Investing in Linux, while no longer novel, is still considered by many companies to be a maverick move. The reasons have less to do with Linux's perceived robustness than the risk of moving away from the safety-net of the Windows camp.

Fergus O'Rorke, partner and director, EBA Group

But for IT public relations specialist the EBA Group, the insurance of Microsoft will be taking a back seat, in favor of the security and cost advantages that it has seen in Linux. The EBA Group is now on a journey that would lead to a full Linux migration of its technology infrastructure in the next several years.

Company partner and director Fergus O’Rorke is the group’s chief Linux champion. Having tinkered with Linux at his leisure for over six years, he has grown to love the spirit that is embodied by open-source software.

He is also convinced that the security edge offered by Linux will make a real difference in his line of business. "One of the things that has always bugged me is that although Domino has good security, Windows doesn't," he said. "And if you have networks and if you are attached to the Internet, you really need to have decent security."

O’Rorke's first attempt to bring open source into the company was with the Open BSD operating system three years ago. In particular, he wanted the "very good" firewall that was bundled with the OS.

But it was only a matter of time before Linux beckons. The Open BSD firewall was eventually replaced with a Linux-based one because "Linux is now on par with Open BSD", he said, and has also gotten easier to upgrade. And early this year, EBA's Hong Kong branch became the first in the group to move its Domino applications onto Linux servers.

Not surprisingly, the move coincided with the end-of-life of the Windows servers that housed EBA Hong Kong’s Domino applications. The group plans to time its Linux migration for subsidiary Firebrand Communications and EBA China in the same way--when their respective servers' upgrade cycles are up.

The business
The EBA group, which has Euan Barty Associates, Firebrand Communications and EBA China under its umbrella, serves 50 retainer and regular project clients which include IBM, EMC, Gartner and NetScreen Technologies. With a staff strength of about 50, and with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, the EBA Group considers its IT requirements to be in the small-to-medium (SMB) business category.

It used Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers for the primary file and print applications. Its core business systems run on Lotus Domino, which serves as a development platform for in-house applications, other than providing bread-and-butter e-mail services. These applications include media database, distribution and personnel system

Like many SMBs, EBA Group relies on outside help for the care and upkeep of its systems. Two firms based in Australia share this task. One looks after the maintenance, upgrade and migration of the Domino infrastructure; the other focuses on software development.

"So far, Domino applications on Linux servers have been trouble-free. They just simply run." Fergus O'Rorke, partner and director, EBA Group

Initial results
Said O'Rorke: "So far, Domino applications on Linux servers have been trouble-free. They just simply run. We haven’t touch the new servers since they were installed. With Windows servers you have to restart it at least once a month. They need more attention that way."

He added: "Our intention is to get rid of Windows servers entirely. We do not want to have to bother with Windows NT to Windows 2003 server upgrade. We do not want to get involved with Active Directory because we do not need it for our purposes. These open source things will provide us with almost everything we want."

The future
Over the next 12 months, EBA Hong Kong will replace existing Windows file and print servers with Samba-based Linux servers. Samba is a popular freeware program that allows end users to access and use files, printers, and other commonly shared resources on a company's intranet or on the Internet.

O’Rorke is excited about the Samba prospect. "Samba is an entirely adequate substitute. It will do the authentication functionality by appearing to the Windows network like an NT server. So it can manage the client users and all that stuff," he said.

And Samba has other "juicy bits" to offer, he said, like using Ghostscript to create Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

"We basically have the facility in Hong Kong for everybody in the company to create Acrobat (PDF) documents for any Word document, Excel and Powerpoint file."

He explained: "We have Ghostscript running on Linux and Samba. To the Windows network, it looks like a printer. Or to be precise, it looks like a postscript printer. With it, when we send a document for printing via the usual postscript printer, what we get is a PDF file instead. Imagine if we have to buy the Adobe Acrobat distiller software for each of our 25 users in Hong Kong, it would cost me a lot of money."

One of the last things that have to fall in line with the Linux migration is backup. The company is now weighing its options and deciding on the best approach.

Open-source alternatives  

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