# Upgrade drama
A big news item yesterday was the huge blow-up this week at the British Department of Work and Pensions (via Abiola Lapite and Ed Brill). After touring the news sites it seems that what was meant to be a limited upgrade of a few Windows PCs ended up flattening up to 80% of the 80,000 PC's across the department's network. That's quite an embarassment for Microsoft, especially since many news articles have mentioned that there's a certain uh, unhappiness with MS in their involvement in all of this.
Would a network of 80,000 Linux boxes be any easier to maintain and safely upgrade? I'm not quite sure if that's the right question. Maintaining 80,000 PCs is a major undertaking, irrespective of operating system. I mean, with those sorts of numbers, you've certainly got to have some very smart software keeping machines up to date, and it sounds like perhaps Windows 2000 and XP don't have smart enough software. Do average Linux distros have smarter software?
Equally importantly though, you've got to have some very clearly-thought out, very paranoid and risk-averse and very well-tested policies and procedures to control upgrades and software changes. It sounds to me like the DWP simply didn't have those in place.
Would a network of 80,000 Linux boxes be any easier to maintain and safely upgrade? I'm not quite sure if that's the right question. Maintaining 80,000 PCs is a major undertaking, irrespective of operating system. I mean, with those sorts of numbers, you've certainly got to have some very smart software keeping machines up to date, and it sounds like perhaps Windows 2000 and XP don't have smart enough software. Do average Linux distros have smarter software?
Equally importantly though, you've got to have some very clearly-thought out, very paranoid and risk-averse and very well-tested policies and procedures to control upgrades and software changes. It sounds to me like the DWP simply didn't have those in place.
File under: techie : {2004.11.27 13:50}
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