LINUX:  BEST AND MOST COST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION FOR COMPANY NETWORK

PLANNING:  The researching for this project began with pre-planning and determining the best possible solution for this business.  Several online articles spoke of Linux and Windows operating systems being used in businesses.  There was initially

no clear solution on which operating system was better, more secure, or more

reliable.  Several reports were downloaded and studied which highlighted the

benefits of each.  Linux seemed to be a clear winner.  After determining

Linux would be the best solution; I then started researching local business

use of Linux.  It was found that there were several consultants and

businesses in the area using Linux, including but not limited to McFarland GM

Center, Maysville Public Library, Carlson Software, RHP Studios, Xtreme Web

Hosts.  There is also a Linux User Group in this area -

http://www.maysville-linux-users-group.org  I also downloaded and installed a

version of Linux to see if I liked it and it was suitable for daily business

use.  I downloaded Ubuntu linux, which is freely available for personal and

business use and installed it on my computer to a secondary hard drive.  The

installation went without failure or problems.  The Maysville Linux Users

Group became my immediate support for questions about Linux.

Consulting:  Linux consultation was handled by the Maysville Linux Users Group.  They provide free online and remote administration of Linux computers, servers, and

networks, plus training under the program known as the Maysville Linux

Business Initiative for local businesses and non-profit organizations.  The specific

program allows certified network administrators, and certified Linux

administrators who are members of the MLUG to be on-call to answer questions

and provide services such as remote administration.  The online and remote

administration is provided as a free service.  When I inquired as to how this

was possible, I was told that since Linux very seldom breaks down, these

requests are few and far between.  Most Linux support is only needed during

the initial planning and startup stages.  Since they also provide free online

training for Linux, it is very easy to educate employees in Linux usage.  

However, I found Linux easy enough to use even for someone who does not know

about it.  I registered for an account at this web site and made several

inquiries using the name “secluded” to their public forums.  All questions were

generally answered by the next day.  I later had telephone conversations with a couple of members (brian - teufel34 in the forums and ewiget).  Between these 2 users, all questions I had were answered.

OLD EQUIPMENT:  While researching the costs of this project, I determined that the existing PC's should be sold on ebay to allow for  a total IT upgrade.  Using Microsoft

technologies, there simply was not going to be enough money or funding to

complete this project.  However, since Linux was chosen, there was more than

enough money.  This does not seem to be the only project that experiences

this dilemma.  Please find attached two Total Cost of Ownership reports as

pdf documents detailing costs of Windows networks and Linux networks.  There

would be  a total revenue earning of $1,000 less ebay, paypal, and shipping

expenses for each old computer that sold.   This will contribute money back

into the IT department.  Each unit should sell for approximately $125.00  They will all be

sold without operating systems, hard drives will be wiped using free open source

tools per published data available online (Department Of Defense standards

include 8 hard drive wipes of all data from the hard drive by over writing

the data with random letters and numbers, plus 0's.  This is sufficient since

windows 98 basically uses a DOS filename format).  Open source software will

then used to attempt data recovery from the  systems prior to being

shipped.  No usable data or sensitive data will be available to be recovered.

OPERATING SYSTEM:  CentOS Linux http://www.centos.org/  was chosen as the operating system of choice.  It is a free Linux distribution.  It requires no fees for licensing, is available via a free download, can be installed on multiple computer systems, and has a large collection of available applications and software.  It also has a large user community and ranks as the top 15th most downloaded Linux distribution
in the last 6 months - source http://www.distrowatch.com  A linux
distribution contains a collection of applications and software.  There are
over 600 Linux distributions.  Each distribution is different in its method
of installation, configuration, support, and development cycle.  CentOS  was
chosen because it is based on the Redhat Linux Enterprise edition for use by
businesses and shares the same codebase as Redhat Enterprise Linux.  It has a
5 year development cycle so updates will be available for the next 5 years,
unlike other linux distributions with only a 6 month to 1 year development or
update cycle.

PROGRAMS  FOR USE:

          MARKETING:  Marketing takes care of all advertisements in Newspapers, television, and internet.  They will use the open source software tools Kino http://www.kinodv.org  and Cinellera http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 for video editing, GIMP http://www.gimp.org for graphics design (equivalent to Adobe Photoshop), Sodipodi http://www.sodipodi.com/index.php3  and Inkscape

http://www.inkscape.org/ for vector graphics and page layouts (similar to

Adobe Pagemaker, Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X).

            PRODUCTION:  Production will use many of the same programs listed above, plus they will use freeCAD http://askoh.com/freecad/ and 3D Automation software, blender http://www.blender.org.

            ACCOUNTING:  Accounting will use the Compiere, http://www.compiere.org Enterprise Accounting software.

            COMPANY WIDE:  The entire company will use Compiere for Customer Relations Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

CRM is often used to refer to software applications that support the CRM

business process, but CRM is more than just software, it is a way of doing

business.  CRM methodologies focus on creating and developing individualized

customer relationships in order to maintain a loyal customer base.   It's

quite a bit less expensive to maintain a good relationship with an existing

customer, than to woo a new customer, so purchasing software that will help

enhance a customer's experience has become a popular business practice.   By

implementing a program where sales, marketing, distribution and customer

service representatives can all easily access a customer's history of past

interactions with the company, enterprises can maximize their ability to

upgrade or cross-sell to customers.   Also, the company increases its chance

of customer satisfaction through quicker resolution of any issues that a

customer might have.  

The ERP software will integrate all of our major business processes, which will help to  

ensure consistent data across all of our functional departments. ERP

applications consist of modules for Marketing and Sales, Field Service,

Production, Inventory Control, Procurement, Distribution, Human Resources,

Finance, and Accounting.  It also allows us to share the information

internally among the various departments and with our suppliers and

distributors located in other parts of the world.

For our intranet and internet web server, we will use Apache with PHP, MySQL, and

SSL support - there is a great document on the Maysville Linux Users Group

web site http://www.maysville-linux-users-group.org  for setting up this specific type of server.  We will have both static and dynamic content available.  We will use the Joomla Content management system.  Using a content management system for our internet and intranet will allow us to quickly make information available to our employees, customers, vendors and suppliers.  Joomla allows access controls and group policies to be created on

the web site, restricting access to areas based on group access.  Our web

site can also be integrated with Compiere, sharing data such as contact

information.  Therefore, we will set up a web site with these groups:  

General Visitors (this group is for anyone who visits the public internet and

does not have specific access rights to data - no login id or password.),

Employees (with access to intranet and internet - uses their same login id

and password), Vendors (with selected access to internet with a specific

login id and password), Suppliers with selected access to internet with a

login id and password.  **Some of the consultation regarding the web server and

content management system came from Ed Wiget and Xtreme Web Hosts -

http://www.xtremewebhosts.com

We will be using postfix http://www.postfix.orgfor sending and receiving both

internet and intranet mail.  We will also have squirrelmail http://www.squirrelmail.org available for our employees to receive mail via a web based login while on the road or traveling.  Since mail is our primary form of  internal communication, we will have a mail policy that states all internal and external mail must be digitally signed.  This will be handled by creating a digital key http://www.gnupg.org inside the mail application we will use, evolution -  http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/evolution.html.  

Evolution also allows shared calendars and schedules, which we will have published

on our intranet and internet.  Evolution will allow us to specify groups of

people who have access to this information.  So we can specify if the

informat