Anyone know SCO?

[Scarpozzi]

I'm a Windows/Netware 5.1-6.5/Red Hat/SuSE Admin. I take care of more Netware servers than anything due to a site license my company has. I had an offer from a friend to work for his company to do SCO administration. Their aim is to migrate services from SCO to Windows 2003. I would never consider such a shift, but there is a lot of opportunity and light risk in the move.

What books should I get? What do I need to know about SCO that's different from Linux? (I never got the opportunity to deal with Solaris before they pulled the servers we had around here)

Any advice or comments are welcomed. Thanks!

-Scar

 

[drag]

SCO has more then one OS that is commonly used...

They have Openunix, Unixware, and Openserver.

OpenUnix is ancient form of Unix, but is the most common you'd find.

However they should be upgrading to Linux, it would be much easier and cheaper then going to Windows. (going from Unix to Linux and visa versa is fairly easily and 95% of all the software that vendors produced for OpenUnix/Unixware have direct Linux counterparts. Hell there are lots of vendors that have run away from SCO and to Linux because of the lawsuites) But that's just my opinion.

There are a lot of mailing lists, usenet (especially) and IRC channels and such. If you don't use the usenet much check out "google groups" and do a search of SCO, you'll find lots and lots of stuff and some help.

http://groups.google.com/group...mp;group=comp.unix.sco is one group, also check out comp.unix and other things.

They'll be able to give you advice about what to do and were to go. I don't think many people around here realy know much about using SCO products.

Although you'll find the attitude very common that going from Unix to Windows is as much as a downgrade as a upgrade.

Otherwise I don't know much. Maybe check out some bookstores or amazon or whatnot and find some SCO sysadmin stuff. Also keep in mind that if they are still using OpenUnix from the early ninties it's going to be very primitive compared to todays Linux stuff in terms of administration.

edit:

Check out this guy's website, too. Experianced small/medium business consultant and such. Some helpfull stuff.
http://www.aplawrence.com/artindex.html

 

[jose]

Check to see if they have all their doc's. ie sys admin manual, network config man. , & Getting started. With these 3 manuals you can do everything you need to.

Regards,
Jose

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'd much rather switch to Linux myself, but I believe the guys that are running the show in the company are pretty much fly-by admins. The kind that started working with Win2k because that's what's more common in small business. They know the systems, but haven't branched out to REAL servers due to the higher training and staffing costs of support. (meaning windows users/admins are a dime a dozen and linux/unix are harder to find and more expensive...at least in this area)

I still haven't decided if I want to consider this yet. I'm just looking at it as an opportunity and a possibility.

Originally posted by: drag
SCO has more then one OS that is commonly used...

They have Openunix, Unixware, and Openserver.

OpenUnix is ancient form of Unix, but is the most common you'd find.

However they should be upgrading to Linux, it would be much easier and cheaper then going to Windows. (going from Unix to Linux and visa versa is fairly easily and 95% of all the software that vendors produced for OpenUnix/Unixware have direct Linux counterparts. Hell there are lots of vendors that have run away from SCO and to Linux because of the lawsuites) But that's just my opinion.

There are a lot of mailing lists, usenet (especially) and IRC channels and such. If you don't use the usenet much check out "google groups" and do a search of SCO, you'll find lots and lots of stuff and some help.

http://groups.google.com/group...mp;group=comp.unix.sco is one group, also check out comp.unix and other things.

They'll be able to give you advice about what to do and were to go. I don't think many people around here realy know much about using SCO products.

Although you'll find the attitude very common that going from Unix to Windows is as much as a downgrade as a upgrade.

Otherwise I don't know much. Maybe check out some bookstores or amazon or whatnot and find some SCO sysadmin stuff. Also keep in mind that if they are still using OpenUnix from the early ninties it's going to be very primitive compared to todays Linux stuff in terms of administration.

edit:

Check out this guy's website, too. Experianced small/medium business consultant and such. Some helpfull stuff.
http://www.aplawrence.com/artindex.html

 

[drag]

Well I would take it, but I like doing weird thing time to time.

Who knows maybe those Win2003 guys are geniuses and have all sorts of incredably good ideas and whatnot. Maybe what they are doing will save your freind's company lots and lots of money and increase reliability and such. Could learn something.

If not, and stuff starts to go all crazy and stuff, you'll just have to arm yourself with the knowledge of the sunk cost fallacy. (just kidding, they probably know what they are doing.)

You could also help to make sure that they do intellegent things like make a complete backup of the server and such before the begin messing with it to much, and make sure that they keep the old system up long enough to test the new system and make sure that it works.

Plus it's a opertunity. Look good as a bullet point on a resume, and you may meet some new people. But then again I've always been to gun-ho about stuff time to time.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I don't think I need to worry about my resume. It already looks pretty good. I mean, by the time I was 19 it looked pretty good since I worked for a University and a Non-profit funded by the TN Dept of Labor.

I want to go to grad school and if I take this job, I don't see that happening. That's why I doubt I'll do it...it's just a consideration because it would be nice to have the extra income since I Just bought a house and am remodelling. I neeeed more money.

I'll probably just keep my contacts with my friends and see if I can arrange to make a transition to that company maybe in 2-3 years if it makes sense at that time.

Thanks for your replies.

-Scar

Originally posted by: drag
Well I would take it, but I like doing weird thing time to time.

Who knows maybe those Win2003 guys are geniuses and have all sorts of incredably good ideas and whatnot. Maybe what they are doing will save your freind's company lots and lots of money and increase reliability and such. Could learn something.

If not, and stuff starts to go all crazy and stuff, you'll just have to arm yourself with the knowledge of the sunk cost fallacy. (just kidding, they probably know what they are doing.)

You could also help to make sure that they do intellegent things like make a complete backup of the server and such before the begin messing with it to much, and make sure that they keep the old system up long enough to test the new system and make sure that it works.

Plus it's a opertunity. Look good as a bullet point on a resume, and you may meet some new people. But then again I've always been to gun-ho about stuff time to time.