Why customers choose SAMBA+
Reasons and advantages
A variety of features are built into SAMBA+ that differs them from those Samba software packages that come with the various Linux flavors – they are key to why customers choose SAMBA+:
- SAMBA+ provides security fixed packages by the same day.
When the Samba team provides security patches, Linux distros usually provide new packages within a few days. SAMBA+ packages are updated the same day when security flaws become public, eg. Badlock or SambaCry.
- SAMBA+ is always the newest Samba for Enterprise Linux.
Shortly after the Samba team releases a new version of Samba, SerNet publishes SAMBA+ for all respective platforms: Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, SLES, openSUSE Leap and AIX. All sources under maintenance at Samba.TEAM are also available as SAMBA+ packages for current Linux versions, even older versions no longer supported by their distribution.
- SAMBA+ includes SAMBA-AD, an Active Directory domain controller for Linux
Samba packages provided by Red Hat do not support a domain controller setup in RHEL. The same applies to SLES, which can be enabled to be an AD domain controller (AD DC) with SAMBA+.
- SAMBA+ supports most recent Active Directory features in mixed environments.
Active Directory (AD) is the most important authentication and identity management system in Windows networks. (Please note that SAMBA+ and SSSD cannot be installed on the same machine. Refer to more information in the FAQ and in a Red Hat manual)
- SAMBA+ servers can work as a cluster.
Support for GlusterFS and Spectrum Scale support is built in. GlusterFS is an OpenSource scale-out network-attached storage file system, and Spectrum Scale is IBM's proprietary clustered file system.
- SAMBA+ packages originate from one source package.
They are subject to the same quality assurance. By this "one source policy" SAMBA+ behaves almost identical across different platforms. This is why SAMBA+ is a lot easier to deploy, configure and maintain. Other Samba packages shipped directly with Debian, RHEL or others deviate in age the most, but also in feature sets and interoperability.
- SAMBA+ is compiled from source with respect to stability and performance.
Over 20 years of experience with Samba makes SerNet the most experienced Samba company world wide. SAMBA+ is the right choice for an SMB stack in productive environments.
Appliance vendors and cloud service providers may also consider integrating Samba as SMB / CIFS stack into their products and services. Read about good reasons for OEM to do so on My SAMBA+.
Read our two-part article for even more Strength and Advantages of Samba:
