Introductions: My Turn

Hello all, my name is Dustin A. Dortch, and I am a senior at the University of Indianapols, and I am majoring in Information Systems at the School of Business.

I am the owner of a new IT Consulting company, Reinvent Solutions. I also started a community blog style site for Samba, and open source Windows Server replacement. I also have a personal blog. All of these can be reached via my signature.

I have nearly seven years of actual, professional, IT service experience, and I have been on the Internet, learning IT stuff for ten years. I have always had an entrepreneurial streak in me. I hope to supplement my income with a few side projects, and really grow my business, Reinvent Solutions.

Yea. It is actually VERY popular. It started back in 1991 or 1992. Basically, it allows a UNIX-based system to appear to be a Windows Server for file/print sharing and domain authentication. All of the network attached storage boxes run it, except for the few that are now running Windows embedded. http://www.samba.org/

It saves tons of money. At my full-time, we have a network of about 120 computers, not including servers. Beyond buying a Windows license for each computer, and a Windows Server license for each server, you have to buy a client access license for either each client computer for user, whichever is less. For us, we would spend about $60K in licensing just for the client access licenses and the Windows server licenses. What we pay with Samba for that, $0.

Further, it is better. You can do much cooler stuff because it is more open. And, it is more reliable and is not susceptible to the same viruses as Windows, like Windows Server is. So, even if all of your client machine get a virus, the Samba server will be fine, and have proper data integrity.