Every business generates data, regardless of its scale. Run a business for a month or so and see how deep you get buried inside the data that it spawns.
The connectivity needs of an enterprise center around data. A connection is useful when it protects enterprise data and makes data transmission fast. Whether the connection is cellular or WiFi, if it fails to offer security and speed, it’s not useful for an enterprise.
Linux for Enterprise WiFi
Enterprises, these days. are moving to WiFi from cellular connection because cellular connection comes with plenty of downsides and it’s difficult to list them all. There’s another factor propelling this exodus; the ISPs are making it easy for enterprise-grade customers to use WiFi.
Alongside WiFi, Linux is also a preference among enterprises because Linux servers offer better security than Windows servers.
Explore
If you are an enterprise, then explore the juncture where WiFi meets Linux. By doing this, you can show your business the road to profit.
It’s really simple; choose an enterprise linux server that’s compatible with all the latest WiFi standards. You can find as many Linux servers as you want right at the drop of a hat. But they don’t offer the same degree of hospitality to WiFi.
So, you need to choose carefully. My pick for you is:
Ubuntu 15.04
Ubuntu is perhaps the most preferred Linux distro. And you’d be surprised to know not only the end users, but enterprises also show a predilection for it. They have their reasons.
Enterprise Ubuntu comes with support for latest WiFi practices. This year’s hottest is Ubuntu 15.04 or “Vivid Vervet.” It can run on servers, and among its many features, one is OpenStack Kilo support.
OpenStack Kilo is a goldmine for enterprises of all scales. You’d keep digging into it and still won’t reach to the bottom. Kilo lets an enterprise develop all types of clouds and avail all the features with the help of more than 400 embedded tools.
But configuring OpenStack on devices that have DHCP IP addresses is sometimes difficult. Here’s a case study that shows why:
- The case study: In a small company, the client machines had IP addresses via DHCP. The users followed the RDO QuickStart instructions and had the NetworkManager disabled. They couldn’t replace the ifcfg-xxxx script variables with IP addresses because they couldn’t assume any, and the NetworkManager couldn’t automatically configure IP addresses for being disabled.
The problem arose because of the installation scripts. The scripts assumed the users had static IP addresses when they didn’t. The installation scripts attempted to bridge with eth0 every time, but the users were not using a LAN connection.
How the problem got solved is not relevant for our discussion. The bottomline is you’d come across problems in droves when configuring OpenStack on WiFi only systems.
If your server runs Ubuntu 14.04, follow this guideline. Or, install the “Vivid Vervet” as it comes equipped with Kilo to give your Linux server a break from WiFi glitches.
Two Pieces of Advice
Assuming you’d install Vivid Vervet, here’s the download link. When installing it, I recommend you to choose Manage System with Landscape to manage upgrades on the server. The feature called Landscape allows you to manage more than hundreds of Ubuntu run machines.
This would not only be cost-effective but also let you monitor how each machine is doing. Connection downtimes are probably due to some bugs, which I hope would be fixed very soon.
If your employees are facing repetitive connection failure issues, here’s what you can tell them to do to have the connection back:
Tell them to open the /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf file and feed it “11n_disable=1”.
They can do it by opening the terminal first and then type in it the following line:
“gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi-disable11n.conf” and then press “Enter.” When the configuration file opens, they need to add this line at the end:
“options iwlagn 11n_disable=1” and save it.
Keep in Mind
I personally recommend Ubuntu 15.04 but you may choose some other enterprise distro such as RHEL 7.1 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
That’s okay, but if you follow my recommendation and choose Vivid Vervet instead, the discussion above would help you.
Image: Linux/YouTube
Aira Bongco
I have a friend from College who is always raving about Ubuntu. I never really got to use it so I have not really tested its effectiveness when it comes to data processing. But I have heard a lot about its efficiency compared with other platforms.
Dear Aira,
You can actually run UBUNTU off a flash drive. Just search how to do it. Its called “Live Distro”. That way you can try it as long as you like and then install it if you are comfortable.
Aaron
Ubuntu doesn’t use /etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-ethX files that’s a RHEL thing. Ubuntu uses /etc/network/interfaces and I found that the ubuntu scripts for utilizing this file did not function most of the time as they should. RHEL was much better in this regard. I ended up rewriting everything using ip addr calls instead. I believe most Ubuntu installations rely heavily on Network Manager. Unless you want to write a bunch of code to manage your network just stick with Network Manager.
Hi,
For enterprise, with Ubuntu, it is always safer to recommened an LTS version like Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
LTS stands for Long term support. Means every 2 years you have an LTS that you can migrate to, and each LTS have 5 years of security update (free) and professional support from Canonical (B2B service). Those LTS are the stability and security version that enterprise usualy want to use. Others version are still nice, and you can one day upgrade from an non-LTS to the next LTS if needed.
Steven Scheck
I agree, but the problem is Vivid Vervet is a standard release, and it’ll receive support from Canonical till November this year, which means an enterprise would have to wait for the release of the next LTS version 16.04. So, keeping in mind what you’ve suggested, my suggestion would be installing Vivid Vervet now for it being enterprise-friendly in terms of wireless connectivity, and then upgrading to 16.04.