RE: [gentoo-dev] Re: where goes Gentoo?

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Thu, 2005-08-04 at 09:04 -0400, Eric Brown wrote:
>
> Interesting thread.  I have used Gentoo in enterprise situations very
> successfully, and I think the whole QA/live-tree argument is moot.  In
> an enterprise environment, you might have a backup/testing machine to
> run your updates on first before they went live.  You also wouldn't run
> new packages unless they passed your own QA tests first.
>
> Given the incredible flexibility of portage to support local mirrors,
> binary package preparation, and localized versions of packages
> (portdir_overlay), I would say that Gentoo is quite a contender in the
> enterprise environment.
>
> Perhaps we need some enterprise documentation to help people realize the
> full potential of portage?

I think you've missed some of the idea of "enterprise" support.  See,
for starters, every person shouldn't have to create their own
implementation of everything.  Perhaps a better solution would be a
package that when installed, builds up a local mirror, a binary package
repository (with revision control), an automated update system, a system
for updating rolled out machines without forcing the use of etc-update
on each machine, a slower moving stable tree capable of being certified
with applications, and most likely a phone number of someone to call
when the shit hits the fan.

While I will completely agree that Gentoo *can* be used in the
enterprise successfully, that does not make it "enterprise-ready", in
any sense.  Many people also seem to misunderstand the concept of
"enterprise" when we are referring to it in this manner.  We don't mean
"I'm running it on 10 servers in production" or anything like that.  We
mean "I'm running this as our production platform for Linux services
across our entire enterprise, that could be hundreds or even thousands
of servers" instead.  While it might be possible to maintain a handful
of Gentoo servers, it is next to impossible to maintain an army of them,
without spending significant up-front manpower to design, test, and
implement your own set of management tools.  Gentoo has no real
management tools.  There are a few here and there that do specific
tasks, but there isn't anything designed to really take control over
your network of systems.  To be fair, Red Hat doesn't have anything like
this, either.  Their "Satellite Server" product is good for initial
builds and for updates, but falls short on the management aspects.
Novell's offerings are probably the best examples of what we really
need.  Of course, most people would be happy with even rudimentary
management capabilities, as currently, we have none.  We don't have any
form of update server.  You have to build one yourself.  We don't have
any form of "jump-start" or "kickstart" for rapid automated deployments.
You have to build one yourself.  Now, we do have the Gentoo Linux
Installer project, which has this as one of its goals, so we will have
this component at some point in the future.

Last, there's the "Our servers just went belly up, and I want to call up
someone on the phone and give them a piece of my mind" issue which gives
managers a warm, fuzzy feeling, that we cannot provide.  If something
goes wrong with RHEL or SLES, you call up Red Hat or Novell and get them
to work on the problem.  If something goes wrong with Gentoo, you hop on
IRC, or file a bug, and hope that somebody can help you in the time you
need it done in, and not in 3 weeks when the maintaining developer gets
back from his tour of the African Dung Beetle in it's own environment.
Liability is a big selling point for the enterprise.

I work for a telecommunications company, and we run Linux and Solaris.
For our Linux, we run Red Hat, even though they have, on staff, one of
the people that understands Gentoo's deployment capabilities better than
most, via catalyst and the GLI.  Why do we run Red Hat?  When something
breaks with one of their packages, we call them, and expect them to fix
it.  It is also a name that gives upper management the warm fuzzies.
Gentoo has neither the brand recognition, nor the support capabilities
to be a good sale to management.

I'm not denying that Gentoo is very powerful, flexible, and gives the
power back to the administrator, but that doesn't make it enterprise
ready or friendly.  A few success stories from a few people isn't much
to support the position, when we are lacking in so many simple and
obvious ways.  Remember, if a manager can think of multiple ways to
knock down the use of Gentoo, like the ones I've given above, what are
you going to do to refute his claims?

I want to see Gentoo as an enterprise-capable distribution myself, but I
also understand that it is a long, hard road ahead of us, and there will
still be some things we simply cannot provide as a community
distribution, which was my reasoning behind the "fork".  There would
need to be an entity that is responsible, liable, if you will, when
something goes wrong, and that has the manpower and resources to fix it.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux