samba - Mar 2000 - Looking for Large Scale SAMBA Install Success / Failure Stories

Samba Users,

I am looking for a Large Scale SAMBA success or failure story.  I have been
using Samba for a long time without any issues, however replacing many
Netware servers with Linux/Solaris running Samba is a different story. Here
is what is running through my mind

1. Novell 4.x causes a never ending stream of problems, including attacking
and flooding the network with NDS tree fragments.  Essentially a DoS attack.
Not to mention to go to Novell V 5.0 and possibly get software that works,
Novell want hundreds of thousands to to upgrade.

2. Do I really want to take on the headaches of file and print services for
the PC community? Sure I could grow my team, but how robust is samba?  The
big three of user complaints are 1) I can't login, 2) I can't print, and
3)
The server is down.  This would expose me to all 3.  Wouldn't it be
better/easier to form a new Windows2000 team and give them the cash from the
Novell upgrade and do a migration?

3. How well does Samba work with things like Micro$oft access?  Will Samba
do all the locking properly?  We already have an Access Database corruption
problem. Will it get worse, stay the same, or get better?

4. Samba = MicroSoft Networking = spam the network with NetBeui traffic.
What is the network impact?  Not to say that IPX is a network lightweight by
any means, especially with the recent Novell NDS spams.

5. I trust UNIX (Linux / Solaris).  UNIX to date has not failed me.  It has
hosted databases, applications, webservers, faxservers, served disks, and
printers and basically runs SOLID.  

Please help me take the plunge or stop me before I make a big mistake!  I am
typically a UNIX/OpenSource biggot, but I have learned the "using the right
tool for the right job" usually is the right thing to do.

Keep up the great work! Samba rocks!

Michael George III

perotsystems Corporation / Rouge Steel Account
Office: 313.317.6724  
email1: mgeorge3@rougesteel.com
email2: Michael.George@ps.net

"George, Michael" wrote:
> 
> Samba Users,
> 
> I am looking for a Large Scale SAMBA success or failure story.  I have been
> using Samba for a long time without any issues, however replacing many
> Netware servers with Linux/Solaris running Samba is a different story. Here
> is what is running through my mind
> 
> 1. Novell 4.x causes a never ending stream of problems, including attacking
> and flooding the network with NDS tree fragments.  Essentially a DoS
attack.
> Not to mention to go to Novell V 5.0 and possibly get software that works,
> Novell want hundreds of thousands to to upgrade.
> 
> 2. Do I really want to take on the headaches of file and print services for
> the PC community? Sure I could grow my team, but how robust is samba?  The
> big three of user complaints are 1) I can't login, 2) I can't
print, and 3)
> The server is down.  This would expose me to all 3.  Wouldn't it be
> better/easier to form a new Windows2000 team and give them the cash from
the
> Novell upgrade and do a migration?
> 
> 3. How well does Samba work with things like Micro$oft access?  Will Samba
> do all the locking properly?  We already have an Access Database corruption
> problem. Will it get worse, stay the same, or get better?
Samba fully supports oplocks and should have no problem with Access
databases. I use it with Access, as do others I know, and while getting
the locking set up correctly can occasionally be troublesome to start
with, it shouldn't present any serious problems.
> 4. Samba = MicroSoft Networking = spam the network with NetBeui traffic.
> What is the network impact?  Not to say that IPX is a network lightweight
by
> any means, especially with the recent Novell NDS spams.
Samba uses NetBIOS calls, but these are all over TCP/IP. Samba
implements Microsoft Networking  *only* over TCP/IP. 
> 5. I trust UNIX (Linux / Solaris).  UNIX to date has not failed me.  It has
> hosted databases, applications, webservers, faxservers, served disks, and
> printers and basically runs SOLID.
Samba, in my experience, is similarly solid.
> Please help me take the plunge or stop me before I make a big mistake!  I
am
> typically a UNIX/OpenSource biggot, but I have learned the "using the
right
> tool for the right job" usually is the right thing to do.
Personally, I think Samba is the right answer for you. I use it to serve
only 50 or so users here, but I know of one person using it to serve
57,000 users across an NT domain environment, so it certainly does
scale...

HTH

Mike