Kimberly, if you wouldn't mind, take a minute to tell us about EasyStreet and your role there. Kimberly Virostek: I am the Managed Services Delivery Manager here at EasyStreet. We do shared hosting for customers on platforms that we provide, which they share with other customers. We also provide various levels of dedicated host management, where we manage various levels of hardware, operating systems, Web servers, databases, and those kinds of things on their dedicated servers. On those systems, customers may have SharePoint, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Exchange, SQL Server, or other workloads.
The level of management we provide varies. With applications like Exchange and Sharepoint, we typically manage everything, from the hardware all the way up through the software stack. In other cases, like Axapta, we manage the hardware and install the software, but the customer usually has personnel that handle the application after that. Tell us a little about the Linux side of the business. What distribution do you typically provide? Kimberly: Within the last year, we moved from Red Hat to CentOS, which is now the standard.
What are some of the challenges for a hoster providing Windows for customers? Kimberly: Active Directory is wonderful inside of an organization, but we can use active directory as much as a hoster. We might only be hosting one or two servers for a company, and that company has its own Active Directory infrastructure.
Are there things in Windows that work well for hosters? Kimberly: The Windows platform has a lot of advanced features but that doesn’t make it hard to manage. We find Windows to be very easy to manage and understand. In my opinion, when you manage different flavors of Linux, you have to learn many different ways of doing the same thing. With Windows, you just learn the one way something is done. That makes it a lot easier and more productive to administer systems.
Did you standardize on CentOS so that you wouldn't need to know so many ways of doing the same thing? Kimberly: That's exactly the reason. It was just too much work to maintain all those different Linux flavors, each with their own way of doing certain things. With Windows, there's one way to deploy it, and one way to manage it.
One of the other things I really like about Windows is the ability to do patch updates, network wide, regardless of domain structure. That's very nice.
How do you keep the Windows systems updated? Kimberly: We're using WSUS 3.0. We've utilized a group methodology, where we put all of our customers into different groups, and then we can fire off updates to different groups at different times.
Typically, we do our patching once a month, toward the end of the month, which lets us test the updates. Then we start firing them off, and we keep an eye on everything. We make sure it's all coming back up. If we've got load-balanced systems, we update the servers at different times so the customer doesn't see any disruption of service. That's worked out very well for us.
And do you find that Microsoft does a good job at maintaining backward compatibility when they release patches?
Kimberly: I think they do a good job, although it's impossible for any vendor to predict and test for everything. Sometimes there are unforeseen responses to patches, but that's not necessarily any fault of the vendor.
If we do run into issues when we roll out patches, Microsoft's response is very good. I haven't had any reason to believe they haven't done due diligence. In the last year, we have had maybe two occurrences where we have had patches affect three or four Windows systems, out of approximately 150 systems.
When you have to call Microsoft for support, what's the experience like? Kimberly: We are Microsoft partners, and we are working to become certified partners. We have not needed support frequently—maybe two times in the last year. That's typically a situation where we are completely stumped, and it's not an obvious solution to Microsoft when we call in.
We call in with very obscure issues, and the response has always been wonderful. We definitely use them as a resource when necessary, but we just don't find it necessary terribly often.
What do you use for management tools? Kimberly: The majority of the management tools that we utilized are for inventorying, scripting, and/or remote desktop. We haven't found a need for a lot more, but we are growing, and we're looking at things like SMS and maybe Virtual Machine Manager.
Does Windows meet the reliability needs of your business? Kimberly: Absolutely. Way back in the NT 4.0 days, it was a completely different world. But since Windows 2000, the reliability issues have been few and far between. Any reliability issues we run into are typically at the application level, not with the OS itself.
There is nothing that makes me at all uneasy about hosting high-end production systems, like e-commerce sites and so on, on the Windows platform. It seems it's common for Linux advocates to say that Windows isn't reliable or secure. Where do you think that perception comes from? Kimberly: My personal opinion on this, and this is one that I've had for quite some time, is that this closed-mindedness comes from lack of knowledge. I feel that you've got people who are studying Linux, and figuring out how to make things work on Linux. With Windows, they're faced with a GUI and they're not used to it. Of course, it's easier to say, "Windows isn't good enough, or it's unreliable," especially if you don't have time to really learn Windows. It's a big OS, and you're not going to get really knowledgeable over night.
The bottom line is that Windows may be managed through a GUI, but you can dig deeper and deeper and configure it in incredibly detailed ways. You have to really understand the platform—you have to understand how it's meant to be deployed, how it's meant to be used, and what the capabilities are. Even here, we have had some front-line support people who were quick to fall into that mind set. The thing I constantly stressed was, "Don't put the tool down unless you understand it, unless you understand what its limitations and capabilities are." I've overcome a lot of misperceptions just through training. As to security specifically, if you go to some of the higher end security organizations, you will see that Linux is getting hit with as many vulnerabilities as Windows, if not more. You're even seeing the Mac get hit a lot. I see people make a big deal about every Windows vulnerability that happens, and ignore vulnerabilities on other platforms. One thing that we understand is that regardless of the OS, you can't depend upon any one thing to provide security. You have to have layers of security in your network. Sure, the system itself has to be secure, but that's not enough. You have to monitor it and build in layers of defense. We have to keep our customers safe, and we've figured out how to do that on Windows and Linux. I think people forget the fact that the Internet started out as a toy for researchers, and now we're using it to run the world. It's a lot more fun to root for the underdog than the leader, but the bottom line is that Microsoft is a company that found a niche in the market and they went for it, and they did a damn good job of it. There are people who resent Microsoft just because Microsoft was so good at it. What are some of the differences that you see between your Linux and Windows business? Kimberly: There seems to be less demand recently for Linux, versus Windows, although that hasn't always been the case.
I have the privilege of being part of a team that's very open minded with regard to operating systems. They believe, as I do, that it's all about the right tool for the right job. For us, it's not about Windows versus Linux, it's about what's going to work best for the customers and what they're trying to implement. Typically, the customers that come to us already know upfront if they want to go with Windows or Linux. It's not very often that they come to us saying, "What do you think we should do?" But, we have conversations frequently about how things are implemented differently in the two systems. With regard to the fact that our expertise is on different platforms, at an engineering level, we share information, ideas, and concepts about how the platforms do things differently. We understand the benefits of those systems. There is, of course, always the good-natured ribbing that goes on: "Well, if you were a Linux admin, you wouldn't have that problem." "Oh, well, if you were a Windows admin, you wouldn't have this problem." That happens constantly. Does running Windows and Linux internally present any challenges? Kimberly: As a company, we have some issues that are really common. The Linux admins are also using Linux desktops, we have some people using Macs in the company, and everyone else is running on Windows PCs.
Something as simple as shared calendaring is a challenge. It works great if you're running Outlook, or even OWA through Internet Explorer, but shared calendaring with Linux is really a challenge. You said that when customers come to you, they already know if they want Windows or Linux. What are some of the things that cause them to choose one over the other? Kimberly: Mail. Email is a big thing for customers. That great shared calendaring and integration is a big reason for going with Exchange, and Exchange is only available on the Windows platform. Windows just gives people the ability to run more of the applications that they want to use.
They want their mail and calendar on their mobile phones. They want to be able to get to the information when they're not sitting at their desks, which is just the nature of things today. There are a lot of people that are hardly ever at their desks. They're in meetings, or out and having coffee at Starbucks with their next client, or whatever. And you need to be able to sync your information and get it wherever you are. You can run a POP3 or IMAP mail server on Linux or Windows, but the platforms that really help people be productive, like Exchange and SharePoint, only run on Windows. | 
