Look for IT over here

I have spent the last 10-15 years working in a predominantly Cisco environment. I think their products are great, but are not cheap. I think it comes down to the old line ‘you get what you pay for’, and Cisco certainly delivers.

That’s at work….. At home I look at alternatives. So when I was looking for open source software/products I found a great open source networking product - Vyatta.

Vyatta is software that runs under a linux base and delivers routing, firewall and VPN functions to the product you have it installed on.

You can get the Vyatta software free (community Edition), but there are paid subscriptions which are for business use. Vyatta also sell networking appliances that have the software on them ready to configure and deploy on your network.

After having a bit of a play with Vyatta myself with the downloadable VMWare image, I must say it doesn’t work too bad. If you have played with a Cisco router, then you’ll find this very easy to configure.

The command set is very similar to Cisco. Viewing the config is a different story, but not too hard to understand if you just take the time to read it.

My recommendation is to try it out yourself, or at least visit the website and read the whitepapers. I’m sure you will find it a very interesting product.

Having used VMWare to build virtual OS systems on one PC (mainly for testing applications), I wondered if there was a open source (and free) equivalent.

I found VirtualBox. It looks to do exactly the same thing as VMWare, and can be installed on a variety of platforms. VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

I haven’t yet tried it but would be interested in any comments or opinions from anyone that has.

Just made the switch to Linux from Windows (or even OS X?) and are having trouble finding software similar/equivalent to what you are used to?

Yes, the linux learning curve is steep but rewarding when you do start working it all out.

Here is a good website that lists the Windows/OS X software and the linux equivalents.

In a lot of cases there are multiple options which is good. You aren’t tied down to one thing which you may not like.