Chemnitz, Germany, 04.03.2015 – Over the years, it took a lot of work to prepare Open Ticket Request System (OTRS) versions for Linux and Windows environments. The idea was to install OTRS in Linux or Windows environment and to work with a system without problems. However, the OTRS vendor started advising Linux as basis for the OTRS system and it became even a guideline, because there is no Windows installer for the OTRS 4 so far.
There are still OTRS users, who installed older versions of OTRS (including OTRS 3.3) on Windows. There are two main reasons for the state of art: whether they don–t have any Linux-Know-How in their IT organisations or their IT wants to preserve maintained and homogeneous Microsoft environment. Ostensibly, OTRS seems to work in such user cases.
However, the practice experience exchanged on community forums for online discussions and within capeIT projects shows that problems with bad performance and stability of OTRS can appear under specific circumstances with OTRS based on Windows. The problems occur when the amount of service agents in OTRS increases or if additional or customer-specific modules are installed.
A possible cause of such problems with OTRS systems based on Windows is the fact that Windows doesn–t support some aspects of newer OTRS. Workarounds are not possible. The trouble shooting is different with every Windows release. “Meanwhile, we consider the situation as crucial“, says Rico Barth, the managing director of capeIT “and we have been advising against Windows as basis for OTRS.“
capeIT, the vendor of KIX4OTRS, the most extended, free OTRS community module worldwide, gathered project experience with customers using OTRS as (IT) service management solution. In many cases, the migration from Windows to Linux solved the mentioned problems.
A project example is migration of OTRS system at ROTHENBERGER Werkzeuge GmbH from Kelkeim, Germany. The problems with bad performance and instability that increased after upgrade from OTRS 3.1 to 3.3 have been solved with the system migration to Linux realised by the capeIT. “And then, the problems were fixed” reminds Stefan Endler, the Head of IT. He confirms: „It makes sense to use OTRS and KIX4OTRS on Linux.“
capeIT confirms the view and doesn–t promote OTRS under Windows aspects anymore. Indeed, capeIT advises against Windows-based OTRS systems and advises to migrate to Linux. capeIT also supports customers within the migration phase or takes over the migration and maintenance of the Linux environment within the extended service via remote administration. The OTRS specialist from Chemnitz confirms that OTRS systems with installed functional or integrative extensions work without problems on Linux.
„We watch closely how our customers and community users implement basic HelpDesk and how the OTRS environments evolve within few years into complex, integrated systems as solution for a company-wide service management.” says Rico Barth. “Whether a wish to act according to ITIL or a need to build a classical Customer Care Center, we would like to be sure that process modeling will be successful for our customers and community users. Therefore, we emphasize that it is apparently not always possible with Windows-basis, and we advise to have OTRS on Linux-basis. A stable foundation is needed, when you would like to build a future-oriented service solution.”
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