L
Lanarkshire IT Services
New Member
Hi All
I have been working on this for a while now due to customer demand and trying to meet needs based on cost / hardware spec etc.
Anyway we all know that Windows server products such as Server 2003 / 2008 / SBS etc are quite expensive and come with the extra hassle and expense of CALs (Client Access Licenses) which frankly some businesses just cannot afford.
So what I have been trying to do is provide an alternative that can do the same job, namely provide centralisation of files / users / printers etc and move organisations up from the workgroup type of IT setup.
In steps Linux Appliances in either:
File Server or
Samba Primary Domain Controller (PDC) versions
Both are based Ubuntu Linux.
These are available to install onto an empty (bare metal) server or as virtual machines (VM) that can be run under ESXi (FREE),VMWare, Virtualbox etc.
They can even be deployed quickly and easily to Amazons EC2 cloud computing services.
I would suggest playing with the VMs first before deploying to bare metal but its entirely up to you.
I have tested these with Windows clients (XP and Vista) as well as MAC clients. Your linux clients such as Ubuntu desktop will be fine as well.
The real beauty is that you can now have a server which will serve Windows / MAC / Linux clients and NOT be tied down with CALs etc.
I am going to continue in this project and create step by step guides etc and keep you all posted in developments.
Regards
I have been working on this for a while now due to customer demand and trying to meet needs based on cost / hardware spec etc.
Anyway we all know that Windows server products such as Server 2003 / 2008 / SBS etc are quite expensive and come with the extra hassle and expense of CALs (Client Access Licenses) which frankly some businesses just cannot afford.
So what I have been trying to do is provide an alternative that can do the same job, namely provide centralisation of files / users / printers etc and move organisations up from the workgroup type of IT setup.
In steps Linux Appliances in either:
File Server or
Samba Primary Domain Controller (PDC) versions
Both are based Ubuntu Linux.
These are available to install onto an empty (bare metal) server or as virtual machines (VM) that can be run under ESXi (FREE),VMWare, Virtualbox etc.
They can even be deployed quickly and easily to Amazons EC2 cloud computing services.
I would suggest playing with the VMs first before deploying to bare metal but its entirely up to you.
I have tested these with Windows clients (XP and Vista) as well as MAC clients. Your linux clients such as Ubuntu desktop will be fine as well.
The real beauty is that you can now have a server which will serve Windows / MAC / Linux clients and NOT be tied down with CALs etc.
I am going to continue in this project and create step by step guides etc and keep you all posted in developments.
Regards
