Searching for a Directory Service Solution?

kumulan wonders: "I've got the responsibility to set up directory services as well as a messaging/groupware system for my organization of app. 100 employees spread out over three locations. We are a startup that is merging three existing smaller companies and, given the state of existing IS infrastructure at each of these locations, the decision has already been made that we are better off starting from scratch. It would be great to hear from Slashdot readers concerning which option is 'better' and why."

"For me, the choices are stark and clear:

1. MS Exchange/Active Directory
2. A cobbled-together solution based as much as possible on OSS (as no direct equivalent exists).

For (2) we have evaluated, and are strongly considering, the following:

• Samba/OpenLDAP/Kerberos
• Bynari Insight Server for messaging/groupware.
• Nitrobit Group Policy for, you guessed it, group policy management.

Of course, Samba 4 will address some of this 'cobbling', but we can't wait for that."

Easy.

[XorNand]

So, the question seems to be: OSS vs. Microsoft. Am I right? If so, the answer is easy: Which platform are the people who will be managaging the stuff have the most experience with? It may be sacrilege to say it here, but if you've a crew of MCSEs on staff who've never touched Linux, it's going to be more expensive and a bigger hastle go the OSS route.

I forget who said it but "OSS is free like a puppy is free". You need to have the staff to tend to the care and feeding. In the Detroit area at least, Windows guys are a dime a dozen. Competent Windows guys, while a bit more rare, are still easier to find than experienced Linux admins. (Of course, I'm looking at your question from a business consulting standpoint. If you're looking more for a technical recommendation, there's a lot more people here better qualified than me.)

Re:Easy.

[ndansmith]

You may be underestimating just how much is actually costs to get a Microsoft enterprise solution off the ground. You have to pay for the Server 2003 software, Exchange, XP Pro (volume), Office, Terminal Services licenses, and don't forget server CALs. Plus, you have to worry about Microsoft "obsoleting" your software via Vista, Longhorn Server, Blackcomb, and beyond; another round of licensing (and by extension of Vista's hardware requirements: another round of hardware updates / replacements).

Sure, it may require a fine tooth comb and/or training to get some qualified Linux guys on board, but I doubt that compares with the expense of purchasing the Microsoft solution.

Re:Easy.

[XorNand]

Not really--I myself and am MCSE and run my own consulting company where the majority of my clients run Active Directory. I'm quite aware of the costs. MS includes a license for Outlook when you buy a CAL for Exchange, so that extra expense is negated. OpenOffice also might make a viable office suite for this person, but the question was about directory services. Terminal Services is a non-issue in the same regard.

And it's not as cheap and easy to get quality techies as you might think. Putting your existing staff through a boot camp is only the tip of the iceberg expense-wise, and it's a very inefficent solution.

Re:Easy.

[XorNand]

For the record, I'm also a CNE and greatly prefer NDS to AD. However, it would wrong of me to recommend to a client that they actually consider a new installation of Netware just because it's technically superior, or worse, just because I like it more.

A lot of techies forget that technical and business interests sometimes conflict. In such cases, business interests always need to be given a greater priority.

Re:Easy.

[arc.light]

You can run NDS (or eDirectory, or whatever they're calling it these days) and many other Novell products on Linux without any NetWare servers.

Re:Easy.

[Ucklak]

I may be wrong here as to how it is with the current market but MS including a license for Outlook is almost a false positive that started during Exchange 2000 deployment.

What I mean by this is if you're on some SA plan or Open license (I deployed quite a few MOLP), and you wanted Office AND Exchange, you still had to buy the Standard Office Suite AND Exchange CALS so you ended up buying licenses for Outlook twice.

Now you can look at that a couple of ways. You buy an Exchange CAL and you get access to it (

AD is no silver bullet

[Alioth]

Additionally - Active Directory et al. isn't as easy as people would lead you to believe ("It's Windows! It has a GUI! Therefore it's easy!")

We just had Active Directory rolled out here. Our performance problems were so bad we had to hire Microsoft consultants to try and figure it out - and these people from the company that makes the product took over a month to actually come up with a solution that ran only half as quickly as our old Novell system. Admittedly, it's a much bigger system than 100 users (and

SunONE Directory Server

[CrudPuppy]

While I would normally say use OpenLDAP, Sun has recently made a version of their Directory Server free and open source. Their GUI management is excellent, and it supports Multi-Master Replication.

In case you're not familiar with MMR, think about your normal scenario. Maybe you have 1 master server and 2 slaves, one for each physical location. with MMR, you quite literally have 3 master servers, all of which can be updated and will push the changes to the others. This means no more worrying about losing

Re:SunONE Directory Server

[Ath]

Wow. MMR sounds great. But it isn't. It's nothing more than a half-baked feature set compared to Novell's eDirectory. Since its release in 1993, eDirectory has supported partitions and replicas of the directory with full backlink support for all resources.

What that means is that you don't tie up your WAN link with unnecessary directory traffic sending sync messages when they aren't necessary.

What I find amazing is that people just reject eDirectory too often because it is from Novell. It is fully LDAP v

Re:Easy.

[zulux]

if you've a crew of MCSEs on staff who've never touched Linux, it's going to be more expensive and a bigger hastle go the OSS route.

MS's newest/latest/greatest has a large learning curve as well. You old MCSE who knows Windows Domains will have just as much trouble learning Active Directory as he would have learning Samba 3.

I've trained MCSEs in open source technology - about 50% do just fine. The otheres were paper MCSEs and sucked at Windows too.

Re:Easy.

[hagrin]

MS's newest/latest/greatest has a large learning curve as well. You old MCSE who knows Windows Domains will have just as much trouble learning Active Directory as he would have learning Samba 3.

I've trained MCSEs in open source technology - about 50% do just fine. The otheres were paper MCSEs and sucked at Windows too.

Ok, so you're saying techies trying the latest and greatest without any training fail more often than the users who received your training in OSS solutions? So, obviously, the parent s

Re:Easy.

[Tadrith]

This is definitely true. I've found it much easier, if instead of thinking of people as Windows techs, or Linux techs, you simply think of them as techs.

A good tech should not be afraid of discovering and learning any system he or she might put their hands on, because part of being a good tech is learning how to keep your mind open and troubleshoot a problem. It doesn't matter if the problem is Windows, Linux, or a coffee maker -- you use the tools that you have to do the best job you can.

I am a programmer for a living, but I also do double time as a technician. I am just as comfortable configuring Windows Server 2003 as I am with Novell Netware 6.5, or any flavor of Linux. I don't see it as my job, or my passion, to devote myself to one platform. My job is to help people with computers and give them advice on what solution works best for them. Of course, I have a primary area of expertise, but that doesn't stop me from learning on my own.

Re:Easy.

[Total_Wimp]

A good tech should not be afraid of discovering and learning any system he or she might put their hands on, because part of being a good tech is learning how to keep your mind open and troubleshoot a problem. It doesn't matter if the problem is Windows, Linux, or a coffee maker -- you use the tools that you have to do the best job you can.

This is probably true for new guys learning an in-place system or a few new systems added to the familiar core network, but far less true for a bunch of newbies (to the system in question) trying to design something good from scratch.

A good ADS guy will know how to design a good forest, he'll know how to acquire and install the necssary patches, he'll know how to set up a secure systems and he'll know the quality sources of help when he needs them. He'll know which built-in and third party utilities will save his bacon and he'll know what to check on if stuff stops working.

The only thing that will teach an MS guy how to do all this with Open Source is experience. The only way he'll get that is with a bunch of time working with the products in question.

In other words, it's dangerous as hell to trust your brand new network with a bunch of noobs. Even if they're very bright noobs who will catch on quickly, you take quite a risk while they're doing the catching on. Put a bunch of these guys under a couple of experienced people and they'll likely do ok with the new network, but if you don't have that experience on hand you're begging for trouble if you uproot a known system and throw a bunch of new stuff in to replace it.

TW

Re:Easy.

[Daengbo]

While I agree with you, the K12OS mailing list that I continually lurk on has quite a few inexperienced Linux fols, and the single sign-on issue has basically been solved by one of them. David Trask has put together a script which automates setting up smb-ldap for a PDC, and it's here: http://web.vcs.u52.k12.me.us/linux/smbldap/ [k12.me.us]

As for a groupware solution, I currently use egroupware ( http://egroupware.org/ [egroupware.org] ), which is fairly mature, can authenticate to ldap, and can be used both over the web and thorugh

Re:Easy.

[killjoe]

Just be sure to include your long term costs when you are evaluating. you should calculate the costs of integration and upgrades too. MS products don't work well with other companies products and will inevitably cost you hundreds of man hours if you are ever presented with the problem of integrating non standard MS software with software from other vendors.

As far as admins go studies have shown that unix admins on average maintain more servers per admin then windows admins. You may be able to do with one unix admin as opposed to two windows admins.

windows machines as a rule run less services per machine then unix machines do. This means more servers, which means, more servers to patch, keep up to date, backup, and admin.

Finally the perenial problem of backups and bare metal recovery. This is trivial in unix but costs thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars for windows.

There is a lot to think about. Just saying I have used windows XP before so i can maintain a active directory/exchange environment is plain old stupid.

Re:Easy.

[TedCheshireAcad]

Parent has a valid point, setting up and administering your OSS solution will take more work. However, you can tailor it better to your needs.

I worked at Major Software Company in the Bay Area (tm), and their LDAP/Kerberos/Jabber/SMTP infrastructure worked very well, but of course, there were armies of admins to make things run smoothly. It was not without hiccups - but most if not all of the hiccups were minor (failed hard drives, etc.) and remedied within 20 minutes.

My vote is for LDAP. You can do so much with it - authenticating users on your web apps is a cinch, directory lookups are easy, it integrates with every piece of mail client software, and it's free. Just my $.02.

Re:Easy.

[sillypixie]

I think you are missing more than a few options there.

IBM has directory services.

Sun has directory services.

Novell has directory services.

My thoughts:

- the problem with IBM's directory is that it sits on top of DB2. This abrogates one of the coolest parts about directories - that you don't need a DBA. And a mistuned IBM directory is an ugly, ugly thing.

- the Sun/Netscape/iPlanet/SJSDS-whatever-they-call-it-t his-second tends to run well directly out-of-the-box without the need for much in the way of expertise, in smaller environments. I would call this directory the defacto standard (although this statement may now be obsoleted by the advance of AD - hard to say). If you are using other SUN infrastructure, or if you are using the Sun Calendaring/Messaging product (which I would recommend as a very solid alternative to MS exchange), this DS is an excellent choice.

- Novell - well if you are a Novell shop, you will use NDS. You will use everything else Novell has. It is sort of like joining a secret cult.

- OSS - I would consider this an advanced option. My suggestion is, if you know nothing about directory services, that you would be better off with something a little more... packaged. I'm sure many here will rabidly disagree with me, but I certainly would consider that choice as risky. A second issue is that many LDAP-enabled products that you may wish to run on top of your directory layer (provisioning, WSSO, etc) only support commercial directory servers.

- Microsoft - well, you're probably going to have to install this one anyways, in order to get a LAN. Although I'm a unix chick at heart, I must admit that I have seen many well-run AD directories. If you aren't already in the UNIX world for any good reason, AD is probably a logical direction. Many many companies have cut their directory services teeth this way. The disadvantage is that your Enterprise Directory is also your NOS, which can be a pain from a licensing perspective, if you want to store authentication-only users as well.

FWIW, hope that helps...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:one caveat

[Raspberry]

Actually I can say I worked on one of the largest directories in the world... over 52 million user objects and hundreds of millions of objects.

AD does not scale well. Senior Mgmt wanted to move from eDirectory to AD due to some price breaks on desktop os and MSOffice for over 50000 employees... so we made the attempt with Microsoft in house providing consulting services... they eventually admitted even they couldn't get it stable in our large distributed environent... during the one year migration troubleshooting process we had contractors restarting servers in hundreds of locations around the clock.

We're now back on Novell eDirectory with Open Enterprise Server and stable again.

Re:one caveat

[JourneymanMereel]

So because of a price break on OS and MS Office management decided to move 52 million user objects and change the backbone of the distributed network? For a large corporation, what you save on the "price break" for those 50000 employers is negligent compared to what the total cost of the project, long term and short term.

You obviously haven't worked with the management I have. Most decisions seem to be made based around golf buddy opinions rather than technical superiority.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Easy.

[Xerp]

Oracle has directory services too.

Microsoft Exchange was mentioned, so you may be looking for something like Oracle's Collaboration Suite which, like Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft's Active Directory, features a Directory, Calendar, Tasks and Email system.

100 users is a very small implementation, but even at these low figures you'd probably be surprised to find out that a market leader such as Oracle can provide a system that is actually much cheaper than Microsoft's!

To be honest, if can can avoid locking

Re:Easy.

[killjoe]

The Sun/iplanet ldap server has been bought by Red Hat and open sourced. You can find it here [redhat.com]

"The disadvantage is that your Enterprise Directory is also your NOS, which can be a pain from a licensing perspective, if you want to store authentication-only users as well."

Other disadvantages include cost, vendor lock, increased maintenance, and inability to interoperate.

Finally I would also look at oracle, they too have a directory and an excellent groupware system which in many ways is superior to exchange.

Easy: Novell

[ImaLamer]

Novell - well if you are a Novell shop, you will use NDS. You will use everything else Novell has. It is sort of like joining a secret cult.

Not true, you can use Novell's NDS (eDirectory, the LDAP server software) right on top of Linux, Unix, or Windows. The admin tools are almost all Java based or otherwise accessible so you aren't locked in there (clients and management tools for Linux, Unix and Windows). Novell can manage the rights, er permissions, er privileges for clients of any flavor (because a directory services solution is about managing the resources on the network) - and has less bloat and more security than Active Directory.

Novell is my choice hands down. It isn't the nightmare product it used to be. Quite flexable, scalable and for all intents and purposes "open". This product actually follows standards! In my experience it also prices cheaper for clients than Active Directory, although you never know because I'm sure it has changed.

The person who asked this question initially said that the only other option to Active Directory was A cobbled-together solution based as much as possible on OSS (as no direct equivalent exists)

This simply isn't true. There is eDirectory and it's better! [novell.com] (PDF) Wake up people! It's 2005 and there is a better option out there and to top it all off they are a Linux company [suse.com] too.

Maybe not so easy.

[jd]

Let us say that you build a direct equiv. in Linux. "Impossible!" I hear you cry! Well, maybe not. Not unless you've cracked into my machine and installed an MP3 of yourself.

Anyways, let us examine the different components and see how far OSS can take us. Maybe it can't go the whole journey, but if it can do some, then a hybrid solution will work.

Open Groupware [opengroupware.org], SuSE's Open Exchange [novell.com] and OSER [freshmeat.net] will handle the Exchange part, including support for all those MS Exchange clients, such as Outlook.

That just leaves the Active Directories part. ISC's DHCP [isc.org] supports Dynamic DNS. However, you may want to add in DHCP2LDAP [netfoo.org] to get a good link between DHCP and BIND. OpenLDAP [openldap.org] provides the LDAP implementation part. Kerberos [mit.edu] and DNS [isc.org] are easy (although some may quibble with my choice of Kerberos version!)

Provided you're not planning on having both MS Active Directory and the above amalgam running, you should then be set to go with a comprehensive Active Directory lookalike which will interact with client systems in the same way Microsoft's software will.

The problem I found is that there's almost no way of getting from a Linux solution -to- Active Directory. If AD is present, it must be a root server, which Linux CAN pull from.

Do I recommend this kind of a setup? Probably not. The Exchange and Groupware stuff should be fine, but the Active Directory stuff isn't as coherent as it could be and I've heard of nobody who has completely replace AD with an Open Source solution, even though from a purely technical perspective it should be possible.

Re:Maybe not so easy.

[Korgan]

May I introduce you to an opensource Directory solution that quite nicely replaces Windows Active Directory. Many moons ago it started life as just OpenLDAP but it is now become so much more.

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/opendi rectory.html [apple.com]

Good ol' Apple.

Darwin, *BSD, Linux, various Unixes. Builds with GCC and source is available under Apple's OpenSource license.

Redhat's RHDS available on subscription for RHEL3 and RHEL4 is another. Based on Netscape Directory Services. Thats mostly available under the GPL now, called Fedora Directory Server.

http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/ [redhat.com]

Personally my favourite has been eDirectory. It may not be opensource or even free, but the little you do pay for it is definitely worth the product. Anyone skipping over it is either deliberately obtuse or just plain ignorant. Especially if they're willing to pay for Active Directory and all the costs that go with it (including licensing, security and maintence/administration) while receiving a far inferior product.

Ultimately, Ask Slashdot is the worst place for the original poster to ask this kind of question. They need to sit down with people from various companies and vendors to get an idea of all available products. Many will happily discuss the requirements and work together with you to find the best solution, not just sell you a solution from a preferred supplier.

Ask various engineering places in the district to submitt RFP's based on requirements you set. It doesn't have to be a multi-million dollar contract to get many interested. Companies are starting to really take notice of the SME market now days. Ultimately the have to. ;-)

En abyme

[timeToy]

There is no directory service for directories services ?

3. Mac OS X Server

[dgatwood]

Considered Open Directory [apple.com]?

Re:3. Mac OS X Server

[Penis_Envy]

The questioner did mention openldap. The advantage of going to the apple solution would be the integration that it would provide, rather than "cobbling" together the solution themselves (as they said themself.) It's not just the GUI. Then again, it would be one more thing to manage/maintain.

Re:3. Mac OS X Server

[macshome]

Open directory is (as I understand it) basically openLDAP with a config file and a nice GUI. Don't get me wrong, GUIs are useful, but if you want to go OSS, cut out the middleman.

Well, it's a bit more than that. With a few button clicks you can have a fully functioning Directory Service with OpenLDAP and Kerberos. You get password policies, single sign on for everything from mail to smb to web, and you even get a one click samba pdc.

The only thing it lacks is the groupware support. Firstclass or any

Re:3. Mac OS X Server

[plsuh]

Open directory is (as I understand it) basically openLDAP with a config file and a nice GUI.

Open Directory [apple.com] covers a lot more than LDAP. Yes, it's based on OpenLDAP -- in part. Yes, there is a nice GUI, which you can use to administer users and groups remotely, from another Mac OS X machine.

But there's also MIT Kerberos, integrated with the LDAP. When you create a user in Open Directory, the necessary Kerberos principals are created for that user. User identification (linking usernames with Kerberos principals and home directories) happens automatically.

But wait, there's more -- there's also the Apple Password Server, which is based on the SASL layer from CMU. This provides centralized, non-Kerberos password support, for things like CRAM-MD5 authentication, or NTLMv2 auth for Samba. The Password Server passwords are automaticaly synchronized with the Kerberos passwords. When you change a user password in the KDC the corresponding password is also changed in the Password Server or vice versa.

Still not happy? How about built-in replication support for load-balancing and high availablility. It covers not only the LDAP database via slurpd but also the Kerberos and Password Server databases?

Oh, and one more thing -- encrypted archiving built in to the GUI. Archive your entire set of LDAP user information and your password database to an encrypted disk image. Secure and convenient.

(Yes, I work for Apple -- but the parent post misses most of the good parts.)

--Paul

Re:3. Mac OS X Server

[hyc]

As far as I recall, the Apple Password Server is only provided for backward compatibility with previous MacOS releases. I don't wish to denigrate what Apple has achieved in shipping OpenDirectory with their OS, but anybody can install Heimdal Kerberos, OpenLDAP, and Cyrus SASL and get automatic integration of Kerberos principals with LDAP accounts and Cyrus passwords. All of these three packages support each other directly, out of the box. And likewise, since you can create a single LDAP user object with all of their Kerberos info, Unix info, and SASL info in one place, they naturally all replicate together. So there's nothing magic about OpenDirectory here. (Nevertheless, OpenDirectory is good stuff, and I'm sure it will be even better in the future.)

And yes, I'm on the OpenLDAP core team, and I wrote a lot of the code that makes Heimdal, OpenLDAP, and Cyrus SASL play together. It's been working well in the field for years. And for those people who have trouble getting configure scripts to connect everything the way they want, my company Symas Corp. offers pre-built binaries of all of these packages, already integrated, ready to run.

Other options?

[MonoNexo]

What ever happened to Novell? I used that at the college I attended - web apps, email, directory, rempote access, etc. Is this no longer a valid option, or was it just forgotten on the above list?

Re:Other options?

[killjoe]

It's all still there, it's still viable, it's still better then what MS offers, it's still cheaper then MS.

Just because something doesn't get a lot of press doesn't mean it's gone.

That's what I thought.

[lsommerer]

That's what I thought when I read the requirements. Netware (or whatever they are calling it now that it runs on Linux) and Groupwise should be all you need.

I don't know about cost. We have their educational license, and that includes Netware and 3 other products (we use Groupwise, ZENworks and iFolder) for less than $3.50 per student. The license covers as many servers as we care to run those products on.

Look at OpenExchange

[adturner]

It's a standards based (LDAP) mail/groupware app which supports standard SMTP/IMAP clients as well as Outlook/Palm clients (for an additional fee).

Seems competitively priced to Exchange and there's also a free pure OSS version available (although if you want offical support and a nice installer, you need to pay for it).

http://www.openexchange.com/ [openexchange.com]

I haven't personally used it, but I've been looking at it as an Exchange alternative (I really really hate exchange) for the small company where I work.

Re:Look at OpenExchange

[Doc Ruby]

Open-Xchange uses OpenLDAP by default, though they claim any (standards-compliant) LDAP server can be plugged into it. And there is documentation of people plugging Samba into it, the way a Windows Domain Controller would plug into Active Directory.

The LDAP datastore is kept separate from the rest of the data (which is in Postgres), and I've heard of some problems with "LDAP clients", like Evolution, which can't write Contacts to the server. Which allows those Contacts to get out of sync with Contacts enter

The client is called OXLook...

[msimm]

And is still available as a free (Beta) download here [openexchange.com].

Don't know how long that will last and I image its not part of the OSS suite.

I haven't used it but would like to do some testing with it at work. For more general directory type support (domain controller, etc) I'd look at Suse LINUX Enterprise Server with their Novell Open Enterprise [novell.com] (sorry thats a PDF). It uses Samba and LDAP, but its the closest thing to a usable AD "killer" I've seen so far.

Re:Look at OpenExchange

[jbellows_20]

Why hate Exchange? I've managed Exchange 2000 and 2003 for 5 years and I have loved working with it. Simple to setup and manage and loads of features. I've looked for a truly comprable OSS option and haven't found one that does nearly as much with the same ease.

STOP....

[ellem]

just save yourself the trouble

W2K3.

Just shut up, buy it and be done with it. It'll hook up with whatever you're running and it is fine as long as you take the same precautions any decent Sys Admin would.

Re:STOP....

[j-cloth]

You have to use the right tool for the job. In this case there is no directory server that can touch AD. Any other solution is just trying to replicate it.
Exchange, I'm no so sold on, but it works and is well documented enough that you can do most of things with it that you will want.

Re:STOP....

[aaronl]

Novell with NDS does all that AD does, and a lot more. It is an incredibly well designed directory server, and it existed before AD. The big reason to go with AD is because of group policy; I don't know if NDS has an equivalent to it.

It might still be that W2k3 is the right tool, but please, have your information straight!

Re:STOP....

[Curunir_wolf]

This is a troll?

WTF?

Re:STOP....

[aaronl]

I guess that somebody doesn't like me!

Re:STOP....

[killjoe]

Nah, some MS shill modded you down so that your post won't be visible. The astro turfers are always very active when novell or oracle is mentioned.

Re:STOP....

[AngryElmo]

Along with Zenworks (an eDirectory enabled management application) you can have your group policies too! Buy Netware (or Open Enterprise Server - Suse SLES 9.0 + Novell services by another name) and you'll get all of the eDirectory and Linux goodness, plus DirXML which is a programmable metadirectory allowing synchronisation between eDirectory and whatever you want (including MS-AD)

Can't touch this!

[ink]

In this case there is no directory server that can touch AD.

Yes, but don't you want your directory server to interoperate with other systems? Isn't that the whole point? I'm half joking, but half serious as well; one of the main gripes I have with AD is the lack of customization that one can perform with it. It's great when you want to integrate it with Microsoft Remote Acess or Microsoft SQL Server or any of a dozen other Microsoft products, but try getting it to authenticate against opensource P2PP/PP

Mod parent hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

W2K3 ... is fine as long as you take the same precautions any decent Sys Admin would.

Myself being a decent Sysadmin, I can tell you my first priority is always to banish MS products to the extent possible. It takes time, but if you're starting from scratch this is an excellent opportunity to avoid future problems.

Start by NEVER running anything mission critical under MS - especially a directory service.

Continue by banning Internet Explorer companywide, and finish by

Don't get me wrong; MS Windoze does have

Re:Mod parent hilarious

[ScytheBlade1]

Only on slashdot would this level of trolling be modded "insightful."

Grow up. Is linux/OSX better than windows in some ways? Sure. How about you learn to prove a point without senseless bashing though?

People might care when you talk like you know what you're talking about.

Senesless flaming and trolling comes at a dime a dozen.

Re:STOP....

[divisivemind]

Though I've never laid eyes on an OSS directory alternative to W2K3, I'd be surprised if it could be any either to use out of the 'box'. Another thing, if you plan to do some LDAP work, in say perl, modules exist that can add/remove/delete/etc from your AD that are rather painless to use. Automated account addition.... On a side note, for those in higher education, there is a good chance you have a campus-wide MSAD. Where I used to work, we kicked all students out of our domain and instead one way trusted

STOP....

[Alystair]

Hammer Time!

There are Other Options

[Anonymous Coward]

Other Options to Consider:

Novell:
Linux Small Business Suite
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxsmallbiz/ [novell.com]
It includes edirectory, groupwise for email, suse enterprise server,Novell ZENworks Linux Management Client

IBM (Lotus)
http://www.lotus.com/lotus/general.nsf/wdocs/nd7co ntent [lotus.com]
You can use Domino as an ldap server.
Other IBM Software on Linux:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/os/linux/software/ [ibm.com]
or
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/matrix/ [ibm.com]

Re:There are Other Options

[spazimodo]

I would second Domino. Exchange is definitely a lot more popular in the SMB space, but I think a pretty compelling argument can be made for Domino.

I (along with one other admin) support around 9000 mailboxes for a F500 on Domino 6.5 on Linux. We still have plenty of time for other projects. Exchange is easier to set up, but Domino is far easier to keep running. (try manipulating messages in an active mail queue in Exchange.)

The major complaint about Domino is the unappealing client. I happen to like it, but

Novell NDS

[kalibyrn]

There's also Novell's NDS... That could be your third option perhaps...

Another Consideration

[joelleo]

What exactly is the newly merged company doing? Is it supposed to be geeky-cool? Is it doing something totally unrelated to computers or technology? Is the IT infrastructure just a means to an end - users getting their work done?

If the company is trying to do something geeky-cool, you may be best served by using a "cobbled-together" open source architecture. It'll show your boy's and girl's prowess on the console and could be used as a Hercules-on-a-pedestal showcase for your talents.

On the other hand, in either of the other two cases, you're most likely going to be using MS on the desktop and your people aren't going to care that you've implemented OpenLDAP as long as their Word, Excel and Outlook work. In this situation, as has already been noted, you'd probably be best served by implementing Windows Server 2003 + Active Directory. An additional benefit is the expertise is relatively cheap and available, and may already be in-house with your amalgamated IT staff.

Good luck!

Re:Another Consideration

[benjamindees]

may already be in-house with your amalgamated IT staff.

Or there very likely isn't an IT staff, almagamated or not. Three companies that join to form 100 employees, with poor infrastructure, typically means one company of 50 employees and a "Windows admin/something else" and two companies of 25 employees each that paid somebody to setup their networks five years ago and have since just watched it deteriorate.

It sounds like the inquisitor is about to inhereit a huge mess without necessarily the skills or resources to deal with it. If that's the case, I'd suggest taking a long-term approach:

1) Decide who will manage the network (this is a full time job),
    A) if it's you, then
          i) choose what you're most comfortable with, else
    B) if it's not you, then
          i) put an ad in the employment section, outlining your requirements in a non-specific way, contact outsourcing firms, and take applications.

You may be suprised at what you get. Linux and Open Source can save a ton of money and hassle long term, especially when implemented from scratch, but you have to know what you're doing. If you don't know or aren't sure, get help. A company of 100 employees can easily justify having two admins, especially when combined with the savings Linux and OSS are capable of.

Re:Another Consideration

[Penguinshit]

Cost is definitely a major factor here.

While going the W2K3 route would be easy and very functional, one has to take into account the cost of the eventual [forced] upgrades. A company of 100 folks probably isn't turning a wild profit in terms of real money, and what money there is will undoubtedly get funneled into R&D or advertising or SomethingOtherThanITInfrastructure. This is where the long-term cost savings on a "cobbled" solution will pay off handsomely.

The decision is best made right now.

Re:Another Consideration

[Penguinshit]

Troll?

I dare that coward asshat who modded me troll to come out from under his/her rock and prove the honesty of that mod.

I guess that person never heard of the "Software Assurance" program from Microsoft that forces upgrades every two years (with the alternative being a highly-inflated upgrade price whenever one is eventually required to upgrade). Everything else I said comes directly from my decades of personal experience in administering Microsoft and Unix/Linux (as well as Mac) networks.

I've got

Re:Another Consideration

[ocbwilg]

I guess that person never heard of the "Software Assurance" program from Microsoft that forces upgrades every two years

Software Assurance is not mandatory. There are quite a few companies (probably the majority) who don't use SA. Mine doesn't. Upgrades are still cheaper than buying new, but most companies aren't all that keen on constantly upgrading, and the ones that are will go with SA. Most companies buy new hardware, and buy it with and OS and applications they will need. The hardware runs and

Re:Another Consideration

[secolactico]

This is where the long-term cost savings on a "cobbled" solution will pay off handsomely.

But will the "cobbled" solution scale properly when the company of 100 folks becomes a company of 5000 folks distributed worldwide? Unplanned-for growth can be messy in "cobbled" systems, and if you take the time to develop a solution that will grow well, then you might be devoting too many resources to the IT infrastructure.

Also, in a company of 100 folks, how many will be in the IT department? What will happen when

Fedora Directory Server

[LnxAddct]

Use Fedora Directory Server or Red Hat Directory server. It is derived from the acclaimed Netscape Directory Server. It is easy to set up, scalable and *just works*. For groupware just use phpGroupware or something. If all you need is mail access, I recommend Roundcube for the web access, it uses Ajax to give a nice user experience akin to Yahoo or Gmail. Keep an eye on the Hula Project too, it looks like when a release it made it will be real nice.
Regards,
Steve

Roundcube... holy crap Batman, that's awesome!

[DamienMcKenna]

I'd not seen it before but Roundcube is pretty darn nice! Now if only the Horde team would merge in some of its UI...

Damien

If you end up going OSS...

[HeelToe]

Also check out Fedora Directory: http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/wiki/Main_Page [redhat.com]

NDS

[discordja]

I'm sure some /.ers can give you a better view of the quality of Netscape Directory Server but from the rumblings I've heard it's a complete package and it's pretty damned amazing (not to mention it supposedly scales through the roof).

You can check out the documents here [redhat.com]

Re:NDS

[Penguinshit]

I can, too, can vouch for the Sun ONE Directory Server. I use it to handle authorization for various websites (which also use the Sun ONE applet server) as well as the email security for a couple of start-ups. Postfix and Courier work very well with it.

I one day hope to test the scalability...
:-)

Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what your selection criteria are, but it seems to me that you have another choice: Novell's products. More specifically:
1. Directory Services: eDirectory. It runs on multiple OS platforms such as Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, etc. It is more robust than AD, particularily across wan links (viz. replication). And of course it is LDAP v3 compliant so nearly any LDAP client can use it for authentication and authorization.

2. Open Enterprise Server, Linux and NetWare. For hosting your file and print services. You get the best file system out there - NSS - on either platform. Real ACL's and vastly more refined trustee assignment and inherited rights filtering capabilities than any other filesystem.

3. Groupware/Messaging: I am less experienced in the alternative offerings in this catagory, but I believe that Novell has a decent product in GroupWise 7, which runs on Windows or Linux or NetWare.

Again I don't know what your selection criteria are, but you may have skipped Novell due to lack of awareness...

Cheers.

XAD

[lukehatpadl]

Try XAD [padl.com] from PADL.

To Windows clients, it acts as an Active Directory domain controller, so it supports Kerberos authentication, group policies, etc. It also includes RFC 2307 support for seamless integration of Linux/UNIX clients.

Try Solaris

[tonyr60]

Download Solaris for free. It includes LDAP plus Samba etc. Includes fairly easy admin tools (for example webmin) The LDAP is first class and integrated fully with the OS and Samba. You can do it all and nothing is "cobbled together".

cobbled-together?

[AstroDrabb]

2. A cobbled-together solution based as much as possible on OSS (as no direct equivalent exists).

Well, it sounds like you are an MS-Only type guy with limited experience outside of the proprietary MS-World. There are some excellent solutions that run under Linux. Have you looked at Novell GroupWise [novell.com]?

Novell GroupWise is a complete collaboration software solution that provides information workers with e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, task management, and contact and document management functions. The leading alternative to Microsoft Exchange, GroupWise has long been praised by customers and industry watchers for its security and reliability

GroupWise is cross platform, unlike MS Exchange/AD. GroupWise has plenty of free tools to help you along the way like:

• GroupWise Migration Utility 2.0.1 for Microsoft Exchange
• GroupWise PDA Connect 1.0 SP1 Multi Lingual
• GroupWise Import Utility 2.0 for Microsoft Outlook
• GroupWise Gateway 2.0 for Async Connections
• GroupWise Gateway 3.0 for Lotus Notes

Just check out Novell [novell.com] to see some of their products (no, I do not work for Novell, I just like some of their products).

Also, there are some really great LDAP/IMAP type solutions you can put together under Linux for zero cost. Obviously this option requires someone more capable than your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin". It would take one employee with the ability to read a book or some docs. Though, I know your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin" wants to be able to just put in a CD and let AUTO-RUN do all the "hard" work for them.

If I personally owned a small company with ~100 employees, I would rather have one talented admin that could handle *nix/Win than 2-3 point-n-click MS "admins". If you added up the salaries, that one guy would cost you less than the 2-3 less capable point-n-click MS "admins". TIJMO (This is just my opinion).

Re:cobbled-together?

[jred]

If he's going to go with Groupwise, he might as well use Novell's dir services.

Re:cobbled-together?

[rborek]

We use Novell Netware and Groupwise where I work. I can't say it enough - I absolutely HATE Netware and Groupwise. Novell's QA went out the window years ago - we've been running it for 3 years, and it still crashes network-wide at least once a week, even with Novell techs in working on the server and the crashes. Not to mention it's a royal pain to manage (there are at least 3 different user/object administrator tools, and none of them do everything). There are also major issues with stuff like NDPS (you c

Re:cobbled-together?

[ThisOrThat]

That's odd. We use Novell for all user storage/printing/groupwise/etc for thousands of PCs and have none of the issues you list.

Which version of NetWare are you on?

The college is went to a number of years ago used NetWare (and still do) and it works very well for them.

At work we have edir and AD integrated, edir being the main directory. I mostly work with HPUX/AIX/Linux but have done a little NetWare stuff in the past. I don't know about current QA at Novell but we don't seem to have many issues that I can

Re:cobbled-together?

[danharan]

With the loaded costs of 3 point and click monkeys, you can offer a decent salary to a real sysadmin. Until the salary differential is more than 3 times, the grandparent still saves money.

Meanwhile you have 3 monkeys running a network. I wonder who's safer and most productive?

Re:cobbled-together?

[DaveV1.0]

How many companies out there are sole proprieterships? What about LLCs, where one of the people happens to have/bring in about 80% of the billables.

This is exactly why so many small businesses fail. A sole proprietorship (SP) where the owner is in an accident or gets sick and can't work or an SP with an owner who can't do it all. Great tech but a crappy marketeer, or good salesman but lousy time management or poor quality work. An LLC where one person brings in 80%, and then that person leaves, gets sick, d

Fedora Directory Server?

[graphicartist82]

I've just started to take a look at Fedora Directory Server [redhat.com]. It is very easy to set up and with the GUI manager, it seems about as easy to manage as Microsoft AD.

Why, again?

[Dunkirk]

Why are those your "stark and clear" choices? I know, for example, that there are solutions from Novell, SuSE, and Sun, without even thinking about it. Are there more factors involved here than just "we need a directory?" Given a clean sheet of paper, I'd be using eDirectory, since it's completely (according to the marketing papers -- I've never used it) cross-platform.

Bynari / Samba - Win-win scenario

[Kris2k]

I do some implementation projects for an IBM reseller who does implementations on the iSeries platform, and they push (and I implement as the consultant, go figure) a lot Samba + Bynari to the point that I was actually convinced myself and bought myself a few lics for Bynari.

The nice part about Bynari is that they have great support, and they are continueously improving their product, and they use open technologies (OpenLDAP/Cyrus/Postfix) so its easily hackable. The Outlook IMAP connector rocks, and so

Novell

[RabidMonkey]

Theres always EDirectory ... it runs on sles9 now (as of version 7). All the joy of NDS, but it runs under Linux (and windows, and netware if you want).

I'm going to a Zenworks 7 thingy on Wednesday .. if you want more information about running edirectory under linux, email me and i'll pass along what I find out.

it's not just about OSS and Windows .. there are other products there. NDS is far superior to AD, so consider it as well.

How do you get email addresses into a directory?

[harlows_monkeys]

I've looked briefly into this, at a much smaller scale--I just wanted something where I can have a centralized email server that receives my home and work email, and allows me to access that mail from home and work, securely, using regular email clients (no webmail).

What puzzled me was how to get information into the directory. Say I receive an email from [e-mail], and he is not in my directory. All the common email clients seem able to consult a directory, such as an LDAP server, but none seemed

Scalix + OpenLDAP

[ink]

We use Scalix [scalix.com] which authenticates against OpenLDAP. They are a commercial solution, but their software is very opensource friendly and their support is very good (including pulic forums). We also have Tomcat, Apache, PAM, PPP/CHAP (for Remote Access with L2TP/PPTP), OpenSWAN (ipsec), Samba and custom applications authenticating against LDAP. Our centralized directory system is all home-brew, but this also gives us a lot of flexibility (we have 5 different password hashes for various systems!). It's not

Do you have Windows desktops ?

[drsmithy]

If you do, AD is your only realistic choice. Group Policy alone justifies using it.

Added to that, it's not especially difficult getting Unix machines to talk to AD for authentication and other information (it's just LDAP, after all).

It's a hell of a lot easier to integrate and manage a handful of unix machines in a Windows environment than it is to integrate and manage a hundred Windows desktops in a unix environment. IME, that's typically the scenario (unix servers for mail, fileserving, DB, etc and Windows desktops).

Novell's/Suse's SLES 9

[mgpeter]

Suse Linux Enterprise Linux 9 should have everything you need. It sets up and stores just about everything in LDAP. It is extremely easy to configure and maintain. Yast's Email Server module will setup Postfix/Cyrus/IMAP for you, hell it even installs Antivirus and Spam filters for you.

If you need to control Windows Clients simply create custom Policies for Microsoft's System Policy Editor (or use mine at my web site).

I have currently replaced 5 Windows Servers with SLES9 and have not had a single problem. IMO it is much easier to maintain/use than anything MS has released in the server department.

Active Directory and Exchange

[mrscott]

Before I write, I should say that I'm in no way opposed to open source and use it where appropriate.

If you want something very well supported, not horribly difficult to administer in a simple environment and tried and true, just go with Active Directory and Exchange, especially if your company's focus is on something other than providing unique technology solutions. (i.e. you sell baskets)

While the open source solution might cost less up front, there is nothing in open sourece land at present that can touch the Exchange/Outlook combination. Sure, there are products such as OpenExchange, but, let's assume that you want the option to easily add other services later on, such as true handheld synchronization (i.e. www.good.com)

I know it can be sacrilege on Slashdot to not promote an open source solution every time, but sometimes, the business side of the house is more important than a cool technology solution.

eDirectory

[CounterZer0]

Those all suck, get eDirectory, which rules.
And it runs on linux.  And it's cheap!

"Cobbled together"

[Dolda2000]

I don't see why a solution based on OpenLDAP, MIT/Heimdal Kerberos and (if you really need it) Samba would be "cobbled together". Would you mind expanding on that?

As I see it, each of these programs perfectly implements the standard it was designed for, and the directory service you get by combining them is just that: a directory service. It seems to be fulfilling the intended purpose perfectly.

Is the "cobbled-togetherness" a result of them not being shrink-wrapped together into a product with a single

Just go with Exchange / AD

[ajv]

There are some things OSS is good at, and there are some things that Microsoft is good at. Exchange is one of them.

Ask your business what its objectives for the new system are. Keep these in mind when you select products and design a solution.

Now back to solution mode. You can have a minimal three site AD and Exchange system set up in less than a day from bare metal servers. As long as you have adequate bandwidth (about 64 kbit/s will do for minimal acceptable performance for 100 users), it just works. Just

Hire a good consultant.

[supabeast!]

One person who isn't sure what to do probably shouldn't be handling this on his own (I say probably on the off-chance that you're a competent genius, in which case you wouldn't have asked /.). What you really need to decide is if you want to do Windows or OSS, and then hire a good firm to implement the system and train the IT staff to use it.

So call IBM.

Novell?

[sjs132]

What, Just rule them out? They've been doing Active directory and groupware LONG before Microsoft decided to emulate (steal) the ideal...

Novell 6.5 is the latest, and I can lock out users based on windows policies, etc.. just like MS active dir... assign various sub admins to rule over their own dept, etc... AND Groupwise (IMHO) is a great email/calender app... (Groupwise 7 is supposed to be better, but I haven't gotten to play with it yet...)

AND they are starting to move everything over to Linux via SUSE L

What's missing from Apple

[DorkFest]

We implemented Apple Open Directory, serving ~400 users, using four Xserves and and two Xserve RAID's. We're using Apple's mail services, file, web, web log, and VPN service.

So far, things have gone better than I expected. We are authenticating Mac, Windows and Linux PC's, all of which can access the same home directory. The Open Directory master server also acts as the Windows PDC and serves up roaming profiles for Win XP clients.

What I've been hounding my Apple rep about is the lack of a real group callaboration suite. The pieces are there; iCal, Address Book, Jabber, Cyrus/Postfix. They need to be brought together in an Exchange/GroupWise sort of fashion. We are still using Steltor Corporate Time (now Oracle Collaboration Suite) for calendaring, task lists, and shared contact lists. I'm watching the Hula project closely. Rumor has it Apple is shopping around for a comprehensive group collaboration system. Hula might be it! Zee dork

Anything but Novell

[sameat]

I'm afraid I can't help answer the initial question, but I have to caution you strongly regarding all of the suggestions for Novell products.

I live the Novell dream everyday, and "cobbled together" would be a generous description of their products and services. This is a company with a time honored tradition of rendering promising technologies useless. They handed most of the market to MS on a silver platter.

Before you consider Novell too seriously, look through the forums at forums.novell.com, be sure ask about your support options , and try to get a feel for the staffing and training required for a network of your size and scope.

Stick with your inital instincts, just remeber that very few Novell products are actually Open Source.

Win2003 with Sharepoint

[Michael Snoswell]

I hate to say it but this is pretty darn good. If starting from scratch then this is easier than open source solution and cleaner and more integrated. Sharepoint brings together exchange, web stuff, calendars, share and individual todo lists etc in a fairly new and integrated way and is very fast. Underneath it's mostly the same Exchange and Active Directory stuff. We just rolled it out to 450 people over multiple sites and it was painless - just needs some design work up front for how to organise data.

Nove

Novell?

[ezs]

Don't confuse your application choice with your platform choice.

Look at using Novell NetMail [novell.com] with Novell eDirectory.

It's fast, cost effective, standards based, scalable - and it runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris - or even NetWare.

For 100 users it will be just great.

If you want open source - and depending on your acceptance of 'newness and risk' - look at Hula [hula-project.org] - again based on the NetMail codebase.

Mac OS X Server

[Aron S-T]

Cheap - $1K for an unlimited server license, and the Xserves come with the license and are great performers in their own right and cost-effective.

It has ease of use GUI goodness, with a full open source stack underneath: supports Open/LDAP directory services, single sign-on, kerberros, email, calendering (via WebDav), file services (via Samba for Windows and Linux), CUPS, Apache, DNS, Mailman - the list goes on and on. It plays extremely well in mixed environments and is extremely easy to administer - no steep learning curve.

It's far cheaper than all the other alternatives, including Novell and RH, not to speak of Microsoft. And soon you will be migrating all your users to OS X boxen as well once you see all the advantages.

I have done administration on all the other alternatives and I'm far from an Apple fanboy, so don't start flaming me on that score.

Some tips and a little more on Lotus Domino

[JDAP]

As this is my First! Slashdot! Post! Ever! (R), I'm hoping to avoid any crass errors in style or etiqutte..fortunately, based on some posts I've read over the years, there'a a pretty high bar. (Hopefully, smartass jokes are also OK.)

I've done a lot of work with a range of customers on implementing and maintaining directory infrastructure, mainly centered around Lotus Domino and the IBM Directory Server. To start the shameless plug, I'll say that based on your criteria - directory services and a groupware/m

Novell eDirectory ?

[morcego]

I would not entirely discart Novell eDirectory.
It is specially interesting on a mixed environment solution, and it does provide some interesting possibilities when coupled with Novell Client.

The pricetag is also VERY attractive.

Stark and Clear?

[clarkeb]

What do you base your stark and clear choices on? Banyan was the first company to come up with directory services. Novell really took directory services to the next level when it came out with NDS and NetWare 4. Wow one place to manage users, servers, printers, file system, DNS and DHCP, pretty cool. Well, Microsoft not to be outdone started calling NT's domain a directory so that they could compete with Novell. Novell threatened to sue MS about the false information on the MS web site about NT's "directory

Novell is all-in-one

[digidave]

Their directory far surpasses AD. You can also look into Netscape Directory.

For groupware, check out Zimbra (http://www.zimbra.com/ [zimbra.com]). The Flash demo is great.

Re:You want to save money?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Christ on a motorcycle, it doesn't matter what machine he runs, that doesn't solve his problem. Goddamn, at least keep the evangelism moderately relevant.

Re:I know! I know!

[mabhatter654]

The whole point is that he wants to learn to be the expert! If everybody on slashdot knows so much why is this such a difficult question? This is where the rubber-meets-the-road folks... if you want to use Linux and OSS professionally these are the questions that need answered by the community.

Re:Oh jeez...here we go with OSS again

[Antique Geekmeister]

The desktop isn't the problem, and it's most certainly not 95% Microsoft at the server level.

For small scale, less than 50 users, MS is very common. For large scale, more than 50, it doesn't scale well. The interdependencies of what are functionally very different parts of the system (user authentication, file services, DNS, email, calendar, etc.) just don't work well in a large shop based on Microsoft. And the licensing costs are prohibitive at the medium scale, unless you've got an educational dis