CentOS - Jul 2010 - Small Business support for *nix systems in Spain

Hello,

This message just came across on another mailing list I am on. The 
little dig on Unix as being old and Windows being new got me annoyed so 
I wanted to reply, but with some real contacts that he asks for at the end.

I figured there might be some folks who could help him out. Feel free to 
reply on list or to me, and I will forward on your contact info.

Message follows:

"
Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the 
point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it?s 
an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems 
obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more 
modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer 
consultants we work with have suggested two options:

- Moving to Windows Terminal server (cheaper)
- Moving to Citrix with virtualized servers (more expensive but 
apparently much faster and more powerful).

Does anybody have any experience wotking on Citrix (or Windows Terminal 
Server) and have any views on them? 

Are there better options available for small to mid sized companies (we 
currently have 50 or so users logging it but expect to grow to 150-200 
relatively quickly).

Finally does anyone have any contacts in Spain that you coud recommend 
for something like this?

"

End of quoted message.

Take care,

Kurt Hansen
CharityWeb

2010/7/23 Kurt Hansen <khansen at charityweb.net>:
> Hello,
>
> This message just came across on another mailing list I am on. The
> little dig on Unix as being old and Windows being new got me annoyed so
> I wanted to reply, but with some real contacts that he asks for at the end.
>
> I figured there might be some folks who could help him out. Feel free to
> reply on list or to me, and I will forward on your contact info.
>
> Message follows:
>
> "
> Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the
> point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it?s
> an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems
> obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more
> modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer
> consultants we work with have suggested two options:
>
> - Moving to Windows Terminal server (cheaper)
> - Moving to Citrix with virtualized servers (more expensive but
> apparently much faster and more powerful).
>
> Does anybody have any experience wotking on Citrix (or Windows Terminal
> Server) and have any views on them?
>
> Are there better options available for small to mid sized companies (we
> currently have 50 or so users logging it but expect to grow to 150-200
> relatively quickly).
Replacing old Unix with modern Linux like Centos :)

LTSP or NoMachine (NX) based terminals are cool.

Br,
--
Eero,
RHCE

Kurt Hansen wrote:
> Hello,
>
> This message just came across on another mailing list I am on. The
> little dig on Unix as being old and Windows being new got me annoyed so
> I wanted to reply, but with some real contacts that he asks for at the
> end.
>
> I figured there might be some folks who could help him out. Feel free to
> reply on list or to me, and I will forward on your contact info.
Should I start with "Dear Untrained and unqualified amateur"?

  mark
>
> Message follows:
>
> "
> Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the
> point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it?s
> an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems
> obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more
> modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer
> consultants we work with have suggested two options:
>
> - Moving to Windows Terminal server (cheaper)
> - Moving to Citrix with virtualized servers (more expensive but
> apparently much faster and more powerful).
>
> Does anybody have any experience wotking on Citrix (or Windows Terminal
> Server) and have any views on them?
>
> Are there better options available for small to mid sized companies (we
> currently have 50 or so users logging it but expect to grow to 150-200
> relatively quickly).
>
> Finally does anyone have any contacts in Spain that you coud recommend
> for something like this?
>
> "
>
> End of quoted message.
>
> Take care,
>
> Kurt Hansen
> CharityWeb
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

On Jul 23, 2010, at 3:05 PM, Kurt Hansen <khansen at charityweb.net>
wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This message just came across on another mailing list I am on. The 
> little dig on Unix as being old and Windows being new got me annoyed so 
> I wanted to reply, but with some real contacts that he asks for at the end.
> 
> I figured there might be some folks who could help him out. Feel free to 
> reply on list or to me, and I will forward on your contact info.
> 
> Message follows:
> 
> "
> Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the 
> point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it?s 
> an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems 
> obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more 
> modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer 
> consultants we work with have suggested two options:
I think you're reading into this too much.

It sounds like their running an old serial or X terminal server based on
SCO/HPUX or something and they are thinking of going to a Windows based terminal
server.

For a small company I'd probably suggest MS terminal servers, running under
ESX on big hardware so they can provision them out over time.

-Ross

On 07/23/10 12:05 PM, Kurt Hansen wrote:
> Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the
> point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it?s
> an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems
> obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more
> modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer
> consultants we work with have suggested two options:
>
> - Moving to Windows Terminal server (cheaper)
> - Moving to Citrix with virtualized servers (more expensive but
> apparently much faster and more powerful).
before picking an operating system for the central server, its a good 
idea to pick the Point-of-sale system architecture.

using terminal server/citrix/nx/etc type connectivity for POS from 
remote locations means if the network is down, the cash registers are 
down.  thats not good.     most POS systems have a local onsite store 
server at each location, the registers are terminals to this server, but 
usually run the cash register POS software directly, then the store 
server communicates with the corporate mothership as needed, either live 
or batching transaction logs as appropriate.

different sorts of retail businesses have widely varying POS 
requirements, for instance, the POS system for a restaurant chain is 
very different than the one for a auto parts chain.

All these questions should be sorted out long before getting into 
implementation details like operating systems, hardware platforms.