FC 3 -- Ready for Production Deploymnet??

[James Wilkinson]

Tim Holmes wrote:
> I have just finished loading my first FC3 box, and the updates are
> running right now.  I will be testing this box for a period of time, but
> what I am wondering is if FC3 is ready for production deployment at this
> point, or if I should wait for a further period of development.  We are
> mostly a windows shop, and my normal time table is to not deploy an
> operating system until it has gone through the first service pack
> update, but there are exceptions to this rule.  I am newer to using
> Fedora and I don't have a good time table established for deployment.  I
> have 2 webservers (apache) a database server (MySQL) and a file server
> (samba) currently deployed, as well as a Nagios box, one running cacti
> and one that will be shortly getting mailman
> 
> Your insights and thoughts would be appreciated

Obviously, Fedora doesn't get service packs as such.

If you're cautious about stability (especially for servers), you might
want to track down one of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux rebuilds, like
Centos or White Box Linux.

However, I have found Fedora to be of extremely high quality, especially
as far as the servers are concerned. And in my experience, any serious
bugs in the distribution will become apparent in the first month or six
weeks or so (being cautious).

Obviously, with *any* OS upgrade, there is the possibility that
something goes wrong. It might be a problem with some bit of hardware,
or a power cut trashing the MBR, or a new feature needing a bit of
reconfiguration before a crucial daemon will work for you.

This could be a problem for Fedora, simply because it needs more
installs than other OSes. You will therefore need to be sure that your
recovery plans are good. (Regardless of the OS, I'd recommend a "spare
server", or a plan to get the other existing servers to shoulder the
load. There are still a lot of things that can go wrong with computers!)

James.

-- 
James Wilkinson       | While preceding your entrance with a grenade is a good
Exeter    Devon    UK | tactic in Quake, it can lead to problems if attempted
E-mail address: james | at work. 
@westexe.demon.co.uk  |     -- Chris Hacking