118 lines
6.3 KiB
HTML
118 lines
6.3 KiB
HTML
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
|
|
<HTML>
|
|
<HEAD>
|
|
<title>Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna: an Italian Public Administration Using Linux
|
|
Issue 23</title>
|
|
</HEAD>
|
|
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0020F0"
|
|
ALINK="#FF0000">
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<H4>
|
|
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
|
|
</H4>
|
|
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<center>
|
|
<H2>Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna: an Italian Public Administration Using Linux
|
|
</H2>
|
|
<H4>By
|
|
<A HREF="mailto:monty@rer.camcom.it">Giampaolo Montaletti</a></H4>
|
|
</center>
|
|
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
|
|
<P>Two year ago the Internet was exploding in Italy. A lot of newspaper
|
|
reported wishfull informations about it:</P>
|
|
<P>the Net is over 40 million of people looking for your information;</P>
|
|
<P>the Net is cheap and fast</P>
|
|
<P>the Net is growing so fast that you can't keep up.</P>
|
|
<P><A HREF="http://www.rer.camcom.it/istituzionale/">Unioncamere</A> is the
|
|
regional association of Chamber of Commerce of The italian region
|
|
Emilia-Romagna (Bologna is the capital, but <A HREF="http://www.iper.net/rimini-vrml/">Rimini
|
|
</A> is the well-world-wide-know city). Chambers of Commerce in Italy are
|
|
public bodies, and all the firm must be associated to the Chamber of Commerce
|
|
and have to pay an annual tax.</P>
|
|
<P>As you can easily understand firms are not so happy to pay tax, so we are
|
|
always under a big pressure from them. They want to have a lot of data about
|
|
economy, markets and financial tools in a fast and viable way and without a
|
|
lot of cost of maintenance. </P>
|
|
<P>Internet was the choiche and Linux was the system of choiche! At the
|
|
beginning of september 1995 we was starting the project of establishing a
|
|
server , at the end of october we was on line with the www server.</P>
|
|
<P>To give a fast stratup has been very important the contribution of Massimo
|
|
Poli, and indipendent consultant running a lot of sites and using Linux only;
|
|
you che reach him at <A HREF="http://www.sextant.it">www.sextant.it</A>, the
|
|
little firm he is managing. </P>
|
|
<P>When you pay a consultant using Linux you are sure to pay his work only,
|
|
and not a bogus "assistance service" or "online help".
|
|
This is very important in establishing a good and clear contract.</P>
|
|
<P>When we started whith the site we was using a coax-ethernet based LAN
|
|
with 30 users about. The 2 internal servers was (and they are working too)
|
|
Novell 3.12 based. Novell is IMHO a good NOS for two tasks: printing and
|
|
sharing disks. Novell tecnology is quite stable: our server BOSS is up and
|
|
running without shutdown from 6 of january 1997. But we was needing a good
|
|
e-mail server and a workgroup solution.</P>
|
|
<P>We decided to move to Linux for internal E-mail as for Internet E-mail. In
|
|
this way you have an affordable solution with low costs and no standard
|
|
problems. </P>
|
|
<P>The site is growing fast. Using Apache solution and virtual server
|
|
capacibility we are hosting two Chamber of Commerce and we are going to host
|
|
the other 7 in the region in the next future. Mailing lists, restricted users
|
|
areas, on-line database with www interfaces and other usefull instruments are
|
|
all in use in our server box. Security was another big problem, but not so big
|
|
using Linux firewalls. In 1996 we have installed a second server cruncing the
|
|
Lan in two segments. </P>
|
|
<P>Whit Linux we have solved a lot of problem at low cost, but Linux is
|
|
excellent in networking and network management. Now I'm administrating the
|
|
full network (SMB servers included) with my Linux box. I'm now mounting
|
|
volumes from Novell and fron NT 4 workstations, I'm already printing from
|
|
Novell printer server. Because I'm not a full time administrator (I'm really
|
|
working here as Chief of the Research and develpment office, and I'm not an
|
|
hacker, but a Senior Economist) I use Linux for Office work too. <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/products/product-details.phtml?id=apx">Applixware
|
|
</A> is the solution I prefer, the only 200 $ I've spent for software whith
|
|
Linux. The solution provided by Applixware is good because I share my work
|
|
with Microsoft maniac in my office, and I need the filters for Word and Excel
|
|
that Applixware is providing with version 4.3.</P>
|
|
<P>Workgroup solutions are now provided by a linux box with <A HREF="http://bscw.gmd.de/">BSCW
|
|
</A> software, a not well know piece of software in the linux world, but a
|
|
vary usefull one if you plan to establish an intranet whit workgroup solutions.
|
|
</P>
|
|
<P>For all the 4 linux boxex running in our network we use standard pc's. 2 of
|
|
the four machines running are old Pentium 90 and 133 Mhz that people with
|
|
Win95 wants no more, because those are "weak machines".</P>
|
|
<P>As you have already understood reading this article, we are not
|
|
linux-religious or linux-maniac or linux-fanatic. In our offices we run Novell
|
|
and Os/2 and Win* machines as well. But we use linux because for some tasks
|
|
is the best solution, only the best solution. Is stable, well supported and
|
|
documented. If you want to run a new project where the Internet or the
|
|
Intranet is involved and your boss is not able to understand or you have no
|
|
more money, go to the room were the old-and-disrupted-pc's are and set-up a
|
|
linux box. </P>
|
|
<P><A HREF="mailto:monty@rer.camcom.it">Giampaolo.Montaletti@rer.camcom.it
|
|
</A> AKA <A HREF="http://www.rer.camcom.it/people/monty/">Monty</A></P>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Giampaolo Montaletti<BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 23 of the Linux Gazette, December 1997</H5></center>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/homenew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="./shoham/drafth.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/back2.gif"
|
|
ALT=" Back "></A>
|
|
<A HREF="./wkndmech_dec97/wkndmech.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
</BODY>
|
|
</HTML>
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|
|
|