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Best practice Linux support vendors?

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  Best practice Linux support vendors? snorble <snorble@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-13 19:12 -0700
    Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Tim Watts <tw@dionic.net> - 2011-07-14 08:36 +0100
      Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? snorble <snorble@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-15 10:17 -0700
        Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2011-07-15 18:35 +0100
        Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-07-15 20:09 +0000
          Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Tim Watts <tw@dionic.net> - 2011-07-16 07:49 +0100
            Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> - 2011-07-16 13:40 +0000
              Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Tim Watts <tw@dionic.net> - 2011-07-16 18:19 +0100
                Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Aragorn <stryder@telenet.be.invalid> - 2011-07-17 03:44 +0200
    Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? aw@anhrefn.saar.de - 2011-07-14 15:25 +0200
      Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? notbob <notbob@notbob.invalid> - 2011-07-14 14:13 +0000
      Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2011-07-14 19:01 +0100
    Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? ray <ray@zianet.com> - 2011-07-14 14:51 +0000
    Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? JeffM <jeffm_@email.com> - 2011-07-14 14:34 -0700
      Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2011-07-14 17:32 -0500
        Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Tim Watts <tw@dionic.net> - 2011-07-15 06:59 +0100
      Re: Best practice Linux support vendors? Tim Watts <tw@dionic.net> - 2011-07-15 06:57 +0100

#1776 — Best practice Linux support vendors?

When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
issues.

For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I
believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.

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#1777

snorble wrote:

> When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
> hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
> takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
> restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
> issues.
> 
> For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
> parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I
> believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
> for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
> to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.

From my personal experience, it has usually not been necessary - we've 
always had enough expertice and autoation to be able to restore any given 
system from backups onto new hardware in about 1/2 day (excepting very large 
filestores where the time to physically restore the data takes a day+ in 
itself).

1) The first rule is make sure your backups work (rsync based disk-disk 
means you can afford to run incremental backups often, sometimes multiple 
times per day - or look at filesystem snapshots in addition to real backups)

2) Understand your deployments in detail and practise restore-from-backup as 
part of deployment;

3) Have configuration management covering every config file;

4) Have critical services replicated where possible - certainly DNS, 
kerberos, LDAP. Postgresql 9 also makes that possible for RDBMS.

If you still want vendor support, it's quite understandable to want to do so 
- given RedHat a call. Thye have a variety of support levels and response 
times. I have no experience, but that's where I'd start if I were going down 
that route. RedHat is not my personal favourite linux (I much prefer Debian) 
but RedHat is pretty stable, pretty conservative and seems to pretty much 
stay working.

You will want to be careful to do things "their way" and not make your 
systems too weird or offbeat for best effect.

It's also worth mentioning, that for certain application software, eg MySQL 
or Postgresql you may be able to further contract specialist support for 
that from another vendor.

Also, for RedHat - you can put your most critical stuff on contract and use 
CentOS (which is a RHEL recompile and free) on the less critical stuff and 
save money on licenses.

=======

If you were to tell us what types of servers (ie what applications) you were 
considering, we might be able to give more specific advice.

IME - Linux screws up in less bizarre ways on the whole that some other OSes 
and is almost always fixable.

Cheers

Tim

-- 
Tim Watts

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#1811

On Jul 14, 2:36 am, Tim Watts <t...@dionic.net> wrote:
> snorble wrote:
> > When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
> > hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
> > takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
> > restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
> > issues.
>
> > For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
> > parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I
> > believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
> > for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
> > to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.
>
> From my personal experience, it has usually not been necessary - we've
> always had enough expertice and autoation to be able to restore any given
> system from backups onto new hardware in about 1/2 day (excepting very large
> filestores where the time to physically restore the data takes a day+ in
> itself).
>
> 1) The first rule is make sure your backups work (rsync based disk-disk
> means you can afford to run incremental backups often, sometimes multiple
> times per day - or look at filesystem snapshots in addition to real backups)
>
> 2) Understand your deployments in detail and practise restore-from-backup as
> part of deployment;
>
> 3) Have configuration management covering every config file;
>
> 4) Have critical services replicated where possible - certainly DNS,
> kerberos, LDAP. Postgresql 9 also makes that possible for RDBMS.
>
> If you still want vendor support, it's quite understandable to want to do so
> - given RedHat a call. Thye have a variety of support levels and response
> times. I have no experience, but that's where I'd start if I were going down
> that route. RedHat is not my personal favourite linux (I much prefer Debian)
> but RedHat is pretty stable, pretty conservative and seems to pretty much
> stay working.
>
> You will want to be careful to do things "their way" and not make your
> systems too weird or offbeat for best effect.
>
> It's also worth mentioning, that for certain application software, eg MySQL
> or Postgresql you may be able to further contract specialist support for
> that from another vendor.
>
> Also, for RedHat - you can put your most critical stuff on contract and use
> CentOS (which is a RHEL recompile and free) on the less critical stuff and
> save money on licenses.
>
> =======
>
> If you were to tell us what types of servers (ie what applications) you were
> considering, we might be able to give more specific advice.
>
> IME - Linux screws up in less bizarre ways on the whole that some other OSes
> and is almost always fixable.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
> --
> Tim Watts

I am interested in KVM virtualization, but beyond that mostly basic
small office usage (file/print server, dns, dhcp, etc). Maybe some
simple web/db stuff (wordpress, etc).

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#1812

snorble wrote:
> On Jul 14, 2:36 am, Tim Watts <t...@dionic.net> wrote:
>> snorble wrote:
>>> When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
>>> hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
>>> takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
>>> restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
>>> issues.
>>> For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
>>> parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I
>>> believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
>>> for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
>>> to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.
>> From my personal experience, it has usually not been necessary - we've
>> always had enough expertice and autoation to be able to restore any given
>> system from backups onto new hardware in about 1/2 day (excepting very large
>> filestores where the time to physically restore the data takes a day+ in
>> itself).
>>
>> 1) The first rule is make sure your backups work (rsync based disk-disk
>> means you can afford to run incremental backups often, sometimes multiple
>> times per day - or look at filesystem snapshots in addition to real backups)
>>
>> 2) Understand your deployments in detail and practise restore-from-backup as
>> part of deployment;
>>
>> 3) Have configuration management covering every config file;
>>
>> 4) Have critical services replicated where possible - certainly DNS,
>> kerberos, LDAP. Postgresql 9 also makes that possible for RDBMS.
>>
>> If you still want vendor support, it's quite understandable to want to do so
>> - given RedHat a call. Thye have a variety of support levels and response
>> times. I have no experience, but that's where I'd start if I were going down
>> that route. RedHat is not my personal favourite linux (I much prefer Debian)
>> but RedHat is pretty stable, pretty conservative and seems to pretty much
>> stay working.
>>
>> You will want to be careful to do things "their way" and not make your
>> systems too weird or offbeat for best effect.
>>
>> It's also worth mentioning, that for certain application software, eg MySQL
>> or Postgresql you may be able to further contract specialist support for
>> that from another vendor.
>>
>> Also, for RedHat - you can put your most critical stuff on contract and use
>> CentOS (which is a RHEL recompile and free) on the less critical stuff and
>> save money on licenses.
>>
>> =======
>>
>> If you were to tell us what types of servers (ie what applications) you were
>> considering, we might be able to give more specific advice.
>>
>> IME - Linux screws up in less bizarre ways on the whole that some other OSes
>> and is almost always fixable.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> --
>> Tim Watts
> 
> I am interested in KVM virtualization, but beyond that mostly basic
> small office usage (file/print server, dns, dhcp, etc). Maybe some
> simple web/db stuff (wordpress, etc).

Ive used linux as a small office server for years, and never needed 
support an hours googling cold not fix.

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#1816

On Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:17:44 -0700, snorble wrote:

> On Jul 14, 2:36 am, Tim Watts <t...@dionic.net> wrote:
>> snorble wrote:
>> > When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
>> > hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
>> > takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
>> > restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
>> > issues.
>>
>> > For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
>> > parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I
>> > believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
>> > for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
>> > to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.
>>
>> From my personal experience, it has usually not been necessary - we've
>> always had enough expertice and autoation to be able to restore any
>> given system from backups onto new hardware in about 1/2 day (excepting
>> very large filestores where the time to physically restore the data
>> takes a day+ in itself).
>>
>> 1) The first rule is make sure your backups work (rsync based disk-disk
>> means you can afford to run incremental backups often, sometimes
>> multiple times per day - or look at filesystem snapshots in addition to
>> real backups)
>>
>> 2) Understand your deployments in detail and practise
>> restore-from-backup as part of deployment;
>>
>> 3) Have configuration management covering every config file;
>>
>> 4) Have critical services replicated where possible - certainly DNS,
>> kerberos, LDAP. Postgresql 9 also makes that possible for RDBMS.
>>
>> If you still want vendor support, it's quite understandable to want to
>> do so - given RedHat a call. Thye have a variety of support levels and
>> response times. I have no experience, but that's where I'd start if I
>> were going down that route. RedHat is not my personal favourite linux
>> (I much prefer Debian) but RedHat is pretty stable, pretty conservative
>> and seems to pretty much stay working.
>>
>> You will want to be careful to do things "their way" and not make your
>> systems too weird or offbeat for best effect.
>>
>> It's also worth mentioning, that for certain application software, eg
>> MySQL or Postgresql you may be able to further contract specialist
>> support for that from another vendor.
>>
>> Also, for RedHat - you can put your most critical stuff on contract and
>> use CentOS (which is a RHEL recompile and free) on the less critical
>> stuff and save money on licenses.
>>
>> =======
>>
>> If you were to tell us what types of servers (ie what applications) you
>> were considering, we might be able to give more specific advice.
>>
>> IME - Linux screws up in less bizarre ways on the whole that some other
>> OSes and is almost always fixable.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> --
>> Tim Watts
> 
> I am interested in KVM virtualization, but beyond that mostly basic
> small office usage (file/print server, dns, dhcp, etc). Maybe some
> simple web/db stuff (wordpress, etc).

KVM is pretty easy to use. I'm using Scientific Linux 6 on my servers and 
KVM VMs for both Windows and Linux. It's trivial to create a VM using the 
virt-manager. After you've created your base VMs you can clone them by 
simply making copies of the virtual disk files. With a Linux VM all you 
have to do is reconfigure the networking for each clone and you're done. 
For a Windows VM you will have to patch the registration number to create 
multiple Windows VMs that can run simultaneously (it's exactly the same 
process as if you were and OEM cloning Windows disks). To back up a VM 
just make copies of your working virtual disks. I use SAMBA and NFS for 
all of my user space on the VMs, that way backups can be done on the 
native Linux systems.

The downside of KVM is that the virtual IO is pretty slow. For CPU 
intensive programs this isn't a problem but of IO intensive programs 
you'll notice it. VMware has much better IO performance but it's not free 
like KVM.

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#1822

General Schvantzkoph wrote:

 
> KVM is pretty easy to use. I'm using Scientific Linux 6 on my servers and
> KVM VMs for both Windows and Linux. It's trivial to create a VM using the
> virt-manager. After you've created your base VMs you can clone them by
> simply making copies of the virtual disk files. With a Linux VM all you
> have to do is reconfigure the networking for each clone and you're done.
> For a Windows VM you will have to patch the registration number to create
> multiple Windows VMs that can run simultaneously (it's exactly the same
> process as if you were and OEM cloning Windows disks). To back up a VM
> just make copies of your working virtual disks. I use SAMBA and NFS for
> all of my user space on the VMs, that way backups can be done on the
> native Linux systems.
> 
> The downside of KVM is that the virtual IO is pretty slow. For CPU
> intensive programs this isn't a problem but of IO intensive programs
> you'll notice it. VMware has much better IO performance but it's not free
> like KVM.

OpenVZ is also interesting. It's not full virtualisation - rather it's 
"containerisaton". Everything runs in it's own space under the same kernel.

Bit like a chroot jail, except each jail:

1) cannot see processes and other facets in other jails

2) each jail is resource limited in several ways at a jail level

3) each jail runs its own full userland but shares a common kernel.

Needless to say, it's a lot more efficient if that model suits you.

-- 
Tim Watts

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#1823

On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 07:49:33 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
> 
>> KVM is pretty easy to use. I'm using Scientific Linux 6 on my servers
>> and KVM VMs for both Windows and Linux. It's trivial to create a VM
>> using the virt-manager. After you've created your base VMs you can
>> clone them by simply making copies of the virtual disk files. With a
>> Linux VM all you have to do is reconfigure the networking for each
>> clone and you're done. For a Windows VM you will have to patch the
>> registration number to create multiple Windows VMs that can run
>> simultaneously (it's exactly the same process as if you were and OEM
>> cloning Windows disks). To back up a VM just make copies of your
>> working virtual disks. I use SAMBA and NFS for all of my user space on
>> the VMs, that way backups can be done on the native Linux systems.
>> 
>> The downside of KVM is that the virtual IO is pretty slow. For CPU
>> intensive programs this isn't a problem but of IO intensive programs
>> you'll notice it. VMware has much better IO performance but it's not
>> free like KVM.
> 
> OpenVZ is also interesting. It's not full virtualisation - rather it's
> "containerisaton". Everything runs in it's own space under the same
> kernel.
> 
> Bit like a chroot jail, except each jail:
> 
> 1) cannot see processes and other facets in other jails
> 
> 2) each jail is resource limited in several ways at a jail level
> 
> 3) each jail runs its own full userland but shares a common kernel.
> 
> Needless to say, it's a lot more efficient if that model suits you.

Is OpenVZ an active project? It doesn't seem to be in the repos for Fedora 
14 or SL6 and the OpenVZ wiki only mentions Fedora 5 & 6 and CentOS 4 and 
5, no mention of a recent distro.

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#1824

General Schvantzkoph wrote:


> Is OpenVZ an active project? It doesn't seem to be in the repos for Fedora
> 14 or SL6 and the OpenVZ wiki only mentions Fedora 5 & 6 and CentOS 4 and
> 5, no mention of a recent distro.

http://wiki.openvz.org/Main_Page

Looks pretty alive... It's certainly an option on loads of hosting providers 
as a cheaper alternative to KVM or Xen.
-- 
Tim Watts

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#1826

On Saturday 16 July 2011 19:19 in comp.os.linux.misc, Tim Watts 
enlightened humanity with the following words...:

> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
>> Is OpenVZ an active project? It doesn't seem to be in the repos for
>> Fedora 14 or SL6 and the OpenVZ wiki only mentions Fedora 5 & 6 and
>> CentOS 4 and 5, no mention of a recent distro.
> 
> http://wiki.openvz.org/Main_Page
> 
> Looks pretty alive... It's certainly an option on loads of hosting
> providers as a cheaper alternative to KVM or Xen.

KVM and Xen are both FLOSS, so how much cheaper can you get? ;-)

That said, OpenVZ is still alive, yes, and so is vServer - which is 
similar.  And now there's also the "Containers for Linux" userland 
software, which works with the mainline kernel.

-- 
Aragorn
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

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#1778

In article <39f71fac-d3bf-4144-a7ee-5d71ebd9c08f@c29g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
snorble  <snorble@hotmail.com> wrote:
>When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
>hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
>takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
>restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy
>issues.
>
[...]
>believe Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux
>for my own stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone
>to call in a pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.

Most Linux-Distributions are done by a commercial organization which also
provides support for money. Debian, which is backed by volunteers, has a
list of consultants [1].

[1] http://www.debian.org/consultants/

cu

AW

P.S. Could you please tell me if (or if not) you see my post in
comp.os.linux.misc?
-- 
[...] If you don't want to be restricted, don't agree to it. If you are
coerced, comply as much as you must to protect yourself, just don't support
it. Noone can free you but yourself. (crag, on Debian Planet)
Arne Wichmann (aw@linux.de)

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#1779

On 2011-07-14, aw@anhrefn.saar.de <aw@anhrefn.saar.de> wrote:
> provides support for money. Debian, which is backed by volunteers, has a
> list of consultants [1].
>
> [1] http://www.debian.org/consultants/

"...people who make at least part of their income from doing *paid* support
for Debian."


> P.S. Could you please tell me if (or if not) you see my post in
> comp.os.linux.misc?

Yes, we can see you misleading post in comp.os.linux.deian.

nb

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#1781

aw@anhrefn.saar.de wrote:

> P.S. Could you please tell me if (or if not) you see my post in
> comp.os.linux.misc?

yes.

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#1780

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:12:03 -0700, snorble wrote:

> When administering Windows servers, I have found that between the
> hardware vendor support (Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support, that
> takes care of most of the big "oh crap" situations, like having to
> restore a domain controller on different hardware or other hairy issues.
> 
> For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same. Dell replaces the
> parts regardless of OS. What about Linux support from vendors? I believe
> Dell has some offerings, and there's RedHat, etc. I use Linux for my own
> stuff, but for a customer it would be nice to have someone to call in a
> pinch. Any advice in this area? Thanks.

Several Linux vendors sell their products with support - so, what's the 
problem?

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#1789

snorble wrote:
>[...]Windows servers[...](Dell, HP, etc) and Microsoft support
>
You've actually gotten support from Redmond?
How much did that cost?

>For Linux, the hardware vendor part stays the same.
>
...except that when you run Linux
you don't have to replace your hardware anywhere near as often.
(No device driver treadmill
...especially if you don't buy from crappy manufacturers
--and THEY don't buy from crappy manufacturers.)

>Dell replaces the parts regardless of OS.
>
You sound shocked.  Have we become that jaded?

>What about Linux support from vendors?
>
Proper (automated?) backups have already been mentioned.
That typically covers the majority of the bumps in the road.

>I believe Dell has some offerings,
>
Dell is still married to The Borg.
When they finally get their divorce, THEN consider them.

In the meantime:
http://google.com/search?q=site:hp.com+Linux&num=100

>and there's RedHat,
>
Bingo.
If you need enterprise support, why would you go elsewhere?

Of course, Sterling Ball of Ernie Ball, Inc.
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
loudly proclaims that his company runs RedHat code
and doesn't pay Raleigh anything.

>etc.
>
Following Novell's sale to a M$ partner,
there isn't a lot of other high-level "etc.".

>I use Linux for my own stuff, but for a customer
>it would be nice to have someone to call in a pinch.
>
Using the Boolean NOT operator with Google
can weed out a lot of the crap "results":
http://google.com/search?q=Linux-support+San-Antonio+-jobs+-job+-Salary+-classes+-training+-drivers+-driver+-announces+-Will-Linux+-Internet+-Location-San+-site:satlug.org&num=100

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#1790

JeffM writes:
> If you need enterprise support, why would you go elsewhere?

Canonical provides enterprise support.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhasler@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

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#1794

John Hasler wrote:

> JeffM writes:
>> If you need enterprise support, why would you go elsewhere?
> 
> Canonical provides enterprise support.

Give me debian/ubuntu over redhat anyday - but one thing worth noting is 
that RHEL does have much longer lifetimes (of support) over even debian so 
if you want a server to go in and work until the hardware is dead, RHEL 
makes that realistic without a major OS upgrade cycle - which can be 
attractive to some people.

-- 
Tim Watts

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#1793

JeffM wrote:


> Dell is still married to The Borg.
> When they finally get their divorce, THEN consider them.

I would say, whilst that is true, Dell also supply actively to the High 
Energy Physics community in the UK at least (the ones who have 200+ servers 
munching CERN data) and *all* of that is Linux based.

Dell's linux support is actually pretty good IME.
-- 
Tim Watts

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