Integrated Solution A third option for the impending upgrade is to move to an integrated environment, using both Linux and Microsoft based operating systems. This option allows for the company to retain Windows clients for necessary departments or software, while still cutting licensing costs, particularly regarding the server environment. Web, mail, FTP, and DNS server can all be migrated to an open-source Linux environment, without the need for costly Microsoft Server licenses. Furthermore, clients that do not need Windows can be migrated to an open-source Linux distribution, further cutting costs. In order to integrate both Windows and Linux environments, Samba is the obvious answer. Samba is open source and available under the GNU …show more content…
By migrating unnecessary Windows clients to an open-source option, the company can cut down on a huge source of cost by reducing the number of Windows licenses. Additionally, webservers can be migrated to open-source Apache (Jahoda, Kratky, & Ancincova, n.d.). Though the cost savings could be enormous, there are some disadvantages to integrating Windows and Linux environments. First and foremost, is user retraining. Employees that are accustomed to using Windows 2000 to complete their daily tasks will likely need to be trained to use Linux clients to accomplish the same tasks. The other problem with this scenario, is the necessary configuration knowledge required to complete the integration. Network administrators must have intimate knowledge of Linux server and SMB configuration to complete a seamless integration. However, once the environments are integrated, the network will behave and function seamlessly, for a fraction of the cost of using a strictly Microsoft environment (Rais, …show more content…
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