VKSF%20423%20System%20Administration%20III

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VKSF 423 System Administration III

• Enterprise Computing and The Role of IT

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Announcements

• Lab Overview
• The goal for the lab portion of this course is
  for you to form an interesting network that
  simulates some of the challenges that are facing
  enterprise system administrators today.
• Seven labs.
• Groups of three people,
• Each group will use eight PCs (two benches).

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Lab Overview cont.

• Lab 1. VMWare configuration and installation of
  guest operating systems, configure core services
  Servers should be mostly configurable from a
  client desktop.
• Lab 2. Authentication -PAM, RSA Secure ID
• Lab 3. Virtualized Storage-
• Veritas Storage Central
• ?
• Lab 4. Clusters

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Lab Overview cont.

• Lab 5. Update Services/ Back-up and Restore
• SUS
• RIS
• Alteris
• Ghost
• Lab 6. Terminal Services
• LTSP
• Citrix
• Windows Terminal Services
• 1Lab 7. Alternative Desktops
• Sun Java desktop
• Lindows
• Xandros

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Lab Topology (Under Development)

• PC Client/Server Operating System Services
• 1 Server Choice Core services
• 2 Server Host Win2k
• Guest Linux
• 3 Server Host Linux
• Guest Win 2k
• 4 Server Win2k AD, SFU, VStorage
• 5 Server
• 6 Client Choice
• 7 Client Choice
• 8 Client Choice

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What is an Enterprise

• Many points of access
• Many devices
• Increasing reliance on Internet for voice and
  centralized data stores.
• Scale
• Complexity

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IBMs Take on Security

• Enterprise issues
• eggt. The IRS has 5000 servers and 125,000
  workstations.
• To manually install a patch takes on average 45
  minutes/workstation.
• 125,000 45 minutes 93,750 hours
• 2000 hours/year 47 employees fulltime
• 45,000/employee 2,000,000/year

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IBMs Take on Security cont.

• T. Rowe Price
• 120 enterprise applications running on their
  network
• 3 to 5 accounts/person
• NYSDOL 1996 Zero PCs
• Federal medicare and medicaid system
  incompatibilities almost forced two PCs/desk.
• Supply chain issues relating to software
  licensing.

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IBMs Take on Security cont.

• Evolution of Disaster recovery
• From flood or fire
• maintaining tape libraries
• To Protection against regional disasters
• Highly resilient infrastructure (Internet
  outages)
• Awareness of business interdependencies
• Data explosion (including paper records)
• Complete primary facility loss
• Loss of personnel
• Old paradigm Experience and react
• New Paradigm anticipate and adjust

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IT Doesnt Matter

• Who is the author?
• What is their incentive?
• Scarcity not ubiquity makes a business
  resource truly strategic. Companies gain an edge
  by having or doing something others cant have or
  do.

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IT Doesnt Matter cont.

• IT is now ubiquitous
• Other ubiquitous resources include
• Electricity
• Railroads
• Natural gas
• Skilled, and literate workers
• Access to markets

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IT Doesnt Matter cont.

• How do you manage a ubiquitous resource?
• Focus on risk, not opportunities
• Spend less
• Follow, dont lead
• Greatest risk with IT Overspending
• Goal provide computing resources to users like
  any other utility

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IT Doesnt Matter cont.

• IT as a utility comparable to electricity?
• Have we overbuilt capacity?
• Will standardization in IT lead to
  standardization in business process?
• Can strategic value be gained through the
  application of IT?

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Carrs New Rules For Management

• Because the opportunity to gain strategic value
  from IT are disappearing managers should do the
  following
• Spend less.
• Follow, dont lead.
• Focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities.

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Brown and Hagel Response

• Carr captures zeitgeist of managers.
• Broad lessons regarding IT
• Extracting value from IT requires innovations in
  business practices.
• ITs economic impact comes from incremental
  innovations rather than big bang initiatives.
• The strategic impact of IT investments comes from
  the cumulative effect of sustained initiatives to
  innovate business practices in the near term.

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Brown and Hagel Response cont.

• It has never been true that IT matters in
  isolation. It only matters in the context of a
  concerted effort to innovate based on new
  possibilities and opportunities created by
  technology. Then it matters- and will continue
  to a lot.