact with the web effectively.

Most SMEs I know are only interested in email, internet and office docs, and an accounting app (you can just keep a Windows desktop for this if you must). You can hide the storage, backup and printing on whatever OS you feel comfortable with.

 

[edscdk]

Here is my problem.

However I am not an IT guy, the chap that looks after the server and the folks at the maintance company are all Windows People

STOP DO NOT DO IT.... you are headed for a disaster....

upgrade the existing disks (assuming the server is not slow), depending on the config it might be a 10 min job...

 

[PhilGQ]

what makes you think the server is command line? It may default to command line, but just install your choice of window manager (gnome for example) and it's up and running...

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop gives you almost the same as you would get "normally"

I am aware you can just add a desktop, but then do all the tools have nice GUIs or do you have to open a shell, in which case your no better off, most tutorials I see use the comand line so I know me or my collegues will come unstuck (or just refuse to use it).

If I could use ubuntu that would be ace.

 

[PhilGQ]

I've helped a couple of friends setup their SOHO and SME's with some Open Source tools and I think a lot of the teething issues were around productivity applications.

If I were doing it again, I think I'd make sure that end users can get comfortable with Open Office and Thunderbird (or whatever) before migrating them.

Perhaps you could set a machine up with these apps and ask someone to try it out for a week or two? Ultimately most users in a SME environment dont care (or in many cases know) what OS they are running on, as long as their 'Word' files open and they can interact with the web effectively.

Most SMEs I know are only interested in email, internet and office docs, and an accounting app (you can just keep a Windows desktop for this if you must). You can hide the storage, backup and printing on whatever OS you feel comfortable with.

The desktops are lower priority for me, we currently have a mix of XP,Vista and 7 depending on when the machine was bought. I think if I were to swap thees out I would install OO.o (Libre Office) for Windows for a while then swap out the desktop leter. The jump would only be slightly bigger than from going from XP to 7 if they where already using the office suite.

 

[PhilGQ]

STOP DO NOT DO IT.... you are headed for a disaster....

upgrade the existing disks (assuming the server is not slow), depending on the config it might be a 10 min job...

The servers old, I am not sure if it SCSI or IDE but there is no sata channels on it. Also for our business its something of a cross roads, if we stick with Windows now we will be stuck with it for then next ten years along with all the expensive cals and dumbed down applications.

I would personally like to make the jump too, I don't mind us paying for a bit of support either to Red Hat or Novell or whoever if the costs will be lower as the company grows.

 

[PhilGQ]

For testing, or production?

I think that you'd struggle to run a production VMWare environment on a dual core desktop with CRM, F+P etc.. in a real life environment. How many users are we talking, and how utilised is the current setup?

What budget do you think you've got for hardware to make this work? I'd definitely be looking at a server class machine, or something with more than your average SATA 2 desktop disk throughput if you're running multiple VMs.

I thought you might say that, I reckon we could afford to sink £1000 on it, We could probably get away with just a couple of Terabytes to be going on with and add more later, most of it will be document storage

So role wise am I right in thinking you want a solution that'll run:

- Exchange
- F+P
- CRM
- Web (intranet)
- anything else?

That looks like a good setup, we might want to drop exchange entirely since we would still need to buy more cals as we add more users, which is likely to happen in the next two years someone on another forum has suggested Zimbra (which I use for my perosnal email). But we can think about this later.

Do you know of any document managment solutions for linux?

 

[randal]

£1000 is a good start, I reckon you could get hardware that'll do what you need fairly easily. Do you have computer room facilities? i.e rack space?

Dropping Exchange would change things a bit, I've not had a lot of experience with Linux based Mail/Cal software save for sendmail or Enterprise Messaging Server on Solaris so couldn't say. For interim setup though, I'd consider sticking with Exchange then building another VM for your new solution and doing a migration. One of the beauties of VMWare.

What do you need the document management package to do? Again, how many users are we talking? < 100?

 

[KIA]

This is suicide. Who is going to look after the box? A decent sysadmin won't use GUI to admin a Linux box.

 

[randal]

Hence my question as to how many people this is for, trying to gauge the size of the company. Obviously budget is a big constraint, the knowledge is a concern but I think between the OP and IT he should be able to get something working.

I'm tempted to offer my services to support it remotely, but I'm certain that's against several forum rules.

 

[edscdk]

Hence my question as to how many people this is for, trying to gauge the size of the company. Obviously budget is a big constraint, the knowledge is a concern but I think between the OP and IT he should be able to get something working.

I'm tempted to offer my services to support it remotely, but I'm certain that's against several forum rules.

Try this out on the boss,

"I have a great idea, I know nothing about Linux, our IT people cannot support linux but im going to install a server that we SHOULD be able to get working...."

Seriously get a company that WILL install and support the system for you or stick with windows...

linux + a business + no support + cobbled together = MASSIVE fail (at some point down the line)

to save money consider scarpping exchange and moving to gmail...

 

[randal]

Or how about: "We have the potential to upgrade our infrastructure, improve functionality and save some money. There are risks, however they could be mitigated by..."

I see what you're saying, on the surface this does sound like a risky move. The main risk being the knowledge for support once the system is built, but without knowing more it's very difficult to say if/how it would work.

I've thought about this from my perspective, i.e if it was me in this situation. I'm comfortable supporting a VMware/Linux deployment for something like this, I think the OP would be too given his Linux background but I don't think it would be him doing the build/support by the sounds of things.