steven36 Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 Collider scopes alternative The Large Hadron Collider at CERN INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF BOFFINS CERN is to switch to Linux to save costs. Last year, the company launched the 'Microsoft Alternatives Project' to examine ways that the company could work smarter by switching to Linux-based operating systems. Its initial goal was to "investigate the migration from commercial software products (Microsoft and others) to open-source solutions, so as to minimise CERN's exposure to the risks of unsustainable commercial conditions." Also to 'seek out new life and new civilisations, to bol…. Sorry, that's Star Trek. Moving on then. CERN appears to be one of the first major organisations switching to Linux as an alternative to switching to Windows 10 ahead of Windows 7 reaching end of life next January. The company also refers to 'licence fee increases' as a reason for the change. CERN has traditionally been allowed to take Microsoft products at the 'academic institution' rate but was recently forced to change to a 'by-the-seats' model based on the number of users. According to a ZDNet, the implementation of the scheme will begin this summer with a pilot of an open source mail service, initially for volunteers and the IT staff. This will then be rolled out across the complex later in the year. The change is not completely alien to the boffin brigade - OpenStack is already widely in use and has only recently stopped developing its own 'Scientific Linux' distro with Fermilab, based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, after it became obvious that CentOS could fulfil the same functions out of the box. At present, there's no indication of what the replacement for Windows will be, or what existing distro (if any) it will be based on, nor when it will be rolled out, but there's little doubt that CERN is setting the tone for the next six months, where we're likely to see a lot more organisations voting with their feet over their future, post Windows 7. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted June 13, 2019 Author Share Posted June 13, 2019 CERN Is Working To Move Further Away From Microsoft Due To License Costs Going Up By 10x CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research that is home to the Large Hadron Collider and a lot of other experiments, is experimenting with moving further away from Microsoft products. Due to Microsoft license fee increases affecting their work in the research laboratory and its budget, they established the Microsoft Alternatives "MAlt" project. CERN had already long been involved with developing Scientific Linux (now shifting to CentOS) but they have still been reliant upon Microsoft products in other areas, on some Windows systems as well as using the likes of Skype for Business. The Microsoft Alternatives project has actually been in the works for one year already due to "anticipated software license fee increases" which turns out is impacting CERN as Microsoft revoked their status as an academic institution. Without the special academic pricing, CERN is forced to pay much more for Microsoft products. According to CERN, their license costs are up by a factor of ten. The goal of MAlt is to migrate from Microsoft products to more open-source solutions where possible. Among the changes happening this year are replacing Skype for Business and existing analog phone infrastructure with a software telephony solution. Other software packages to replace existing Microsoft products are being explored. At @CERN, we are moving away from @Microsoft products due to their license fee increases for our research laboratory. We will try to use Open Source software as much as possible https://t.co/s1LqxDuRmJ — Iban Eguia (@Razican) June 12, 2019 More details at home.cern. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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