/me takes a typing break - checkpointing

git-svn-id: https://shorewall.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/shorewall/trunk@3688 fbd18981-670d-0410-9b5c-8dc0c1a9a2bb
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paulgear 2006-03-18 01:59:43 +00:00
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</articleinfo> </articleinfo>
<section> <section>
<title>Shorewall Environment Survey 2006</title> <title>The Shorewall Environment Survey 2006</title>
<para>In early March 2006, i embarked on the jorney of surveying Shorewall <para>In early March 2006, i @@@ embarked on the jorney of surveying
users. Initially this sprang from my own curiosity: it seemed to me that Shorewall users. Initially this sprang from my own curiosity: it seemed to
the systems at work on which i was using Shorewall were bigger and more me that the systems at work on which i was using Shorewall were bigger and
complex than a lot of the ones others were using, and i wanted to find out more complex than a lot of the ones others were using, and i wanted to
if there were people out there who used it like i did. As started thinking find out if there were people out there who used it like i did. As started
about the question's i would ask, i realised that i could ask a few more thinking about the question's i would ask, i realised that i could ask a
questions that might help us as a project to understand a bit more about few more questions that might help us as a project to understand a bit
all of our users.</para> more about all of our users.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Survey</title>
<para>I used <ulink url="http://www.zoomerang.com">Zoomerang</ulink> to <para>I used <ulink url="http://www.zoomerang.com">Zoomerang</ulink> to
create the survey. It has a number of tools that make it really easy to create the survey. It has a number of tools that make it really easy to
create useful surveys. To get the most benefit out of Zoomerang, you have create useful surveys. To get the most benefit out of Zoomerang, you have
to subscribe to their professional version.</para> to subscribe to their professional version. In the long term, it would be
great to see a practical free software alternative that we could
self-host. A number of free content management systems such as <ulink
url="http://drupal.org">Drupal</ulink> have a survey module, but when i
last looked at them, they</para>
<section> <section>
<title>Take the survey</title> <title>Take the survey</title>
<para>The survey is still open as of this writing, and can be accessed <para>The survey is still open as of this writing, and can be accessed
at <ulink url="http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2253NNBCN44">the at <ulink url="http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2253NNBCN44">the
Zoomerang survey page</ulink>. Further participation is Zoomerang survey page</ulink>. Further participation is encouraged. The
encouraged.</para> figures quoted in this document reflect the latest results at the time
of writing.</para>
</section> </section>
<section> <section>
@ -69,9 +70,8 @@
<para>The <ulink <para>The <ulink
url="http://www.zoomerang.com/reports/public_report.zgi?ID=L22KHC6BPGLS">public url="http://www.zoomerang.com/reports/public_report.zgi?ID=L22KHC6BPGLS">public
(anonymised) results</ulink> of the survey are also available. If you results</ulink> of the survey are also available. If you complete the
complete the survey, a link to the results is provided on the thank you survey, a link to the results is provided on the thank you page.</para>
page.</para>
</section> </section>
</section> </section>
@ -83,17 +83,66 @@
<section> <section>
<title>Summary</title> <title>Summary</title>
<para>asdf</para> <para></para>
<section> <section>
<title>Organisations</title> <title>Organisations</title>
<para>Small organisations dominate the spectrum of Shorewall users. <para>Small organisations dominate the spectrum of Shorewall users.
The largest group (44%) was 1-10 users - mostly home LANs, based on The largest group (44%) was 1-10 users - mostly SOHO LANs, based on
the comments in that section. Ninety percent of Shorewall the comments in that section. Ninety percent of Shorewall
installations are in organisations with less than 500 users.</para> installations are in organisations with less than 500 users.</para>
<para></para> <para>The results for the questions about organisational size and the
number of users serviced by Shorewall closely match, which seems to
indicate that the majority of those 90% of Shorewall systems are
servicing the entire organisation in question.</para>
<para>Some anomalies seem to have crept in, e.g. some responses
indicated that their Shorewall system serviced more users than exist
in their organisation. There may be some good reasons for this that
i'm not aware of.</para>
<para>The vast majority (84%) of Shorewall systems are administered by
only one person. Possible reasons for this might be:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Most of the organisations in which it is used are small, and
so most of them will only have one person skilled in the area of
packet filtering firewalls. This seems a likely scenario, but a
cross</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Shorewall is too hard for new users to comprehend, so one
skilled person in an organisation tends to get the job maintaining
it.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Shorewall works so well that people don't have to touch it
much. (This is obviously the preferred interpretation of the
Shorewall project team. :-)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Shorewall administrators are a closed bunch and don't like
sharing their job around. Given the nature of packet filtering,
this doesn't seem far-fetched.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>This question doesn't seem to have an easy answer. In
retrospect, since there were no responses indicating 10 or more
administrators, i could have made the granularity of this question
better. Possibly we can follow this up with a further, smaller survey
specifically about the people and organisations who use
Shorewall.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title></title>
<para></para> <para></para>
</section> </section>
@ -131,6 +180,48 @@
<section> <section>
<title>Lessons learned about surveys</title> <title>Lessons learned about surveys</title>
<para>asdf</para>
<para>things i did right</para>
<para></para> <para></para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Treat it like releasing free software:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>release early and often</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>make branches when you release alpha and beta versions, and
bring the lessons you learned in those versions into the main
trunk</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>things i did wrong</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Start small and work towards what you want to know. I tried to
do everything in one survey, and ended up confusing some
people.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>asdf</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Be prepared beforehand</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>asdf</para>
</section> </section>
</article> </article>