Posted on 10/04/2005 10:47:35 AM PDT by N3WBI3
GOOGLE & SUN OFFICE: THE WORLD CHANGES THIS WEEK
[Oct 4, 2005] Google & Sun are to announce an Office Suite based on OpenOffice, and accesible via webbrowser, according to Jonathan Schwartz --President and COO of Sun Microsystems-- (the original title of his post was "The World changes this week").
It's probably the beginning of the WebOS, an Operating System based on the Web.
UPDATED: Some interesting links: :: Sun president: PCs are so yesterday :: Google Office wishlist: seamless Web storage, great built-in search, integration with other Google tools, a truly better user interface, true browser-based operation :: Some web-based Office tools: Kiko, Num Sum, Writely.
UPDATED 2: Google and Sun had agreed to a multi-year pact to distribute Sun's software technologies that offer a potential alternative to Microsoft's dominance of business users' desktops. These technologies are 'Java Desktop' and 'OpenOffice'.
But useless is a disk fails..
Nope it only takes two dead drives to kill a RAID array so long as one of the dead drives is the parity drive
So Im guessing you have never seen any of the modern raids? with multiple hot spares or raid ADG have you? Raid 10? You're not looking like you really understand raid. Heck with a raid ten you could lose half your disc and not lose information.. and thats a baisc raid 10..
Not necessarily. If people work locally then copy to a central repository if the repository craps out you should have the latest out there somewhere, much better chance of data recovery then than if everything lives exclusive in the repository.
I've seen Raid 10, it all lives and dies by the parity disk, if the parity disk lives you can reconstruct your data with otherwise massive disk loss, but the parity disk is the key to recovering the data, no parity equals major uh oh.
So rather then properly architect a data storage solution you want to depend on the cheapest disk dell can send you? this would not pass in an enterprise environment.
ummm Raid 10 has no 'parity disk'. Raid10 is either s mirror of stripes or a stipe of mirrors. Raid 4/5 and some of the more exotic ones you might see on a dell array or an e series box from IBM use parity, and usually they allow redundant parity. Other raids which do use parity disk now can have more than one, and you're still ignoring hot swaps.
Quick example: I have two raid fives which are mirrored, each raid 5 has two hot disk, how many disk can I lose?
In addition to all the above the disk used in network storage devices are usually on (1) always on, (2) on UPS, and (3) of higher quality than what dell might send you in a desktop. All of this means the failure of any given raid disk is far less likely than the failure of the disk in your pee-cee.
Competent network apps synchronize local and server copies of data files. Windows Server does, so one would assume that anything claiming to be better than Windows would allow offline access to data and documents.
Of course a large, centralized database requires access to the network, but that's true regardless of the OS.
From my experience, rarely. 99.9% of the issues, once installed correctly, are through human error or lack of training/experience. Having an online office will not eliminate those problems.
You don't know what portable means do you? portable does not mean you can do it from many places, portable means it ports to other environments. You're statement should read "You can login to any windows machine on your network", its not portable.
Don't need any more portability than that, it's a WINDOWS application.
Please understand that in IT portability does not mean you can run it from any windows machine you choose..
It's not going to change how anybody does business. There is no savings.
How much time to put in an upgrade on 1000 desktops? how much time to put in in on two serves?
I cannot give an accurate answer to that unless I know what the issue is and how to correct it. =)
But come on, how often is there really a problem with "MS Office" itself, one that would affect all users? I don't think I've ever had an issue where I had to go and re-install (or whatever) every single instance of MS Office, except one time which was discussed earlier.
I can understand your excitement toward this new "online office" but this is NOT the best example to base your arguments on.
And this does not address the security issue which could be disastrous for a person or entity that has confidential info flying across the 'net.
No, what I'm saying is that working locally provides another layer of backup over and above your porperly architected data storage solution. Even if you set things up right restoring your shared data area after a crash takes time, time when people can't be productive if that's the only source of data.
There's always a magic combination of lost drives that'll hose your raid array, it's the nature of the beast. I'm not saying raid is a bad thing, in the modern world where data storage is frequently too big for effective backup raid is an absolutely necessary, I'm simply saying it's not bulletproof. If the gremlins are in a bad mood you can always be hosed.
Always on until your network goes down, or that computer pukes all over itself. Centralization of functionality does nothing but centralize your critical point of failure. The more a company lives and dies by a small number of computers the worse shape it's in if one of those computers has troubles.
Now you're just avoiding admitting the obvious answer ;)
But come on, how often is there really a problem with "MS Office" itself
Oh I must have come off wrong, rarely is it a problem with office. Usually its a problem with the implementation or a need created by changing business requirements, in either case its easier to fix two servers than 1000 desktops no?
I can understand your excitement toward this new "online office" but this is NOT the best example to base your arguments on.
I think its a pretty good one, the most compelling reasons are (1) Portability and (2) Management.
And this does not address the security issue which could be disastrous for a person or entity that has confidential info flying across the 'net.
Never send a web app to do a firewalls job. If a company leaves open smb/cifs from its entire network to the Internet is there any less danger?
You can log into 80% of the desktop world, that's portable.
Please understand that in product USE portability means the the number of computers a user can use.
Depends on how the machines and your network are setup. I can take an hour to setup everybody's NT account (actually you setup the groups not the individual accounts) to push down upgrades when they logon, most Windows versions now default to automatic upgrade so unless you change it the IT department spends zero time doing those upgrades. Harware is tougher, but at least the entire company isn't shutdown while we upgrade the hardware, just who ever's hardware is being upgraded that particular minute.
All of which are nearly infinitesimal compared to losing a drive in a dell desktop.. But you clearly don't understand RAID
Always on until your network goes down, or that computer pukes all over itself.
Heres the rub, what if your desktop pukes itself? with a web based app all I have to do is throw another desktop at you rather than fart around paying help desk to fix a box I should by all rights not care about.
Centralization of functionality does nothing but centralize your critical point of failure.
(1) There person in charge of that point is a competent IT professional, not Jane the secretary who opens every ecard she gets in her email..
(2) With the use of redundant servers, *GOOD* data storage architecture, and incremental logging of data you stand less of a chance losing time on a centralized app than if you have one or two people with critical information on their desktop.
The more a company lives and dies by a small number of computers the worse shape it's in if one of those computers has troubles.
My feeling is the less control you give to experienced IT professionals the worse off any company will be..
Actually its closer to 90% but thats still not portable, no matter how much you wish to ignore basic IT terminology it does not charge the real meaning of that terminology.
Harware is tougher, but at least the entire company isn't shutdown while we upgrade the hardware, just who ever's hardware is being upgraded that particular minute.
Have you ever worked with redundant web servers, heartbeat failover, or clustering technology?
Interesting how you completely ignore where I said raid is a good thing and a necessary thing then take one of my quotes and use that out of context to say I don't understand raid. Show where I said desktop storage is superior to raid, I didn't, stop putting words in my mouth, or we're done.
Compitent profesional IT people can still have the network go down. It's an imperfect world, screws fall out, powersupplies blow up, motherboards get old, memory gets old, drives get old, viruses happen.
Oh so now you need to decentralize your centralized applications with redundant servers, this "cheap" option just got a lot more expensive because you're now doubling the quantity of big iron in the shop.
I'm not saying all data should be stored exclusively on the desktop, in fact I said the opposite. Once again you're lying about what I said to get a point. Because you have no point if you stick to what I said. Central fileserver good; raid good; backups, as much as you can do them, good; local storage on top of all that helpful when the feces hits the rotating device which it eventually always does (plus of course local storage and locally run applications are loads faster, so not only do you maintain productivity during bad network times you always have higher productivity when the network is working).
I don't give a damn about your feeling, I'm talking about reality, and the reality is the more you centralize the more you're inviting disaster. There's a reason our very government model is decentralized, centralization invites disaster regardless of what it is you're centralizing.
90% is protable. No matter how much you resort to insults.
Worked with all that and more, doesn't change the fact that centralization of processing centralizes your failure points and makes the problems much bigger when one of those points fails.
I thought you said you left the site? Another one of your lies?
Of course, but we're talking apps, not data.
What's typical is how you boys immediately resort to insults, then one someone responds in kind go cry your eyes out to the moderators. I could do that too I suppose, but I never was a mama's boy.
Sure right after you show me where I said (1) A local copy is a bad idea... Sorry I did no mean to imply you think its a bad idea, but I do think you are selling it short, and I don't think you know enough about RAID to do that.
Oh so now you need to decentralize your centralized applications with redundant servers, this "cheap" option just got a lot more expensive because you're now doubling the quantity of big iron in the shop.
Virtual boxes are hardly 'big iron', neither are the physical boxes you need to se up clustering. A proper cluster will take advantage of existing hardware and they will act as mutual failovers for eachother.
I don't give a damn about your feeling, I'm talking about reality, and the reality is the more you centralize the more you're inviting disaster.
Im sorry you dont care about what I think, if thats the case and my opinion that I would rather have Rhonda with an engineering degree have control rather than Jane the secretary we can end this. Im less interested in talking to people who want to shout because they 'dont give a damn' what anyone else has to say if it does not line up with what you think...
Follow-up question: assume one of the RAID arrays leaves Pittsburgh travelling on a train bound westward at 62mph and the other leaves San Francisco on an eastbound train at 56mph, on the same track. How long until the head-on collision makes the RAID arrays irrelevant. Show your work.
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