SecureONE Interview

Interviewed by Jono Bacon

SecureONE is an Internet security business which uses KDE for a variety of uses and functions. I spoke to Andrew Hatfield about how KDE is used.

What is the companies line of business? What kind of products/services do you offer?

SecureONE is an Internet Security company. We provide small to medium business with the infrastructure to provide and access Internet services securely. Our biggest moving product is the SecureSentry - aimed at the SMB market. The SecureSentry provides web, mail, dns, dhcp, authentication, cache, ldap, database, vpn and firewall functionality. We completely manage, support and update your solution, so piece of mind is assured.

Other products include highend webmail servers, file and print (Linux or Windows2000), SOEs on KDE or Windows2000.

We also provide Internet connectivity with road warrior PSTN, permanent PSTN, broadband via carrier grade DSL and Satellite. We are also partnering with other network carriers to provide Frame Relay and DDS digital services.

Also on the security side of things, we help businesses design, develop and implement Privacy, Security, Internet Usage and Information policies.

We aim to provide a one stop shop for network consulting, Internet connectivity and security services.

What are your IT requirements for the business?

Obviously broadband Internet access is the main requirement. We use our own SecureSentry solution for our routers, firewalls and web / mail requirements. File and Print is supplied by a mix of RedHat Linux and Windows2000 Small Business Servers. Application development is on both Windows2000 Professional and KDE workstations. We have a liberal set of restrictions in place to enable a broad range of functionality and freedom for our support staff, but are still able to manage each product effeciently.

How does KDE fit into your IT requirements and what solutions does it offer?

KDE is our desktop of choice for development, webdesign and support. We still use Windows2000, however, we like and try to spend most of our time in Linux "mode"

KDE offers our organization a cheap, functional, stable, reliable and pretty desktop interface. We have played with GNOME over the years, and while having a number of great features etc... we found that interoperability was lacking. KDE is more of a "complete" desktop solution, whereas we get the feeling GNOME is just a mix of applications that while looking similar, don't play well together.

Our understanding of KDE's backend technologies helps us appreciate the framework and end-user interface even more. The ability to drag and drop between pretty much all applications, common dialogs, etc.... makes it a more usage desktop for our users.

How many machines does KDE run on and what Operating Systems do you use?

We currently have KDE running on 5 PCs on RedHat Linux. We have just put in a development Solaris 8 box and are planning on giving it a spin on that.

What items did you take into consideration in choosing KDE, and what made you finalise upon it?

Ease of use, prettiness, complete solution, stability, resource use and inter-application interoperability were the main factors. KDE simply offers a better all round solution for an end user, both technical and non-technical alike.

What particular KDE software do you utilise in your business? KOffice? KDevelop?

We use KDevelop and a mix of Konqueror and Mozilla mostly. Groupware is via currently via a webinterface to Exchange *sighs*. We use KMail for remote email access.

Do you feel KDE is a cost effective platform?

Most definately. Most people still only see the upfront cost of their "initial investment" as the only consideration point. We factor in items such as end user productivity, learning curve, stability, support cost, maintenance and upgrade path.

KDE offers a lower total cost of ownership to rivals such as Windows2000. Whilst Windows2000 has made enourmous inroads into usability, stability and remote configuration - it is still expensive upfront and in support costs. Also, the hardware required to run Windows2000 effeciently is higher than KDE and Linux's requirements.

Where would you like to see the future of KDE go, and what would you like to see in future releases?

Interoperability with GNOME would be great. Especially with Evolution. I think the work being done with Qt 3 and KDE 3, especially with the database classes is fantastic. I can't really think of anything other than being able to have a GUI application where I can say, "I want KMail, these theme options, KDevelop, etc..." and roll it out. At the minute we use our update management system for our SecureSentries to configure the source RPMs as needed and push them out on top of the OS.

SecureONE - http://www.secureone.com.au/

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