4 ms·

Adding my voice to the chorus. The Microsoft Windows ecosystem is a god send for those wanting to enforce single sign on, roaming profiles and group policy to

by leonroy 10y ago

Adding my voice to the chorus. The Microsoft Windows ecosystem is a god send for those wanting to enforce single sign on, roaming profiles and group policy to control things deploy Chrome, 7-Zip or all manner of apps straight to the desktop or lock down access for say the demo room machines but give full access to engineering notebooks and enforce things like password policy, mapped network drives, etc. It honestly just works and is fantastic in practise for companies wanting to enforce good IT policies with 10+ employees (in comparison try doing the above with Mac OS X + Mac OS X Server - like pulling teeth). However Microsoft's licensing is absolutely fracking byzantine. * I first need a server license - is it per socket or per core? * Then I need my desktop licenses - do I need Pro or Enterprise? Or heck, maybe Ultimate only has the regional language options I need? * Then I apparently need a fracking Client Access License for not only Windows Server to Windows Desktop services but for god damn DNS and DHCP services too! Like seriously MS - are you kidding me? So every iOS or Android device which pops up on our Windows DHCP/DNS needs a CAL apparently. Now the whole cluster fudge above would be barely tolerable for any well funded startup or company IF Microsoft made buying these licenses easy. If the above nightmare sounds bad however, just try getting licensed for it all and ensuring you're compliant. It's seriously, a real damn shame because Microsoft Windows Server + Windows desktop is fantastic. When put together it really does work beautifully. It's just such a shame that MS seems to shoot itself in the foot consistently when it comes to figuring out their licensing.

hackbinary 10y ago
> So every iOS or Android device which pops up on our Windows DHCP/DNS needs a CAL Only if you have Device CALs. If you are using User CALs then each user is licensed for as many devices as they/you want. We have good sales company (in the UK) with a really great sales REP. We moved with him when he changed companies a couple of years back. We call him up, and we have an open license the next day. That said there are some pretty aweful MS partners.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
> When put together it really does work beautifully. Except for the forced reboots because their OS still can't completely update itself at run time.
- TylerE 10y ago
  Neither can Linux or OS X.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    Linux goes a long way towards updating while running. In fact, in my seven years of administering Linux – and my distro updates once a week – I never had to reboot to continue an update. Every update - during and after - I could continue using my system exactly as I was using it before. Enterprise Linux also has the feature of updating the kernel on-the-fly. The infrastructure for it has been open-source, and anyone could build a similar service for themselves if they wanted.
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    - lstamour 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean-- the stock kernel loads (let's call it the bootstrap kernel) and then it eventually calls some code that replaces the running kernel with a newer more modern version. I've forgotten the details, as it sounded kludgy, but I'm pretty use like anything else Linux, a reboot isn't always required. In fact, with Nano server, Microsoft is trying to go that direction too -- the less you have running, the easier to avoid reboots. But the real solution is trying to be reboot-tolerant by having a slight bit of redundancy, I would think. Uptime matters more for pet/snowflake servers than for cattle....
      - pritambaral 10y ago
        > I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean What you go on to describe sounds a lot like kexec, and a kexec is the same thing as a reboot for everything on a computer except the hardware. The new kernel during a kexec starts with a freshly-booted state. What I meant was – and perhaps I wasn't clear enough – updating the kernel in-memory, while it runs so that even your userspace apps notice nothing - except perhaps a few fractions of seconds of time slipping by - and continue running while the kernel they're running on top of is patched with new code. This has been possible for a while on Linux. It began with, IIRC, Ksplice as a college-project, then a startup, then bought-out by Oracle for Oracle Linux, then independent efforts at similar implementations by both Red Hat and Suse, which eventually got merged together and mainlined into Linus's tree.
brazzledazzle 10y ago
>in comparison try doing the above with Mac OS X + Mac OS X Server - like pulling teeth Because OS X Server is complete crap. As is ARD. Not even Apple uses OS X Server to manage their devices. I believe they use JAMF's Casper.

by leonroy 10y ago

hackbinary 10y ago

> So every iOS or Android device which pops up on our Windows DHCP/DNS needs a CAL Only if you have Device CALs. If you are using User CALs then each user is licensed for as many devices as they/you want. We have good sales company (in the UK) with a really great sales REP. We moved with him when he changed companies a couple of years back. We call him up, and we have an open license the next day. That said there are some pretty aweful MS partners.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

> When put together it really does work beautifully. Except for the forced reboots because their OS still can't completely update itself at run time.

TylerE 10y ago
Neither can Linux or OS X.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  Linux goes a long way towards updating while running. In fact, in my seven years of administering Linux – and my distro updates once a week – I never had to reboot to continue an update. Every update - during and after - I could continue using my system exactly as I was using it before. Enterprise Linux also has the feature of updating the kernel on-the-fly. The infrastructure for it has been open-source, and anyone could build a similar service for themselves if they wanted.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - lstamour 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean-- the stock kernel loads (let's call it the bootstrap kernel) and then it eventually calls some code that replaces the running kernel with a newer more modern version. I've forgotten the details, as it sounded kludgy, but I'm pretty use like anything else Linux, a reboot isn't always required. In fact, with Nano server, Microsoft is trying to go that direction too -- the less you have running, the easier to avoid reboots. But the real solution is trying to be reboot-tolerant by having a slight bit of redundancy, I would think. Uptime matters more for pet/snowflake servers than for cattle....
    - pritambaral 10y ago
      > I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean What you go on to describe sounds a lot like kexec, and a kexec is the same thing as a reboot for everything on a computer except the hardware. The new kernel during a kexec starts with a freshly-booted state. What I meant was – and perhaps I wasn't clear enough – updating the kernel in-memory, while it runs so that even your userspace apps notice nothing - except perhaps a few fractions of seconds of time slipping by - and continue running while the kernel they're running on top of is patched with new code. This has been possible for a while on Linux. It began with, IIRC, Ksplice as a college-project, then a startup, then bought-out by Oracle for Oracle Linux, then independent efforts at similar implementations by both Red Hat and Suse, which eventually got merged together and mainlined into Linus's tree.

brazzledazzle 10y ago

>in comparison try doing the above with Mac OS X + Mac OS X Server - like pulling teeth Because OS X Server is complete crap. As is ARD. Not even Apple uses OS X Server to manage their devices. I believe they use JAMF's Casper.