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[Cringe] Windows Dedi's. How do YOU do it legally? - Page 2
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[Cringe] Windows Dedi's. How do YOU do it legally?

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Comments

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @TimboJones said: Microsoft and active directory owns enterprise market. I don't know what the IBM/Apple solution is.

    IBM has had about 10 different solutions over the years and they were all trash. Tivoli is one good example. It's actually funny how many horrible directory and groupware products IBM has flopped about with. IBM's crap is always built on a teetering stack of Websphere and requires a fleet of servers to present a GUI that looks like a 1990s medical billing form. And then it doesn't work anyway.

    Apple doesn't care about the enterprise.

    Anyway, you're completely right - every major enterprise I've ever been a part of uses Active Directory. I suppose maybe Apple doesn't and probably RedHat doesn't (ha! now they have to use some shitty IBM product! Serves them right.)

    @rcxb said: With Microsoft it's always easy to get something up and working quickly... And then you keep having issues, and downtime, that nobody can track down and fix properly, and keeps requiring man-hours to babysit and work-around. While the Linux solution takes more time up-front, then when you get it the way you want, it runs trouble-free for years.

    You're over-generalizing.

    In my not-so-humble opinion, there are only three Microsoft products that are worth a damn: Office, SQL Server, and Active Directory, and I'm willing to accept arguments against Office. But AD is one of those just-works things. I don't know who has downtime and issues with AD but it's really a dead-simple product.

    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • @jar said:

    @lokuzard said: That's none of your business.

    That's not really how this issue works. A host generally wants to keep a good relationship with software vendors that have the power to cut them off or make them pay fines to stay in their programs. Just because MS hasn't been able to keep up this last decade doesn't mean they can't or won't.

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/learn-more/compliance-verification-faq

    Microsoft license compliance verification (commonly known as “audit”) is a formal, mandatory compliance review of a company's use of Microsoft products and services, and it is part of the Microsoft license and contract compliance program. Microsoft conducts industry-standard compliance reviews with its business customers through an independent auditor pursuant to the terms of their agreement. This review is an effort to help customers achieve and maintain license compliance, and to protect Microsoft intellectual property rights. Therefore, be assured that unless Microsoft invokes its contractual right to verify compliance via a third-party accounting firm (as fully documented in your Volume Licensing Agreement), you are not involved in a license compliance verification.

    Microsoft absolutely does consider it their business if unlicensed copies are running on the network of a company that is part of their volume license agreement, something easily known by scanning public facing systems (when you know how many licenses the provider has). If there is no agreement with that company, they may have the right to file a lawsuit if they see fit. What you do on a provider's network can absolutely be their business.

    Okay I get that, but ...

    @hzr said:

    @lokuzard said: That's none of your business. It's either you offer custom ISO support or you don't. You might as well check your clients websites just in case they use nulled software, plugins and/or themes.

    Yes, you absolutely should be proactively doing this and also checking your network for unlicenced Windows.

    I feel like a host isn't obligated to do so unless there is an abuse report.
    I mean, isn't this how it always worked?
    Sure, a host can monitor their network for obvious violations, but I believe it's not their job to check for licenses, be it an operating system or even a PHP software.
    All the providers that offer custom ISO that I've used (DO, Vultr and LunaNode for example) had no issues of you running whatever OS you want, including Windows, while they also offer Windows licenses.
    Some even have tutorials on how to do it.
    Even the big providers will sometimes simply just tell you it's unsupported and run at your own risk.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @lokuzard said: but I believe it's not their job to check for licenses

    I agree, but Microsoft doesn't. If a host wants to maintain a positive relationship with Microsoft as a license vendor, they might consider that factor when deciding how they approach it.

    Thanked by 1lokuzard
  • @rcxb said:

    @TimboJones said:
    I looked at replacing Microsoft shit with various Linux based groupware solutions, and it was just a shitload more effort and issues (lacked features) unless you had admins to throw at it. Of course, someone who went the SoGo way and committed to it probably got over it, but if you had a business to run, not every one could roll their own.

    With Microsoft it's always easy to get something up and working quickly... And then you keep having issues, and downtime, that nobody can track down and fix properly, and keeps requiring man-hours to babysit and work-around. While the Linux solution takes more time up-front, then when you get it the way you want, it runs trouble-free for years.

    That hasn't been my experience. Upgrading or migrating Windows is cake. But an EOL 3-5 year Linux distro is fucking hell. Now that distros are going 5/10 years, this will be less of a problem, but your experience hasn't been my experience. I can go back and do win98 and XP shit that doesn't need encryption much, much better.

  • @raindog308 said:
    IBM's crap is always built on a teetering stack of Websphere and requires a fleet of servers to present a GUI that looks like a 1990s medical billing form. And then it doesn't work anyway.

    I, absolutely, love, that description. SPOT ON!

    @raindog308 said:>
    Apple doesn't care about the enterprise.

    Yup, they lean on 3rd party crap for enterprise. Never works right.

    My last 'enterprise' was 100-150 employees, and it worked well with mac endpoint PCs and using openldap for directory, but the desktop/laptops weren't tied into the directory. They were all assigned to personal use with local root access to the employee.

    We used ldap for the various web applications that ran within the business. I actually used it as the backend for door access control as well. that was delightful!

    phpldapadmin for any manual tweaking of the directory, and cli scriptlets I wrote for the common stuff (hiring, firing, group maintenance) and a php page I found and modified to handle user initiated password changes/resets.

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