Best practice Linux architectures and systems management are crucial to ensure that failure rates are kept to a minimum and you benefit fully from the advantages associated with Linux. Without them, your organisation’s performance could deteriorate; the costs of poor uptime could cost you existing or new business and perhaps even lead to a damaged brand reputation.

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Why Your Organisation Will Benefit From Best Practice Linux Architectures and Systems Management

The common issues:

  • Linux often entered into the organisation via the backdoor many years ago and has proliferated organically, rather than against a strategy or plan
  • It has not, therefore, been subject to the same rigorous standards or ROI assessments applied across the UNIX and Microsoft estates
  • This very often leads to multiple, undocumented builds of variable standards across numerous Linux distributions
  • Some of these distributions do not carry the enterprise assurances demanded of a mission critical environment
  • They are often not optimised for the application in terms of performance or security
  • Without a standardised architecture design and documentation, there is a great deal of risk through dependency on the engineer that built the servers
  • Servers are not built with operational efficiencies in mind, so scaling up capacity is complex, expensive and does not benefit from any economies of scale
  • It also often means they are not regularly updated with security patches and fixes which can introduce risk into the organisation
  • Because they have not been built against best practice, there is often no facility to detect, isolate and correct problems before they impact on the business
  • Very often, security has not been considered to the extent that it should have been when building these servers, particularly in terms of identity management, activity monitoring and virus/malware management
  • Ultimately, poor practice around Linux causes an increase in failure rates, security risk and costs while decreasing productivity, operational efficiencies and the value your organisation is able to deliver
  • Customers may not return if they’ve suffered from a bad experience – for example, on an e-commerce or m-commerce website, leading to lost sales opportunities

Invest in best practice Linux

The solution:

  • Invest strategically in best practice Linux consulting and Linux support and managed services for increased organisational performance
  • Formulate your Linux strategy. Ask yourself why you are using Linux as opposed to UNIX or Microsoft?
  • Once you understand the reasons, ensure the Linux architecture and systems management are designed to deliver the anticipated advantages
  • Design the Linux Application Ready Infrastructure (ARI) to optimise for the specific application using reference architectures from a Linux specialist
  • Create a Standard Linux Operating Environment (SOE) that is fully aligned with your requirements as an effective and managed process and fully integrated with your IT environment and IT processes
  • This will dramatically reduce deployment time, simplify maintenance, increase stability and reduce costs
  • Implement an SOE Management Platform to provide a centralised way to deploy errata and configuration changes to standard build installations and to integrate with your change management, incident management and other IT tools and processes
  • Manage your systems in such a way that you are aware of problems before your customers are – implement fault management and performance management systems that are designed specifically to provide a greater return on investment in your Linux estate
  • Secure your Linux infrastructure with best practice Linux security management that addresses access controls, user activity, data privacy, viruses and malware and denial of service attacks
  • Adopt best practice Linux as the foundation for value recognition further up the stack
  • Determine whether it is cost effective to maintain a deep Linux competency capable of maintaining your Linux systems in line with fast evolving best practices. LinuxIT deploys and maintains thousands of Linux servers against best-practice which means you benefit from our knowledge and economies of scale.
  • Perhaps your internal competency would provide a greater value by focusing on the IT that is unique to your organisation? Only they understand the nuances of your business and, given the opportunity to express their creativity beyond the mundanities of the operating system, they will drive innovation and value in your business.
  • Your Linux systems can be commoditised and built against best practice standards by outsourcing this service to a specialist Linux service provider with which you will benefit from significant economies of scale, improved productivity and reduced risk
  • Speak to LinuxIT today about how best practice Linux can benefit your organisation

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