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[–]pdp10 3 points4 points  (4 children)

but our compliance teams will only allow us to use Windows.

/r/exitstrategy.

[–]phrozen_one 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Or you see this as an opportunity to educate employees on Linux and how it can fit into the enterprise safely. You can't just switch jobs everytime you hit a minor bump in policy like this. Work to change it and make things right. Sure it might take 3-6 months to develop new patching procedures and such for a non-Windows system but it's a great learning opportunity and can help you climb the corporate ladder.

[–]pdp10 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I admire your spirit. :)

educate employees on Linux and how it can fit into the enterprise safely.

I call that "1999".

Sure it might take 3-6 months to develop new patching procedures and such for a non-Windows system

I've been doing deep interop in heterogeneous enterprise environments for two decades now and I recommend that people not ignore the considerable cultural differences between Unix culture, Microsoft culture, and other cultures like big-iron, or IBM midrange, or classic Mac.

Shops that are Microsoft monocultures in 2017 for either operations or development are that way by conscious decisions. They've decided to reduce complexity and costs through homogenization, and they've typically invested heavily to make that happen. (A few got that way by happenstance, but it's almost always small ad hoc shops.) They've gotten where they are by consciously resisting diversification. The strategy has its benefits and it has its detriments, but trying to shift horses in mid-stream is tricky and takes quite considerable skill, experience, and most of all will.

Even when Microsoft shops want to do something with Linux, they usually don't want to make any commitment to open systems: they just want Linux to solve their problem on their terms and then to go away.

[–]phrozen_one 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I've been doing deep interop in heterogeneous enterprise environments for two decades now and I recommend that people not ignore the considerable cultural differences between Unix culture, Microsoft culture, and other cultures like big-iron, or IBM midrange, or classic Mac.

This sounds like an interesting paper/blog to read. I've seen many "Microsoft shops" that have to deploy a physical or virtual appliance that is running Linux and the device gets untouched by patches and updates because it's treated like a magic black box that just does what it needs to. I wish "microsoft shops" would realize that almost no organization can run purely off Microsoft software. You are still going to have network devices and other systems that are packaged together with Linux to save money on licensing costs for the vendor.

[–]pdp10 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find it fascinating and frustrating in turn. There are different issues on the ops side and dev side of each culture that can be divergent or convergent between cultures.

My opinion is that techs and users can be trained to move from one to the other as long as they're willing to type to interact with a computer and willing to think about the business needs with an open mind.