Google's Plan To Kill the Corporate Network 308
mask.of.sanity writes "Google has revealed details on its Beyond Corp project to scrap the notion of a corporate network and move to a zero-trust model. The company perhaps unsurprisingly considers the traditional notion of perimeter defense and its respective gadgetry as a dead duck, and has moved to authenticate and authorize its 42,000 staff so they can access Google HQ from anywhere (video). Google also revealed it was perhaps the biggest Apple shop in the world, with 43,000 devices deployed and staff only allowed to use Windows with a supporting business case."
Re:Real Unix makes the difference. (Score:5, Informative)
Why would Google buy Macs if they don't use OS X? They could use Linux on ANY cheaper computer they choose but bought Macs anyway.
I believe Google thinks like a lot of us: OS X for desktops, Linux for servers, a mix of iOS and Android for mobiles.
Because Apple makes good, attractive, hardware? Besides, hardware cost is inconsequential compared to the cost of a developer, whether his laptop costs $1500 or $3000 doesn't matter. Our entire development team uses Macbooks - and of 12 users, only two of them run OSX. One of them is even geeky enough to paste a Tux logo over the light-up Apple logo.
Since they deploy on Linux servers, it makes sense to develop on Linux. Write-once run-anywhere still isn't a reality - obscure platform specific bugs can still come back to bite you.
Re:Genuinely Interested (Score:5, Informative)
> Please tell us more about your setup.
We're a Java office in TX with a remote call center in OR and a handful of remote employees ( Chicago ).
> What type of work does the company and you do?
I'm the director of development, we're a j2ee web application development shop with special expertise in Oracle
> Approximately how many users work like this?
All of us ~30
> Does this company operate primarily as a standard physical office environment, or is this a distributed(work from home) startup?
A couple of my developers work from home 3 days a week and most of ops ( the network guys ) work from wherever and, apparently, whenever they want. They're pretty hot shit, published authors, speakers at LISA, etc so they're left alone most of the time.
> Where are the servers, on-site, datacenter, cloud?
We keep our staging and UAT servers on site and colo for production + another colo for failover
> Approximately how many servers?
I have no idea, I know we have some serious SAN gear for the databases. We probably have around 50 virtual servers in our testing setup and maybe 20-25 production server clusters with an average of 3 nodes each. Some physical some virtual.
> What type of applications are used, web, small applications like QB, MS Exchange or SQL systems?
Web applications, we develop/maintain some very large rewards and loyalty programs for the big banks. RDBMS is Oracle, email and IM is handled through Zimbra, project management is handled with Atlassen Jira self hosted.
> What are the negative aspects of this system?
The only problem i've ever faced is the VPN endpoints not staying connected. VPN connectivity becomes mission critical because without it no work can get done. I don't know what they're using for the VPN server, I know ops is a big fan of OpenBSD so it wouldn't surprise me if that's what they are using.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
No, a VPN still depends on a perimeter defense; the VPN is an tunnel through the perimeter and once the tunnel is set up, you have full access.
Re:Real Unix makes the difference. (Score:4, Informative)
Our entire development team uses Macbooks - and of 12 users, only two of them run OSX. One of them is even geeky enough to paste a Tux logo over the light-up Apple logo.
The last time I visited Google HQ (about 5 years ago) the most common setup I saw was Thinkpads running Linux with Macbooks running Linux in a close second.
Re:eh, Google no eat own dogfood? (Score:5, Informative)
why use so many Apple computers when there's your own awesome Chromebook [google.com]?
Google employee here (but I don't speak for my employer and I am basing this purely on anecdotal observation, not hard data).
I'm only familiar with my impressions from the engineering side, so I don't know much about the sales and marketing side of things, but nearly all of the engineers use Linux desktops (unless they're developing client software, like Chrome). Laptops are a different story. As a Bay Area-wide phenomenon, software engineers sure like their Macbooks, and this place is no exception. A few of us run Linux laptops, but my impression is that Macbooks outnumber Linux laptops plus Chromebooks combined. But the internal hardware requisition site is now offering the Pixel (indeed, recommending it instead of Macbooks), so this should change with time.
There's also the matter of hardware refresh cycles. The Pixel is not even a year old yet, and it hasn't been available for requisitions for its entire lifespan, so a good number of employees haven't yet had the chance to switch even if they want to. (Returned working laptops are refurbished and reused, so turning over the inventory will take longer than you might expect.) Also, lack of VPN or native SSH impeded the Chromebook's internal usefulness in the early days, but today hardly anything still requires VPN (it works now regardless) and the Secure Shell [google.com] app is pretty workable (set it "Open as Window" so that ^W goes to the terminal). And... well, the early Chromebooks had anemic hardware specs, which is not true of the Pixel.
Re:how would it work in the real world? (Score:2, Informative)
It's best to just stay away from Windows programs.
If you think you need Windows programs or you work in a company that thinks it needs Windows programs, I feel sorry for you for working among the clueless zombies. Nobody needs Windows.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:eh, Google no eat own dogfood? (Score:5, Informative)
Because Google is an engineering company.
Google is an advertising company.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
So does that mean (from your link) that men are 21% smarter than women? And women just appear smarter because they're pack animals?