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Linux comes through for New York company after 9/11
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August 06, 2002 (8:00:00 AM)
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- by Tina Gasperson -
Island Computer Products (ICP) is located on the edge of Staten Island, N.Y., about six miles across the water from Manhattan. As a systems integrator and reseller, the company has the biggest ISO 9001 certified configuration and customization facility in the entire New York City area. ICP's CTO Paul Fabozzi was working on September 11, 2001.
Island Computer Products (ICP) is located on the edge of Staten Island, N.Y., about six miles across the water from Manhattan. As a systems integrator and reseller, the company has the biggest ISO 9001 certified configuration and customization facility in the entire New York City area. ICP's CTO Paul Fabozzi was working on September 11, 2001.
"I received a phone call minutes after the first plane hit. Our main office and
configuration center sits on the New York Bay and we had an unobstructed view of
the (World Trade Center) buildings on fire. I rushed down to se what was going
on ... all the other employees were scared ... those buildings were not supposed
to come down."
Fabozzi says that in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ICP got a rush of orders for all kinds of systems. "We had customers that lost office space in those (WTC) buildings. Many disaster recovery plans were not designed for this kind of hit. Many of our customers were forced to bring up new offices right away. (Those) offices need systems, and we sell systems," he says.
"We were open 24/7 for weeks following the disaster. (For example), the medical examiner's office got hundreds of huge systems for DNA analysis. The mayor's emergency office was also stocked with top-of-the-line systems, all new. There were other agencies that needed new systems and additional capacity and capability to deal with what was going on."
ICP customizes the systems in-house to the exact specifications so when the customer receives them "the end user is instantly productive."
When the orders started flooding in post 9/11, Fabozzi and his staff realized the mother system used to load disk images couldn't handle the added stress. "We spent a bunch of money on a new central server, to increase our throughput. This included a large solid state disk drive, and fiber channel cards, and a Windows 2000 server ... and a ton of RAM.
"We wanted to make sure we were getting our money's worth, so we did some bench tests. We were disappointed when the server was getting saturated at about 25 machines loading (five gigabyte disk images) at the same time. We even added two more processors to the Windows 2000 server, and it actually slowed down."
Fabozzi and crew went "back to the drawing board." Having been a "Unix guy" for two decades, he decided to try Red Hat Linux and Samba on the exact same hardware configuration, and found the power that was missing with Windows. "We were able to get more than twice the machines online and loading before we experienced any saturation.
"This surprised many people, but not me," says Fabozzi. "Windows is junk on top of junk. Sure, it looks nice, and it is easy to find people who know how to use a mouse, but when it comes down to a drag race, I put my money on Linux or Unix every time.
"Since then we've been replacing Windows servers with more stable Linux servers. We have even gone so far as to beta (Red Hat) Linux workstations with some lucky customers."
Comments
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One word.
one more word
seriously.
We've sent an image out to more than 100 computers at once with a multicast using Ghost. The server was a P3 500Mhz with 256MB ram running windows 2000 server.
We've found that the bottle neck has always been the capacity of the network, not the machine, when sending more than 1 type of image at once.
We've sent an image out to more than 100 computers at once with a multicast using Ghost. The server was a P3 500Mhz with 256MB ram running windows 2000 server.
We've found that the bottle neck has always been the capacity of the network, not the machine, when sending more than 1 type of image at once.
How does multicast deal with the problem of one image starts now, another starts five minutes from now, and another starts 20 minutes from now? Seems that multicast would work fine if you were sending the images all at the same time, but you still have a load problem if the images start at different times.
Multicast works as if the server was feeding only
one system. This is great if all the systems were
up, and ready to go, but our techs like to do them
in spurts, 5 or 10 at a time.
The network was not a bottle neck. This should be,
but the network is very robust in our environment.
We found that when loading huge images to dozens of
systems at the same time, the the server's
processor is the bottleneck.
All the Windows guys had their tail between their
legs for weeks after. Linux scored some major
points after those tests.
Now we have Windows Engineers asking to get trained
in Linux.
Fabozzi
one system. This is great if all the systems were
up, and ready to go, but our techs like to do them
in spurts, 5 or 10 at a time.
The network was not a bottle neck. This should be,
but the network is very robust in our environment.
We found that when loading huge images to dozens of
systems at the same time, the the server's
processor is the bottleneck.
All the Windows guys had their tail between their
legs for weeks after. Linux scored some major
points after those tests.
Now we have Windows Engineers asking to get trained
in Linux.
Fabozzi
That is why I questioned the person who said that multicast only would solve the problem. I didn't think it would.
Just like an american company to flog a product underneath a disaster like 9/11!
I guess no one has morals anymore
I guess no one has morals anymore
They 're not flogging anything. They're just recounting their experiences. That experiece can help others in emergency situations.
emk
9/11 was the ultimate stress test a company can go through. There's no reason to hide productivity because of what happened. I work on Wall St. and was working on and through the tragic incident. It has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with the fact that NOTHING will stop the U.S.
I didn't see any "flog" in the article - what I saw was how a company increased their productivity to meet the need.
I read the article. I lost a friend on 9/11. He ran into that building to save lives, and lost his own. One of my relatives barely escaped. Several guys from my old union local died. A business associate's wife died. I was across the street on a lunch break inside One Liberty Plaza resting on a beam when the explosion in 1993 knocked me off the beam (I was laying on it sleeping). I had been talking to the heavy security guard who died in the 1993 bombing one week prior to his death. I had walked past the security guard station repeatedly just the previous week.
I see nothing wrong with this article. It is informative, and descriptive of the company's reaction to the terrorist event, and of their assistance to New York and America during the aftermath. It shows that they are not afraid to try something different to solve a problem while under a great deal of stress. They are to be commended. It is with their assistance, and with thousands upon thousands of other companies, and many, many more individuals who helped and continue to help America get back on her feet.
And maybe some of their Windows administrators and techs who now want to learn Linux will decide to give something back to the community, something that I still don't see coming from Windows admins and techs.
I see nothing wrong with this article. It is informative, and descriptive of the company's reaction to the terrorist event, and of their assistance to New York and America during the aftermath. It shows that they are not afraid to try something different to solve a problem while under a great deal of stress. They are to be commended. It is with their assistance, and with thousands upon thousands of other companies, and many, many more individuals who helped and continue to help America get back on her feet.
And maybe some of their Windows administrators and techs who now want to learn Linux will decide to give something back to the community, something that I still don't see coming from Windows admins and techs.
The article was about one of the many companies and people who showed determination and innovation in the crisis in NYC and across the country. I was there working the whole time and no one showed anything less than determination and courage.
How dare you disparage the admins and techs who use Windows like that? How DARE you? Did they work any less hard? Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particlar operating system? Do they give less to charity? Spend less time with their families?
ICP was one of the many companies who brave and dedicated personnel worked around the clock to fix what was broken. They did it using Linux which is why they're showcased in this particular forum. Both ICP and Linux performed fantastically under extreme pressure.
But you choose to take a moment out of your day to insult others who worked just as hard without a shred of evidence to support your despicable statement.
You sicken me. You are beneath contempt.
How dare you disparage the admins and techs who use Windows like that? How DARE you? Did they work any less hard? Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particlar operating system? Do they give less to charity? Spend less time with their families?
ICP was one of the many companies who brave and dedicated personnel worked around the clock to fix what was broken. They did it using Linux which is why they're showcased in this particular forum. Both ICP and Linux performed fantastically under extreme pressure.
But you choose to take a moment out of your day to insult others who worked just as hard without a shred of evidence to support your despicable statement.
You sicken me. You are beneath contempt.
Calm down my friend. He is simply relaying *his* observations or experiences - if that's a crime then somehow we got transplanted to a different country without knowing it. While I agree that the platform one is working in doesn't make one any more or less patriotic, brave, hardworking,etc over another - this doesn't negate the frustrations somebody may have experienced with one group or the other for whatever the reason.
How about rather than coming down for the fatal swoop with claws protruded you reach out and ready for the proverbial kill - you reach out and see where he's coming from. Undoubtedly being in the midst of all this he has some bitterness - some resentment and obviously sorrow - and those feelings can't help but push out from time to time. By swooping down for the kill you're adding salt, not salve (sp?)....
How about rather than coming down for the fatal swoop with claws protruded you reach out and ready for the proverbial kill - you reach out and see where he's coming from. Undoubtedly being in the midst of all this he has some bitterness - some resentment and obviously sorrow - and those feelings can't help but push out from time to time. By swooping down for the kill you're adding salt, not salve (sp?)....
?
The article was about one of the many companies and people who showed determination and innovation in the crisis in NYC and across the country. I was there working the whole time and no one showed anything less than determination and courage.
I agree with you, that's why I wrote the comment defending your company that you are responding to. Perhaps you should reread it, as you definitely are misunderstanding my post.
How dare you disparage the admins and techs who use Windows like that? How DARE you? Did they work any less hard? Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particlar operating system? Do they give less to charity? Spend less time with their families?
Did they work any less hard? I never said that. I agree that everyone at your company must have worked very hard after that day. It was shocking and motivating to all of us. The flags that popped up outside houses, businesses and cars are a testament to that.
Insult others who worked just as hard? Never. The last comment, the last sentence of my post, after defending your company is a nudge, nudge, to your fine workers who want to now learn Linux, to give something back to the community (of Linux users, a general comment, not NYC-ie: 9/11).
Reread the last sentence. It was a comment on Windows admins and techs in general, not specific to your organization. It is an observation that I have made in the marketplace. Being surrounded by Windows admins and techs, perhaps you don't see it, or perhaps as I suspect, you work with a more giving group of people (and hence it is not present within your organization), but if you are honest with yourself, and us, you will admit that on average, Linux users believe in not only using the operating system, but in the open give and take, the exchange of ideas and code, and in general "giving back" to the "community".
Again, the last sentence was meant as a "nudge, nudge" to not only share Linux within your company, but to share the idea of the practice of giving back to the (Linux, not general) community. Nothing more.
Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particular operating system? Never said that, don't believe that. It is the environment of Windows, where pay for help channels exist, and code is secret(and therefore users are precluded from altering code), versus help thy neighbor, rewrite the code to benefit you and your neighbor, help a neighbor with a free install, etc. Just the windows environment compared to the Linux environment. People are not the issue here, it is habits, and the design of the operating environment that dictates these differences. Due to the very nature of Linux, sharing is a basic necessity. This is not true of Windows, and is a reflection of the two different environments, not a reflection of the people in those environments.
Do they give less to charity? ? Give to charity? What does that have to do with anything? When talking about Linux, and giving back to the community, what does a charity donation have to do with anything? Spend less time with their families?
You are reading far too much into my post. Perhaps you have been attacked by some zealot, and are venting on me?
Next time, instead of defending your company, and EVERYONE IN IT, I'll keep my mouth shut. That'll teach me! There!!
The article was about one of the many companies and people who showed determination and innovation in the crisis in NYC and across the country. I was there working the whole time and no one showed anything less than determination and courage.
I agree with you, that's why I wrote the comment defending your company that you are responding to. Perhaps you should reread it, as you definitely are misunderstanding my post.
How dare you disparage the admins and techs who use Windows like that? How DARE you? Did they work any less hard? Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particlar operating system? Do they give less to charity? Spend less time with their families?
Did they work any less hard? I never said that. I agree that everyone at your company must have worked very hard after that day. It was shocking and motivating to all of us. The flags that popped up outside houses, businesses and cars are a testament to that.
Insult others who worked just as hard? Never. The last comment, the last sentence of my post, after defending your company is a nudge, nudge, to your fine workers who want to now learn Linux, to give something back to the community (of Linux users, a general comment, not NYC-ie: 9/11).
Reread the last sentence. It was a comment on Windows admins and techs in general, not specific to your organization. It is an observation that I have made in the marketplace. Being surrounded by Windows admins and techs, perhaps you don't see it, or perhaps as I suspect, you work with a more giving group of people (and hence it is not present within your organization), but if you are honest with yourself, and us, you will admit that on average, Linux users believe in not only using the operating system, but in the open give and take, the exchange of ideas and code, and in general "giving back" to the "community".
Again, the last sentence was meant as a "nudge, nudge" to not only share Linux within your company, but to share the idea of the practice of giving back to the (Linux, not general) community. Nothing more.
Do you really believe that someone is a bad person because they use a particular operating system? Never said that, don't believe that. It is the environment of Windows, where pay for help channels exist, and code is secret(and therefore users are precluded from altering code), versus help thy neighbor, rewrite the code to benefit you and your neighbor, help a neighbor with a free install, etc. Just the windows environment compared to the Linux environment. People are not the issue here, it is habits, and the design of the operating environment that dictates these differences. Due to the very nature of Linux, sharing is a basic necessity. This is not true of Windows, and is a reflection of the two different environments, not a reflection of the people in those environments.
Do they give less to charity? ? Give to charity? What does that have to do with anything? When talking about Linux, and giving back to the community, what does a charity donation have to do with anything? Spend less time with their families?
You are reading far too much into my post. Perhaps you have been attacked by some zealot, and are venting on me?
Next time, instead of defending your company, and EVERYONE IN IT, I'll keep my mouth shut. That'll teach me! There!!
I posted the comment that you are responding to, and the subsequent post directly above this. I forgot to add in my subsequent post that I also still use Windows for some tasks (although with crossover office now supporting Quickbooks, with Quickbooks pro to follow, and ACT, with Dreamweaver shortly after, I doubt I'll be using Windows anymore, especially with the new EULA allowing Microsoft to hack client boxes). I use the tools that get the job done, and it sounds like your company is doing the same.
Now let me shut my mouth again and go to my corner.
Now let me shut my mouth again and go to my corner.
one word
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on August 07, 2002 06:29 AM#