How smart people make smart companies smarter with Linux

July 2003 feature

Interview: Richard C. Harlan, Network Engineer at John Deere's Ag Marketing Center, Lenexa, Kansas.

DS: [explain the article and the angle I'm looking for]

Richard; I'm involved in two things. First is network monitoring using Nagios. <http://www.sans.org/rr/tools/nagios.php> Right now they're on Red Hat 8 Linux systems. We're also using Samba 3 to serve out our DFS shares. The reason we did that was to get around that whole one-route-per-host issue.

DS: Is this the full extent of what you're doing with Linux in the company?

Richard: It's starting to grow. I know there is a beowulf cluster in one of our factories. But being a marketing location we really don't deal with that too much.

DS: Is what you're doing sanctioned by the top IT guys? Or is it more skunkworky?

Richard: Both those projects are now sanctioned. The network monitoring is sort-of sanctioned. The DFS is sanctioned until Windows 2000n3 comes out. Then we move to Windows 2000n3 for our multiple DFS. That's what we've been told. We've never had any trouble with the system. We built in redundancy using heartbeat <http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5862> to cluster two of them together.

DS: To what extent is Linux welcomed in the company?

Richard: We have an interenal job hosting system, and one of our other divisions just requested a Red Hat Certified Engineer. That's the first time it's ever been brought up in a job description. Linux is getting more and more acceptance.

DS: You mean in the past you'd see postings for MSIEs.

Richard: Or for somebody more based in, like, a mainframe situation. now, there have been talks about moving Linux into the data center on IBM hosts. They won't go with anything other than IBM. IBM says it will support Linux and the hardware.

DS: These are Z series mainframes you have there?

Richard: Just one of their standard Z servers. Not sure.

DS: So the company has a strong relationship with IBM, then.

Richard: Incredibly strong. We have five mainframes and I don't know how many RS 6000s. And tons of AS 400s.

DS: Has IBM pushed Linux there?

Richard: I don't deal much with IBM. We're more of a Compaq shop down here. But the reason, I think, why we're moving Linux is because they want a new version of Websphere. I think it's Websphere. That's the main reason. Everything is supported and it supposedly works better than on NT or Solaris, which is what they used to run it on.

DS: Some companies encourage a lot of initiative by the rank & file. Other companies are pretty strict about that kind of thing. I take it Deere is in the second category.

Richard: Well, it's changing. We used to be very secretive about the Linux work we did, but it's becoming more and more open. When we first started out, working with NetSaint <http://www.netsaint.org/> (now Nagios) to do network monitoring, noone would talk about having a Linux, but if you search around on the Internet, you'll find one or two sites that have it up. But it was always not very publicized. It's open now, however. We'll talk about it to anybody now.

DS: That's encouraged from the top? Or is it just the way things are done?

Richard: It's part of the way things are done now. We're very heavily into cutting costs right now. And when we did an examination of a network monitoring strategy, and what we needed, we figurted pretty much it would be something like OpenView <http://www.openview.hp.com/>. And that kind of product was just way out of our budget at the time. And then we found this open source product that works quite well. Kind of hard to argue about that.

David Scott Williams

• (wewepartment (dubbed 'The Client Interaction Center') was moving down to Tampa, Florida as of April 1st (ie...if I did not want to move down there, I was on my own... either.. get a job in CA somewhere, or be laid off April 1st.) Early December, with no intention to move to Florida, I began to realize that approx 80% of my 130 people org were also not moving down... Also.. I noticed that our support for Mac was being basically dropped, our support for Linux half-assed, and our support for *BSD non-existant. I determined that I would do the most daring thing I had ever done, which was to email the CEO of Computer Associates...
  
  Over the past 2+ yrs, I have emailed him quick replies of encouragement, and it seemed as if he answered me personally (you never know with those open-door CEO types)... This time, I emailed him a ",... I have an idea..and if you promise to keep an open mind, I would like to share it with you". He replied "The worst I could do is disagree..."... So... I hit him with a balls-to-the-wall "we don't get Open Source, and so they don't get us" email... He replied Jan 4th and said "Gary Q will be responding to this".. Gary Q. was a tech-dude who is now an EVP of some dept, and a direct report. Wen Jan 16th rolled around, and no reply had come from GQ, I replied to the CEO "Do you have any idea WHEN GQ will be replying?". The next day, I received a reply from GQ to that email... Sanjay Kumar had forwarded my request for when he'd be getting back with no text of his own... (read:"Do something about this").
  Gary and I met, I prepared a powerpoint, and he was impressed (a friend told me word was GQ digged a .ppt...I thought it highly ironic that I was writing a presentation about OSS on microsoft .ppt ....but you have to start somewhere, eh?
  
  My proposal had been for an "Open Source Ombudsman" position within Computer Associates. That is, someone who could answer internal questions about Open Source software, licenses, whatever, as well as someone who sought to shrug our big nasty soulless ogre rep with the open source world...by making us 'get it'.
  
  Everyone was impressed... GQ seemed scared of me in our meeting, and a guy named Sam Greenblatt who had dressed up in a Penguin suit the week prior to me meeting with him, told Gary he wanted me in his organization asap. That was the last week in January. GQ happened to be my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss. He cleared me for a 2-1-03 transfer to the "Linux Strategy Group". I know they were impressed... because normal rules would state a 2wk 'notice' to my current dept, and because I'm in sales, that would've kept me there through the end of February, because commissions are figured monthly.... and on Thursday 1-30-2, before I ever met with Sam, ownership of the loose cannon was passed from GQ to Sam.
  Needless to say... I am now payed 75% more to NOT answer phones, and to work on bringing CA closer to Linux and Open Source, before Open Source demolishes CA.
  I even said in my email "plans need to be made before our world collides with the open source world, and we sit there gaping, unprepared".
  
  that's the history...as far as our take on Linux, and selling our proprietary stuff against open source and free-as-in-beer stuff.... I could tell you what it is now.. We are going to pitch our stuff based on legality, protection and indemnification. I already told one of our chief technology guys that it was a load of horse-shit (on my first and only day doing this shit, so far... before the baby was born)... I said... 'indemnification' is one tactic...what about solidly written software, pieces tightly coupled for a snug and powerful fit? ((Of course...that answer would mean we'd actually have to solidly write the software... I'll keep you posted))
  
  either way..right now..I am the loose cannon. To get to this group, and out of my lousy job, I broke many rules, jumped over many heads, and said many things I might have never said had necessity not been guiding my hand...
  
  Are you familiar with Computer Associates as a company? Our website sucks, so.. if you have any questions about what we do...go ahead and ask me...
  

The Great Vendor Theory is no less industrial than anything that annoyed Tolstoy in the century before last. In fact, the dot-com stock mania was a throwback to the worst of Big Industrial Thinking. It was the Great Vendor theory on cocaine. We actually thought we could create Great Vendors overnight, just by adding Big VC money and "building a brand". By the Great Vendor theory we granted infinitely more importance to corporations -- especially new ones unencumbered by history -- than they deserved, even in the best of times. Ironically the dot-com bubble set maximum inflation records with the IPOs of Red Hat and VA Linux in late 1999.

Our own shift in thinking is mirrord by Schtumeter,

David Sifry, co-founder and CTO of Sputnik (and earlier of Linuxcare) says

There is a shift going on from product to service oriented companies. In a land where things arfe bule around open standard, where info is moved quickoly and freely around the infosphere, yuou're bgoingt to need to rely on vendors for guaranttees of reliability, servcice quality and data accuracy.

>From: "Hethcoat-III, Charles L" <[email protected]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>
>Dear Doc,
>
>I enjoy your columns; keep up the good work.
>
>I work at Boeing. Please do me a favor and don't publish this
>verbatim, and don't use my name. Sure, paraphrase it; and if you
>want more information about the information below, email me at
>[email protected].
>
>You asked for input. Well, Boeing IT has a new open-source policy,
>as well as a fully-approved open-source toolkit, the "Boeing OSS
>Toolkit", available for employee download from an internal web site.
>Already up to version 3.0, it comes in both Unix and Windows
>flavors. They consist of GNU tools and others, and the Windows
>version is the Cygwin toolkit. Plus, Linux (Red Hat for now) is one
>of the "tools."
>
>The guy who heads up the toolkit project is a take-no-prisoners free
>software advocate, too. I've exchanged several emails with him, so
>I know. The stated purpose of the policy is to permit Boeing to
>save money by eliminating license fees and streamlining the software
>acquisition process, but the clear subtext is to make it possible
>for Boeing to protect its intellectual property from third-party
>(read Redmondian) manipulation.
>
>Part of the new policy is that Boeing IT /officially agrees not to
>complain/ if anyone decides to install these tools on whatever
>computer they use. All that any non-management employee now needs
>to do is get approval from his/her local manager to download and
>install the tools. Managers do not need anyone's permission to
>install it for themselves. Per the policy, /IT does not get
>involved in any way!/
>
>This is an enormous simplification, because, before the policy was
>implemented, even GNU Emacs required an official IT review/approval
>process. Even if your boss wanted it, IT could fight it if they
>wanted to. But, with this new policy, that's now history.
>
>This is huge. Why? Because, if Boeing, with its gazillion
>employees and its long-time use of Windows desktops, suddenly allows
>a modicum of personal choice in software, I think we can start
>seeing Linux popping up everywhere. (Not on every desktop,
>certainly, but in just about every department.)
>
>Furthermore, if Dell, which is Boeing's hardware supplier, begins
>offering a Linux option, then we would be on the verge of a day when
>Linux is as acceptable to Boeing as Windows. Then, when you think
>about how much money Boeing ships to Microsoft, well, put two and
>two together.
>
>Plus, where Boeing is willing to go, surely Motorola, Ford, and
>Halliburton will follow.
>
>Take care.
>
>Charles Hethcoat

Greg Thompson http://www.rap.ucar.edu/~gthompsn/ |
| Research Applications Program |
| (303) 497-2805 National Center for Atmospheric Research |
| (fax) -8401 P.O. Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307-3000

We've aloways been a unix shop. Typ[ically Sun and SGI , at least whenI walked inthe door in 1993. Linux started making inroads in '95.

Hardware was the only reason we went with Linux at first.