Amanda,
Notice you say that the XServes are running Linux,
not OSX. They must have had one of those requirements like "server
must be 1U size and run Linux", and their contract department must have gotten
the lowest bid for the XServes. I would truly be surprised to hear of any
Navy command that uses Mac OSX directly, especially on a
server.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the occasional Sun or HP
box are apparently acceptable for "scientific systems", usually because they're
running some old code that no one's going to bother to port over to
Windows. But for day-to-day tasks, you'll be sitting in front of an
all-black Dell Optiplex box (like the one I sadly type on now). When the
NMCI deployment team came through my department a few weeks back, one of the
techs mentioned something on the order of 400,000 machines. All Dells with
state-of-the-art Windows 2000 SP4! Then he said that NMCI has a three-year
refresh of all the systems in the contract. Unless they can remotely
install XP on this 2000 box, it'll be 2009 before I'm using XP. Maybe
Vista will be out by then...
Dell ranting aside, I am of the understanding that I
have the only two Mac OS computers on the network for my entire command.
The folks in IT chain of command have the position of "If you can accomplish all
of your tasks using Windows, you're using Windows." Of course,
accomplishing tasks and level of productivity are two different things, but that
argument will fall on deaf ears. I'm allowed to keep them networked as
long as I keep them STIG'ed and maintain IAVA compliance, but my command does
not support Macs primarily because everyone else that had a networked Mac caved
in many years ago and turned to using a Windows box, not to mention it would
cost the command more money to maintain IT support personnel trained on Mac
OS.
They've been trying for quite some time to completely
abolish the Macs. Soon, our existing scientific network will be going
away, and it looks like my Macs are going with it. They'll become
standalone systems, effectively eliminating the fast, easy and reliable web
access that I've enjoyed for the past six years.
Lonny
Orth
Electronics Engineer
Naval
Oceanographic Office
Stennis Space Center, MS
On Apr 13, 2006, at 3:16 PM, Zinnato, Ronald NAVAIR wrote:
If it doesn't say "Dell" on it,
and it doesn't run Windows, it doesn't exist to the
Navy.
Is this just for desktops? My understanding was that the Navy uses a
bunch of ruggedized XServes running Linux for shipboard number
crunching...
Amanda Walker
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