French police switch from Windows to Linux

The French national police force has slashed its IT costs by 70 per cent by cutting Microsoft out of the equation.

There are many arguments for or against switching from Windows to Linux. Many times these arguments are based more in fanaticism than fact.

In a recent report, the French national police force, Gendarme National, has provided some great facts supporting the switch from Windows to Linux.

In 2002, the Gendarme National adopted a strictly open-standards IT policy in order to improve inter-organisation communications.

Until 2004, a large part of the IT budget was spent on software licences -- between 12,000 and 15,000 licenses each year. In 2004, an accountant in the Gendarme National tried OpenOffice and, after finding it a surprisingly competent replacement for its paid counterpart, started pushing for it to be adopted within the organization instead of Microsoft Office.

After a while, the police force completely switched over to OpenOffice for all their office needs along with adopting Thunderbird for email and Firefox for browsing. The switch was easy and required little to no training since the open source apps had a similar interface to the paid ones.

In 2007, they decided to go one step further and switch to an open operating system.

"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

Currently Gendarme has about 5,000 PCs running Ubuntu, with another 15,000 planned to be switched over this year. By 2015, they hope to have the entire organization with all 90,000 computers running Ubuntu and open-source software.

This year their IT budget will be cut by 70%, but they will be just as capable as in previous years.  Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard of Gendarmerie estimates that the organization "Since 2004 has saved 50 million euro on licences for standard office applications, hardware and maintenance."

Importantly, the Gendarmerie's reduced IT budget contradicts Microsoft's arguments that the 'total cost of ownership' of Windows is less than Linux, because Windows supposedly needs much less support and integration work than Linux does. The lower actual dollars being spent on IT in the French national police disproves Microsoft's argument -- in this organisation, at least.

If they want to keep their share of the PC market, Microsoft better make sure they offer an easy transition to Windows 7, along with some benefits of transitioning. Otherwise, we will likely be hearing about more and more organizations and businesses switching over to Linux this year and next.

You can view this full article at apcmag

Our January article

Its now time to take the power consumption of your businesses computer network seriously.

The Australian Government is now in the process of mandating an emissions trading scheme.

Its time for "Green computing".

Lowering power consumption could improve your business bottom line and send a signal to you customers that your organisation has a green conscience.

Green IT should be easy but it is essential that systems remain reliable so planning important.

You might ask? If everyone has access to the same computers, how can you improve your green computing credentials?

If you follow our tips here you can be a bit more Eco friendly but if you really want to lower costs contact Tru IT Support

There are lots of things you can do to lower your power consumption at little or no expense and still have a stunning, simple, secure and reliable system, for example:

• As you may have seen in other articles your choice of operating systems can have an effect on power usage. While you might be forced into using Windows on you desktop computers for application compatibility reasons, you could for instance use a Redhat Linux powered server to help lower power consumption.
• Using terminal server and low powered desktops is another realistic method of lowering your total power usage. In this case the client computers do not even need to be running windows for the user to have access to the windows programs.
• Making sure that users only have the amount of computing that they require, and not the highest specified the fastest whiz bang capital and power consuming machine in the catalogue. People doing CAD design need fast GPU's (Graphics Processing Unit), for most of us the on board graphics card is just fine and uses considerably less power.
• Making sure that computers are turned off when not in use is another low cost power saver. It should be the policy for most of us to turn of computers and monitors when not in use. We would suggest during the day just turning off the monitor and powering down the computer, but at night and on the weekends turning them both off at the power point. Exceptions can be made to this policy. For instance, where remote login is required, even then your monitors can probably be turned off.

If your business is in the Brisbane (Australia) area, Tru IT Support will audit your existing computer systems and give you a free written recommendation on lowering your overall power consumption. Just use the Contact page to book your free IT power usage audit.

Our February article

Well the word recession is being given a big work out in the press here in Brisbane and around the rest of Australia. You can have a look at our response to it here.

As for our business, it is growing strongly.

There is always a need for good IT support in Business and we fill that role.

In fact, we are a supplier of services that are suited to tough times.

We can provide solutions that can really lower costs and improve productivity in IT. TruItSupport is over a decade old and has a wealth of experience in providing business with solutions that actually lower costs over time.

Most business spend too much money on their IT solutions. They often buy inappropriate equipment and software.

They are often paying for software that is rarely or never used.

Sometimes they do not even realise it.

That is why when TruItSupport are preparing to support an organisation they always do a free audit of all the existing equipment and systems.

Things might get tight in the economy so it is important right now to take stock of your computer systems and see if there might be a better way. If you are a small to medium business in Brisbane and you have an entirely Microsoft software stack you are almost certainly throwing money away.

Why not Contact us to see if we can improve your IT and save you some money at the same time.

Together we can weather the storm.

Our December article

Passwords and password security.

Passwords and PIN's have come to dominate our lives in the modern on-line world.

Most people have a plethora of passwords and PIN that they have to juggle/remember in order to just function.

We no longer have a friendly bank clerk that recognises us and just hands over the money on the presentation of a pass book.

Instead we slip a card into a machine and then provide a PIN, and when we cannot remember we are left standing forlorn with no one to help us as the machine which can usually recognise our card and PIN number cannot recognise the fact that we are getting really cranky by our third attempt.

The machine while not very forgiving is however trying to protect us from someone who might be less than honest.

Security experts warn us not to write down PIN numbers and passwords as banks will not honour claims for fraud if they discover you had your pin written on your card or in your wallet.

Most people therefore look for methods of recording their passwords and or PIN numbers and then obfuscate them by putting extra letters or digits in front or after the actual number.

Another method people use in order to help them remember is to use the same PIN or password for every account they have.

Neither of these methods is particularly safe, although safer that writing a PIN directly on to the card.

For good security PIN's should be committed to the memory of the user and if they need to be recorded they should be recorded with a high degree of encryption.

On-line passwords generally should be long (eight characters or more) and complex this in itself makes them hard to remember.

Some sites have little value but still require a password here a simple password might suffice.

Specialists recommend using pass-phrases or mnemonics with some character substitution to come up with a password that is secure and easy to remember.

There is of course no such thing as a completely secure password it just that some are much more secure than others.

A good article on creating a secure password is available here at Microsoft

There is more on password strength at Wikipedia

Creating and remembering strong passwords can be frustrating but its your information or money you are trying to protect.

Better late then never,

or maybe not!

"Virgin Blue pursues $20 million in compensation for business loses in check-in crash."

Virgin Blue will seek to recover $20 million lost when it's reservation system crashed last month.

The carrier is expected to demand compensation from Navitaire the company which supplies the NewSkies system which failed on September 26 2010.

Apparently another carrier Ryan air had experienced similar problems in the preceding weeks so Navitaire should have been especially alert to possibility of systems issues with Virgin Blue.

Virgin in this situation are probably in a bind that smaller organisations don't have to face. That is they are locked into a proprietary IT solution because of their need to collaborate with other industry players. This mean that Virgin probably cannot change IT suppliers even if they wanted to.

To an outsider the performance of Navitaire in this situation has been outstanding. When most businesses expect an up-time of 99.99% which means a downtime of around one hour a year and some businesses demanding up-time of 99.999 or about six minuets a year, it is hard to understand how an Navitaire could let their customer suffer an outage of days.

Virgin Blue do not see this situation as causing long term damage to their company. How would your business be perceived if you suffered a similar outage. The concept of disaster recover somehow does not seem to have permeated the people at Virgin Blue or Navitaire and they both should share some responsibility for this. If organisations don't ensure that their IT providers have sufficient disaster recovery for them, the they must share some of the responsibility when disasters happens.

Are you wasting money and resources by having equipment that is too old?

Compact fluorescent performance decreases over time.

While a filament does exist in these lamps, the real work of making light is done by the gas discharge. The light bulb does not just “burn out,” but instead slowly degrades over time putting out less and less light. Because this decay is slow it often goes unnoticed by users until the performance is well below acceptable. The same thing applies to computer monitors. Staff are often staring a monitors that are several years old. This is not only a work place safety issue as it effects the well being of the user but it lowers efficiency of the workers as they strain to comprehend quickly and accurately exactly what they are reading. Given the relative low cost of these devices there is little excuse for not having you monitors less than three years old.

"Whilst it is not exactly the same thing you do get a similar loss of efficiency with windows based computers over time. As the computer gets used more and more and as programs are added and removed there is an apparent loss of performance."

This loss of performance also effects the output of the user so it is also a wise idea to keep the life of your computers relative low if you want to get the best out of your staff. Just as running old fluorescent lamps is a false economy so is running old computer equipment.

Collective amnesia grips industry.

Optus took aim at months of "ill-informed debate" over wireless and fibre infrastructure, criticising policy makers and sections of the telecommunications industry alike for their "collective amnesia" when shaping Australia's broadband future.

In a significant deviation from the CommsDay Summit script - which had so far steered clear of controversy and focused mostly on future applications - Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai took aim at NBN critics who he accused of failing to learn from the past.

"The elephant in the room isn't the NBN; in fact, it's the outbreak of collective amnesia that has gripped our industry over the past couple of years," Krishnapillai said.

"I would love to talk about the applications of the future rather than this but we need to get the lessons of the past right.

"Let's at least try and establish the facts... rather than putting [forward] speculation and a lot of ill-informed debate from people who, frankly, should know a hell of a lot better in terms of what's happened in our sector in the last few years."

Several of Krishnapillai's apparent targets were due to present at the summit later today.

Krishnapillai addressed calls by the Alliance for Affordable Broadband - a collective of wireless and backhaul operators - who argue a case for "infrastructure-based competition (rather than infrastructure monopolies with retail competition).

"People talk about letting infrastructure competition work. Maybe you should learn a lesson from history," Krishnapillai said.

"We have empirical evidence of what happened in the late nineties where Optus rolled out a pay TV network down streets in suburban Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

"Telstra went down the same streets, carpet-bombed the business case and effectively Optus and Telstra wrote off over $1 billion through that period. We were losing $300 million a year through that period at Optus.

"So for those that are very brave to ask - and this is always interesting when people tell other people how to spend their money - for those who are very brave to say we should let infrastructure competition continue, [I say] throw money into it.

"We've certainly seen empirical evidence that that will not work and that's one of the main reasons we support the NBN."

Krishnapillai also mocked suggestions that wireless technologies were a suitable alternative to fibre.

"I hear lots of things from companies that don't even own wireless networks, let alone have spectrum, and [from] other companies who are clearly lobbying very hard to get government subsidies for rolling out those wireless networks, that wireless is in fact the way forward," he said.

"Optus has a very great faith in the future of wireless and in its ability to offer greater broadband capability and, in particular, mobility attached to that capability. But it will always be a complementary service for fixed broadband.

"There are a range of shared network issues, spectrum et cetera that will make it a complementary service. It'll lag fibre in technical capability over time, and it's unikely to be suited to many future applications requiring dedicated and symmetric high capacity access to multiple end users."

He also urged "those who don't actually own wireless networks... to think about the reality of 93 percent-plus access to high speed broadband and what that might look like environmentally" - a reference to the base station density that would be required to deliver very high-speed wireless broadband services that would be somewhere equivalent to those capable of being realised by fibre.

Krishnapillai reserved a special mention for critics who questioned the lifespan of fibre architectures.

"There are still some people querying that there's going to be some new technology that's going to replace fibre and as recently as yesterday people saying that fibre is no longer the technology of the future," he said.

"I'm not exactly sure what parallel universe people live on but fibre will be the way of the future."

Copyright © iTnews.com.au . All rights reserved.

Please use the Contact page to share your requirements with us.