From: Winston Tsang (IT- Borders Online) (email_suppressed_at_lugwash.org)
Date: Tue 22-Jun-1999 02:23:48 PM EDT
Just some interesting news about Home Depot checking out (Red Hat) Linux...
Also, I didn't know that Home Depot's store client was written in Java.
http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/990621B00E
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Home Depot Testing Linux For Mushrooming PC Volume
Remote management system 'flying blind' on Windows 95
By David Orenstein
06/21/99 San Francisco
The Home Depot Inc.'s growth is so rapid, the company may have to turn to
the Linux operating system to remotely manage its mushrooming population of
in-store PCs.
Home Depot, which already operates more than 800 stores, is opening a new
store every two days -- six stores opened June 17 alone. The chain expects
to operate 1,600 stores by 2002 and have 90,000 remote PCs and PC-based cash
registers to manage by then, said IS Vice President Mike Anderson. The
company is dreading what it would cost to support that many computers with
its current infrastructure.
Using Linux to run those PCs could offer a key advantage that other
operating systems don't, Anderson said. Home Depot is pilot-testing the idea
this summer using Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Red Hat Software Inc.'s
distribution of Linux.
Here's why: Linux would allow support engineers at the company's Atlanta
headquarters to manage the basic settings of each machine from within a Web
browser. New files or updates could be dispensed from the Hewlett-Packard
Co. or IBM Unix server in each store. Because Linux's kernel loads
dynamically, Anderson added, a new machine could be shipped to a store,
linked to the network and configured on the fly once it boots.
Currently, the company's in-store PCs run Windows 95, said application
development manager Kathy Tadlock. "With Windows, we're flying blind,"
because [it] can't fully manage the remote PCs, she said. The company uses
Symantec Corp.'s PCAnywhere to access each machine remotely, but if a
computer's files become corrupted or are missing, they can't be sent over
the wide-area network. Instead, the company must ship a new hard drive to
the store.
Anderson said Linux, or possibly Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE, would allow
the company to run a leaner, more manageable operating system on the
clients. But an argument for choosing Linux over Windows CE is that the
company's store client applications are written in Java, he said.
The extent of Java support for Windows CE is unclear. Meanwhile, IBM, a
major Java vendor for Home Depot, is begining to push Java on Linux. Windows
CE, often etched into the ROM chips of devices that run it, isn't as easily
modified and managed as Linux, said Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at
International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.
Linux is also virtually free to license, although it will cost money to buy
support from Red Hat and to hire internal Linux experts.
Although Home Depot could have eased its Windows remote management problems
by putting a Windows NT server in each store, that move would have been very
costly, Anderson said.
Winston Tsang
Borders Group, Inc.
100 Phoenix Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108-2202
(734-477-4480)
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