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Reducing the TCO of IT with Linux?
Bil Simser asks: "I've been asked by upper management to look at the feasibility of replacing our current Windows IT infrastructure with Linux. Basically someone has said that Linux is free so now we're off to see how free that really means. A full replacement is probably impossible, but I can see some benefits coming from selective replacement of specific technologies (e.g. application servers, web servers) that might be feasible. This is both from a cost reduction standpoint and increasing productivity when it comes to system management. I've already looked at a few studies done on TCO reduction on this and they look good so now I'm turning to the Slashdot community to see if anyone has either practical experience or informative insight into a problem like this? The objective is to determine the TCO of deploying Linux as a core part of our operational environment so what does that mean in the sense of hardware, software, middleware and management impact?"
I'll be blunt.
Most people are stupid.
Stupid people don't know linux.
Teaching Stupid people == Money
I've never been really impressed by studies that claim to produce general numbers on TCO. Things depend very much on what you do and how you do it. Any study you see could be of use to you though, they can help you do your own numbers.
The problem in this situation may be the perception that open source is free.
This means that it is easy for people upstairs to asssume that there will be correspingly less budget for training/ migration, dooming it to failure.
OSS may not be free as in beer, but at least its not like secondhand beer.
Migrating to a different OS costs money, whether from an expensive one to a cheaper one, or from one expensive to another. When you make the calculations, make sure to include a calculation of when the migration will start to pay off.
Setting up multiple alternatives might also be a possibility. Set up a matrix, and figure out how much effort goes into the various boxes that could be migrated - and at what risks.
If you have a simple IIS web server serving static, migrating to Linux will most likely be rather painless. Replacing a file server likewise (unless it is running XP - I'm not soo sure about that one).
It is extremely hard to give any more specific advice than this - since you aren't very specific yourself. How much business logic is tied up in Microsoft products - and how much can easily be replaced by open or java-based alternatives?
Stop the brainwash
Total Cost of Ownership
Also, before all the fanboys out there start screaming "Linux is better", consider this: the reason Windows server software is present at most companies is not because of IIS nor because it offers a secure server environment. It is because of Exchange. Although it has MANY shortcomings, it works, and even though it is perfectly feasible to use open protocols to accomplish most of what Exchange does, you will not have a clear upgrade path (something that is important to upper management, however irrelevant it might be in real life) and you will have to go through hell to do the transition.
Basically, my opinion is the following: move your file servers, proxy servers and print servers to Linux. It should be fairly straightforward if you plan it well, or have a decent project manager. Leave Exchange for last and research the subject very well.
Or post another Ask Slashdot :-D
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
TCO hails back to the days when DOS imposed 7.3 naming scheme for files. Thus, as an amusing jape, destined to make GNU/Hippies wet their pants, Rob 'Fudge Packer' Malda chose the name CmdrTCO, shortened these days to TCO. It represents many horrific things, including TCO-snotting, which actually refers to the queer GNU/Hippy practice of blowing windows CDs out their noses onto each others spotty, pasty white, lardy bodies.
TCO = Total Cost of Ownership
Purchasing prices + the costs of system management.
please proff read !
Total cost of ownership
factors in all training/ upgrade/ support costs.
Assumes that the vendor doesn't suddenly change the rules (like Microsoft just have) and roger you senseless over a barrel.
There's a linux-service company called kangaroot which offers free auditing about linux-migration.
I don't know about the quality of the audit, but you can always try it?
Introduce linux servers when its time to exchange old ones and use linux as a replacement for things where windows dont work that well. A complete overhaul at once is probably going to cost more than its worth. There is no need to toss something that works out the window.
If you replace things as they are too old/broken you dont get the problems that arise when you rip/replace everything. A slow steady pace of replacing should keep the TCO down.
That is unless you want to rip everything out and install an iron_butt of an IBM server. In that case it can save a lot of money but the investment is pretty hefty the first year.
HTTP/1.1 400
IBM adressed similar problems to one of the biggest companies in austria
free (as in speech) != free (as in beer)?
If not, make sure they do!
"RMS is the Jerry Springer of Open Source Software" --AC
Yes, and Bill Gates and co. comes in as guests making complete asses of themselves every show.
=D
HTTP/1.1 400
Thanks for that link - a very interesting read indeed. A pretty good overview of the problems of reducing TCO.
The New York Linux Scene has held business demos regarding Linux for business, TCO, desktop applications, Databases and more. There are audios available for download at the web site that include presentations made at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, and more recently at CUNY/LaGuardia in Queens, NYC.
Without that information it is impossible to even try to guess the TCO. You should describe your environment, human resources and everything else in quite much detail to have beneficial input. As you might have read from some TCO reports, replacing things with Linux might have anything between a negative and very postive TCO impact. Anyway, I would suggest first trying with a dedicated group of individuals - then if it works, enlarge to one division (if your company has divisions). Take smaller steps. Or... do you already have results from tries like this?
Free and open? Cheap Total Cost of Ownership? Do thousands of geeks look at the internals every day?
I think we should be told.
If you will try to find the closest thing to what you have, you most likely will end with more headache than if you just list all the necessary functions and install whatever does them best.
Say, you have email. There is Exchange equivalent for Linux (Samsung Contact), but if one can survive with moving meeting scheduling functionality to something else (or abandoning it -- people should not spend so much time at meetings that they need to mess with each other calendars to schedule it), Cyrus + sendmail with IMAP will outperform everything else UNLESS people like to send multi-megabyte attachments to giant lists instead of placing files on some HTTP server.
Meeting scheduler and web server management programs can be installed separately (and nothing wrong will happen even if large attachment will get copied to 100 people, as long as it fits on the server's hard drive), but people should be aware that they are there. On the other hand, performance, security and flexibility of Internet connection will improve dramatically compared to Exchange.
Same kind of "similat to what you had on Windows" vs. "what performs this function the best" dilemma exists for pretty much every other service.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
TCO stands for Total Cost of Ownership.
Without knowing what application servers you're looking to replace it's abit hard to say anything.
The general network infrastructure bits, file servers, mail servers (note: MAIL not the overblown nightmare known as Exchange), firewalls, dhcp servers, gateways, some router boxes then Linux will be of benifit.
The one cost factor that is hard to calculate is the cost of retraining the IT support team - do you know how many already use linux at home or have used it in the past?
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
I wonder what kind of IT manager you are, expecting us to give you a detailed answer to _such_ a generic question.
:-) Next to that, yes, we are saving a lot on our IT budget by using Linux instead of Windows. But we're just a five-person shop and we all studied informatics, so we don't shy away from tweaking our systems and we don't really care about the system our software runs on.
What does your company do? What kind of software do you run, on servers, on desktops? What hardware setups do you have? What software are your employees used to? How IT-competent are your employees - will they freak out when the "start" button looks different on their desktop, will they call support when Clippy is missing? Is retraining an issue or do you use custom-made software that can be ported to the new environment? Can you estimate the cost of porting your custom-made software?
Etc. etc. etc.
Despite what the marketing people tell us, TCO is always a subjective calculcation, there is _no_ objective way of measuring it. Ask two people in the same company for a TCO calculation and you'll get massively different numbers.
Speaking from my own experience, I can say that using Linux instead of Windows has massively reduced my frustration with server setups and networked clients. A non-frustrated, happy IT manager is good for the company, so that alone should be something to consider.
------------------
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Fact 4 - MSCE = skill shortage
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Linux is like my wife, hard to understand but very nice once you get under the hood.
"Free and open? Cheap Total Cost of Ownership? Do thousands of geeks look at the internals every day?"
No that was my x girlfriend.
This one is all mine and the TCO is pretty nice, she works with computers. As of looking at her she is a geek, nuff said.
HTTP/1.1 400
When planing your setup, you may consider Linux the icecream on the cake. But remember, people want cake, not icecream. Put up Linux boxes for jobs where Linux is superior, leave the rest to your old, already payed for windows boxes. If your good at it, people will demand linux for the rest sooner or later.
I don't mean this as a troll, but anyway,
Linux isn't the only free software out there. Remember to investigate the fesibility of other free OSes such as OpenBSD (secure), FreeDOS (lightweight), NetBSD (portable), etc. Linux is better for some things, other OSes are better for others.
Since you give no information on what you do with your NT infrastucture it's hard to say. But as far as I have expierienced, using Linux won't be considerably cheaper if you don't switch entirely.
The heterogenic fuss of administrating an NT/Linux mix of 500+ PCs is a pure pain in the but. And knowing how crappy NT 'networks' are, I suggest you ditch it entirely.
I guess you are considering a network wide update anyway, so total Linux could very much be the way to go. Alltough you'd probaly have to start with "let's just change the servers and one or two Desktops" to get the people used to the Idea.
And finally, to answer your question:
A Linux only enviroment for Standard PC work will allways be cheaper than WinNT. Provided you know your way about Linux admining and there's no special software that only runs on NT. Which would only be something like special Video NLE software or something simular.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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Open Source - ready for business
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A Hard Look at Linux's Claimed Strengths
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I've read a few things on the web about the topic. It seems to me that if you are involved with a small to mid sized business, there could be some decent savings on licensing fees etc. Also lots of people site support as being the great thing about windows products, well, if you actually look into it, it costs a heck of a lot for getting that support off microsoft each year. BUT, it's like what others have said, it depends a lot on just how much stuff can be painlessly transferred across to linux whilst maintaining the functionality and ease of use that is required.
so what does that mean in the sense of hardware, software, middleware and management impact?
OK, you have not actually told us what groupware your company runs (Lotus should be okay as IBM has worked upon it, for Exchange, you may take a look to Xandros).
Also, What typical activities are you performing ?
Programming ?
For which target ?
If this "just" consists of deploying yet-another-billing system, I guess it is still possible if you know how to interface the telecom switches using the GCC...
Now, for DTP purposes, you'll have a problem as Gimp doesn't support CYMK (well, it didn't the last time as checked) and Gyve or Killustrator are just too far from Adobe's products.
For web programming, this could do, except that I am not sure there is a GNU package aimed at replacing FlashMX... OK, still get Java, though.
No, please, be more explicit regarding what is to be done using Linux.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
TCO = Totally Cool Operation
At least acording to Linus in this article.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
What do swimming pools and women have in common?
They both cost an awful lot in upkeep for the time you spend in them.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
Sincere Choice
Open Source Initiative
Why Free Software's Long Run TCO must be lower
Open Source is good for America - US military advised (This is about the military, but parts can also apply to business. Read the report linked at the end of that article.)
OLPC Australia
Actually in many coutries there are legal battles against MSCE's using the term engineer on their resume or business card.
but this is more for diskless workstations.
It would apply since your hardware can be used diskless even if it has a disk, but the various types of apps had to be changed and a server (under bigger load in an terminal server conviguration) had to handle things.
But as far as wholesale windows replacement, this would be a good resource.
One of these non-union tasks is probably known to you as the TCO-9x markings on your monitor.
To me, the headline Reducing the TCO of IT with Linux? sounds like Linux is helping out in the fight against socialism.
Burning some karma this AM. 1. HARUMPH!!! Why, who the hell do you think you are, coming in here asking questions. You need to do your own research, this is not the place for these kind of questions! These kids today, coming in here, thinking that I'll do their job for them, why when I was a boy... 2. Like, oh my god, you are using Windows/Exchange/MS something, like, oh my god, don't you KNOW that Linux is just better, because it's like, free or something like it, but it's just like better. So you should use Linux, like, OK? 3. Wow, imagine TCO on a beowulf cluster of these things! 4. You're stupid cuz I know more then you, yeah, so your stupid, stupid. Did I miss any? :)
on exactly which applications and servers you want to use. I think we need some more info here.
Ciryon
Bloody hell, hard luck man - how the FUCK is yours flamebait!
TCO = "Totally Cool OperatingSystem"
The lower the TCO the less cool something is. When Microsoft says that Windows has a higher TCO then Linux they mean that Windows is cooler.
I have collected[1] at lot of TCO analysis on the Web. Unfortunately most of them is in one of the Nordic languages.
l
The most resent report from the The Technology-council in Denmark[1] says that a Linux-person can serv 3 times the amount of users compared with Windows NT/2000/XP.
[1]http://developer.skolelinux.no/rapporten.htm
[2]http://www.tekno.dk/top.php3?survey=1
the best I can recommend is to start small. Let everyone know that you'll be making some changes. the fisrt step is openoffice/mozilla.
the training for that will be relatively little. go one office at a time; first IT, then accounting, etc.
Use that as a yardstick. gauge the companies relative stupidity/oblivious user.
Mozilla will be easy. it might be as simple as sending a tech traininer to each dept's next meeting and saying "we're upgrading IE, it will look a little different, but it's almost the same.(use the modern skin- people tend to think of it as more of an 'upgraded' look)
next try openoffice. this will be your key. it will require retraining stupid people. This means you taking the time to document it and create a FAQ and a 'how do i...' list.
if they can make it this far with relatively little pain, then try converting a few company servers to linux(webservers are a good start.) then try the IT dept. measure how difficult it is for each person. figure out the basics of exactly how long it takes the fairly tech-saavy people to get it. then take it one office at a time.
start small. baby steps.
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I don't know but in my opinion a feasability and TCO study would definetely have to be based on the individual components of your infrastructure. Sadly this article doesn't say anything about what kind of solutions would have to be supported/replaced. Without that kind of information you simply can't do any cost analysis. You cannot just say that TCO with any specific system (even Linux) is going to be lower/higher *without* knowing the facts about the infrastructure.
All that I CAN say based on recent experience is that a Linux server solution tends to be more stable, thereby saving costs in comparison to Windows servers with respect to reliability. Base installation costs for our shop has been equal to Windows, by the way, because it took our people more time to get things running in the first place. But that's only *our* experience.
Again: without knowing the facts you cannot get meaningful conclusions for your specific situation.
One of the ways in which Linux + free software can help is in the removal of need to count licenses and also do the whole purchase order dance whenver adding a node or an application to an existing node. Not spending time on that stuff can be a cost savings in itself.
although it doesn't eliminate them as the word "free" might suggest. However the costs get heavily reduced.
.exe dialers downloaded from pr0n sites. Heh! One of our customers did that, and of course it didn't work;#)
At my current job they made the same decision time ago; we now run all remote customers stations, all local developing stations, all network management machines and nearly all servers under Linux. The only server we're still forced to run under Windows is the IIS/SQLServer one, but the port towards Apache/MySQL (or PostgreSQL - our network is rapidly growing) is already scheduled to start next year.
The amount of money saved by using free software is enormous. No license fees per machine (A Windows + Office license saved for each machine does matter a lot when there are hundreds->thousands installs!), fast bug corrections, free and easy remote administration (desktop included), no time and bandwidth costs due to viruses or trojans (or windows
As other posters wrote, it may take some time and money to retrain the personnel to use Linux; that's true, but is definitely worth the effort. A mid-skilled sysadmin could also easily configure a basic window/desktop manager to be easier and safer to the user than Windows.
YMMV of course, but in our case Linux was the best choice ever.
"I'm turning to the Slashdot community to see if anyone has either practical experience or informative insight into a problem like this?"
Heh. You're right, I can't believe it either.
graspee
At the beginning of 2001, we changed all development servers (with our testing Oracle 8i databases), and everything went sweet. So in april 2001 we changed our production server from a Sun Enterprise 5000 (4 Ultra Sparc processors) to a Quad Xeon. No more server crashes, no more high maintenance costs.
Some interesting facts:
The topic didn't say anything about the OS they're currently using -- for all we know, they could be running a commercial UNIX right now, in which case their existing staff will be much less lost (and their existing internal software will port semi-easily, and they won't be using Exchange in the first place, and the whole thing will otherwise be much easier).
I've overseen a transition from SCO to Linux, and other than the porting of one crufty old internal app with a bunch of platform-specific dependancies, it went quite smoothly.
Its all about your tech staff. Gather your sysadmins in a room, then go in and yell "Command line interface!". If they respond with a cheer then go for it, and your TCO will likely be reduced.
You need people who like to work close to the hardware. Preferably people with coding experience. If your staff has no experince working with *nix, then forget about it.
IMHO linux servers takes less work to admin, but way more skill.
'If I stand on a hill in a storm with copper armour and a sword held up at arms length shouting "All the gods are bastards", will I get hit by lightning?'
(With apologies to PTerry)
Seriously - lets not retread the same old stuff on Slashdot that most of us could write code to generate the resulting opinions and flamewares (Linux vs M$ / P2P vs RIAA / SCSI vs IDE / MAC vs PC)
The best discusions I've seen here are where we get a good spread of opion, those are interesting and challenging.
Oh wait, I forgot where I was...
Lots of annoying popups there, sorry about that.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
We're avoiding Linux like the plague. Why? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Linux sysadmins? And if you do find them, do you have any idea the sort of salary they're likely to ask?
In my opinion in the long run, the TCO of Linux fall higher than Microsoft. But this is just my opinion. I have no hard numbers and no, I'm not a Microsoft plant.
Yuioup
With Open Source to the moon and back!
What the software community thinks about Microsoft
Be free!
At my company, we am doing the same.
We are in a Win2000 Active Directory environment, and we are slowly replacing the file servers with samba server (which are really easy to join to a win2k AD domain, and use the AD authentication if you RTFM), moving the web servers to Apache, the firewall is now a linux box with iptables, snort/acid and 2 network cards, and so on.
The whole linux section is running webmin over SSL, so changes in configuration are easy to administer and make can be done even by the microserfs in our company.
The only struggling point is Exchange (as another post mentions), there we go into the realm of broken LDAP implementations in AD and X400 connectors, so we have decided to leave that alone for now (to be honest, exchange 2000 performs quite adequately) (hiss! boo!)
We did not do the 'sudden switch', we just made sure there was a *nix alternative the moment another winbox went belly-up. The users don't even realise something is different, and the new structure performs well.
I find TCO a vague concept; there are so many intangible factors involved. I do know that
a)we are rid of MS's expensive server licenses
b)we spend less time troubleshooting
c)the hardware requirements are significantly lower
Plus, I get to play with *nix boxes all day long! yay!
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
Somebody once said to me, "Remember, Linux is free but is your time worth nothing?" The idea behind this: Yes, Linux is a free software package and works incredibly well. But there will be much lost time as you transition your Windows World to Linux. Another great person once said, "If it ain't broke, get the hell out of there and DO NOT fix it. Don't even claim responsibility for it."
-- Phil C. Jackson, Director IT/New Media www.arterystudio.com
Gah! I hate those things.
Stop the brainwash
Fact 5 - ???
Fact 6 - PROFIT!!!
How many custom in-house apps would you have to completely re-engineer? And how much would it cost for severance of your current development staff and rehire a whole new ones?
porn link
The majority of Ask Slashdot submissions are just plain stupid, and I have come to expect this. However, this Ask Slashdot is among one of the most boring ones that I have ever seen, followed by the most uninteresting string of comments ever.
While a discussion of the TCO of Linux may be valid, it isn't necessarily news for nerds because most nerds probably don't care about TCO unless it involves them using Linux instead of Windows at their workplace.
And, lastly, how is anyone supposed to write a comment for this that is actually funny? Everyone seems to struggle enough with this even for the more interesting stories.
There seems to be a general smattering of questions around how vague my Ask Slashdot submission was. Let me clarify by saying that I'm not looking for anyone to do the cost analysis for me, or even tell me what it would be. Obviously the numbers are based on what components we have or what software we're tied to. That's a complexity of it's own. And whatever technical challenges there are need to be raised as flags, but at a conceptual investigation stage nobody needs to know those details to get a 50,000 foot view of the world. What I am looking for is really the best way to determine these costs and if anyone has some experience in doing such a move from one platform to another and what are some of the "gotchas" to look out for when doing this type of study.
True, a system where users are only engaging email against an Exchange server means pretty much nothing in terms of swapping out Windows with Linux and serving up POP3, but even in that simple environment there are costs associated with support, maintenenace, upgrades, etc. If it costs $40 million dollars to replace a Microsoft technology with a Linux technology over 10 number of years, I'd rather stick with Microsquishy where the support is there and pay the $3 million/yr for it (or whatever those numbers are).
I think one of the key points that we're seeing from looking at this problem is the fact that we're seemingly tied to certain products, not necessarily the technologies. So depending on the product rather than the service is causing a lot of grief in any kind of cost reduction. One comment that stood out was that large corporations were tied to Windows not because of IIS but because of Exchange. This is only partially true as most large corporations are tied to a series of products rather than technologies. It's not as simple as Exchange vs POP3 but more like BizTalk vs ???, portal technologies, SAP, etc. There is no one single solution in a corporate environment for all services.
Thanks!
See www.winface.com for a book some ideas from the Unix world on TCO of Unix vs. Windows. Most of the arguments and calculations will work, and the TCO will be lower because you are likely to use x86 hardware with Linux, giving similar hardware costs to Windows.
There are some annoying errors in this book, but it is worth the $35 - I got a copy and it is quite thought provoking.
And WTF is TCO ?
Most windows printing drivers (e.g. from lexmark) can use an "lpr" network port. So you don't need to use samba for printing.
A lot hangs on this point. If you mean `it pounds perfectly good server hardware into the sand' then I agree, although I'm not sure why this would be an advantage.
If you want to do that, just use the latest version of LookOut and point it at your LDAP server. It'll send no end of insane LDAP queries and keep the poor server shuddering and smoking up the tyres almost as if it were running Exchange.
If by `it works' you mean `it reliably delivers email', I'd have to violently disagree. I've just received a bounce from an Exchange server... a week after I sent it the original email. Sometimes it delivers OK, sometimes it mangles attachments, sometimes it just toys with a message for a few hours for no reason that I can detect.
PostFix does all of the _useful_ email things that Exchange does and requires only a fraction of the horsepower. Do we need to discuss security? The few obscure/bizarre things the SendMail will do that PostFix won't are rarely worth the bother of a crash-dump configuration file.
The only nearly-unique feature of Exchange is the collaboration aspect, and even that is much better done with SamsungContact nee hp-OpenMail.
And as another poster asked, why meet so often? And do people need to tinker with each others' calendars to achieve this? You may be looking at a procedural bug here.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
>But at the same time she is very calm and composed
:)
>on a surgery table even in an emergency. I have
>seen her being at her best. But not once have I
>seen her calling others stupid, even if that person
>has no sense of medicine.
Oh I dunno
Medical people can see a lot of luserish behaviour in a typical day. It depends on where you work, geriatrics probably isn't so bad, but ER folks see every kind of stupidity you could imagine, and several you couldn't.
There are mailing lists etc. where EMTs and ER people trade stories about the outrageous stupidity of their patients, these lists have the same tone as tech people telling "CDROMs as cupholders" stories.
Ever notice that people who injure themselves because of drugs/alcohol receive a slightly different standard of care at hospitals? You've just used up all your sympathy points, dude!
There is Exchange equivalent for Linux
Free as in Beer, and free as in "it came on my redhat CD disk 2"
I'm sitting here looking at a perfectly good alphaserver vintage 1994 that no one at work had any use for and hence I've inherited.
We use some BSD to squeeze a little more life out of a few aging x86 boxes for mail, etc. but to the best of my knowledge, nothing really touches linux when it comes to a.) hardware compatibility coupled with b.) application support and c.) a snowball's chance in hell of getting a support contract that will keep your TCO south of the prison rape that is MS licensing. But then, I'm the small fish...
In any event, if you have a mixed platform environment and a few older systems the capacity to leverage that hardware's remaining capabilities given a homogenous OS environemnt, open standards and fine-grained configurability creates the potential (in my mind) for a very excellent short term return on investment.
Furthermore, its a relatively low risk scenario for you and other management members to get good, hard fact data about what the realities of the differences in TCO is using linux in _Your Environment_ .
Slashdot is the best TCO reduction device! Linux/Windows or any other OS comes nowhere near Slashdots amazing ability to reduce companies TCO. If your company have any IT-related problem just post it on /. and you will reveive bundles of free research and support!
/Patrix
Cheers
Check out http://www.rhsd.net . The project aims to replace the Microsoft Back Office programs...check it out!
I've been failing at convincing my company to even look at any non-Microsoft software, let alone Linux. I've shown the TCO analyses that I've found online, all of them already posted by others. I even did my own analysis specific to my company in a long paper. I also re-wrote one of our applications on a linux app server just to prove my points. All with no success. There are too few very specific reports online of corporate experience in migration to Linux and the actual cost savings achieved. So whatever the results, good or bad or mediocre, please do the community a favor and post as many details as possible online. You'll be helping people like me who are trying to convert the ignorant. It will be much appreciated.
Developers: We can use your help.
Yes, I am one.
The rider is that you have to find roughly 3-4x as many Windows admins, and that in itself demands more managing than 1/3-1/4 as many Linux admins.
Let's put it this way: shop with 25 assorted servers has a choice of six Windows admins at (say) AUD$80,000 PA apiece or two Linux admins at (say) AUD$120,000 PA apiece. Quick! AUD$480,000 or AUD$240,000 PA for the same services, you choose!
Now let's turn to databases and email. Say that this shop has 5 of each and fifty seats on each, that's 250 licences for each, at a combined total of roughly AUD$300 a seat for MS-SQL plus Exchange, or AUD$750,000 (or a free Linux admin for six years riding PostgreSQL plus PostFix). It's enough to make an accountant go, er, postal.
Maybe you're not a Microsoft plant, maybe you're a Microsoft animal? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
My god, I know I'm not the first to notice, but how is it that the same topics keep coming up over and over ? Why not just put up a sort of FAQ, where a generic post like this one is put up, and comments are perpetually allowed ?
How often is it "news" when Slashdot runs a post OVER AND OVER wherein everyone trumpets the lower TCO of Linux, or the myriad issues you need to consider, etc ?
`there are probably enough MCSE paper tigers to get some affordable, albeit dubious, maintenance and support'
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
replacing our current Windows IT infrastructure with Linux
Er, I think what most people have realised is that you need the right tool for the job in question.
The implementation of this is that you have a mix of systems with the various required functions implented on the appropriate platforms.
That's what we do. We have some Linux servers and some Windows servers. They have different strengths and weaknesses.
Anyone who insists that they have a Windows-only shop or a Linux-only shop is probably a fool.
Exchange offers centralised folders and mail storage etc which IIRC POP3 does not - you probably need to set up IMAP server(s) which offer broadly the same services as Exchange, and connect to almost any mail browser you care to name including OutLook.
You may also want to take a look at evolving into a Linux environment rather than doing it in one hit.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Standard disclaimers apply
The comments below are offered in the hope that they will be of some use to the original poster and are not intended to offend anyone.
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the author's employer or any organization(s) the author may be affiliated with.
The TCO of replacing Windows with Linux will depend on the following factors:
1. size of your organization
2. complexity of your organization
3. your budget
4. your hardware (including your network hardware)
5. your software
6. your human resources (minus your IT people)
7. your IT people
If you have a small or medium sized organization with a good IT dept., Linux compatible hardware, flexible management, employees willing to accept something that looks and works a little differently and you are not running any strange / proprietary software which does not have an open source or Linux equivalent then you could migrate your whole organization with the assistance of 1 Linux/Hardware geek.
If that is the case you could migrate everything for the cost of 1 full time geek (30-120K/yr).
If you have a very large+complex organization, in order to achieve the best possible TCO you would need:
1. at least 1 Linux Guru/Master Geek (60-200K)
2. at least 1 Hardware Master Geek (60-200K)
3. at least 1 Linux Slave / Hardcore Geek (30-80K)
4. at least 1 Hardware Slave / hardcore geek (30-80K)
5. a budget sufficiently large enough to pay for the migration costs (an incremental rollout would cost more)
6. a small development team to code new apps and or drivers if you cannot find suitable replacements for what you currently have (1 to 5 people at 30-80K a piece)
If you migrate everything overnight that will have the lowest possible TCO.
If you migrate gradually you will end up paying more over time but that would allow your people more time to adjust thus reducing the human resources problems/issues.
If you have a small budget and you are not authorized to kill the patient in order to save it then your only option might be to migrate a small number of machines at a time and retrain your people as you go whenever necessary.
The best time to upgrade your OS would be if you are about to purchase new machines anyway you could then replace the old machine with the new machines incrementally fixing problems as you go.
In general Linux is awesome when used as a:
1. file and print server
2. public web server
3. intranet/private web server
3. firewall
4. router
5. mail server
6. database server
7. DNS server
8. network management workstation / server
9. authentication server
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
I can say no more without knowing more about your organization.
If you can provide more details about your organization without divulging the identity of that organization please do so. I am sure there are many slashdot.org members out there that could provide you with a lot more information if they knew more about your systems and your internal structures.
You might want to consider contracting an independent third party with good Linux and Windows knowledge to come in and inspect your organization and give you a guesstimate of what it will take to migrate.
Live long and prosper iII II
Unix_Geek_65535
Hey there
:D That way if the shit hits the fan, you can quickly plug the cable back into the win32 box and figure out what you done wrong :)
Linux seems to work pretty good on old hardware... so perhaps you could try and find some old p200+ type boxen. You can get these PCI cards which let you use UDMA drives quite effectively on older boxes, so you can still use big fat HDD at speed.
Another thing that I think would save time ( and thus, money ), is ssh. There have been a number of times when I have saved a trip into town to change something on a Linux server because I could ssh into it and make the changes from home.
Using ssh you can add users, write backup scripts, upgrade / install software... basically do anything you could do sitting in front of the machine ( with the exception of things like bios and hardware changes and such like ).
I dont know how windows can be administered remotely, but its bound to be less effective than using ssh. So that could save you a lot of time walking around to each server.
Another big plus with Linux ( and other *nix OS ) is that security patches very rarely ( never in my experience ) require the machine to be rebooted. With Linux distrobutions like Debian ( Which is what you should use for servers IMO ), it even restarts the services that a patch/upgrade affects, and it does so smoothly ( often keeping active client connections active and running, eg, ssh connections from which you a performing an upgrade ) while it is at it. So there is a very short downtime ( 5 or so seconds ) for a particular service while it restarts.
There are not really that many securtiy bugs that pop up anyway, and when they do they are often fixed very fast. ( eg, I remember an apache bug was fixed and had a patch available within 24 hours ).
Mmm, anyway, when you replace win32 server boxen, first build up a Linux box and get it working 100%, give it the same IP as the win32 box it will replace, keep the win32 box running, and just plug the utp cable into the Linux box when it is ready
I replaced 5 planned DHCP/DNS servers running Windows NT ($35K) with Linux running on 5 old 486 DX2/66-16M RAM boxes ($0). We ran them headless, turned them on and forgot about them. TCO = $0. No maintenance, no training, none of that other overhead/underfoot cost. My boss was *very* pleased.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
If you have Windows based internal apps that are mission critical, you might want to work around those.
It is difficult enough to keep people happy when things are not changing, imagine how bad it will be when things do change and all of your support staff is new at support.
I worked for a large engineering firm with offices all over the country. Some of our remote locations did not have enough SUN or HP UNIX machines to run our *NIX apps. using CYGWIN, a linux distro (now maintained by redhat) which sits on top of windows and an x-11 server developed for CYGWIN engineers are now able to execute their apps from remote locations using cygwin as a terminal server. if set up properly you can browse files natively as a UNIX box (avoid setting up SMB). When dealing with multiple locations make sure you are not in violation of license agreements. Cygwin is the most useful tool I have found for UNIX-Windows integration. A windows terminal server would have cost us big bucks to license. Not to mention with Cygwin your users can run UNIX apps from their MS workstations. We have people using GCC, Perl, and Emacs on NT.
Even Slashdot must get more interesting submissions than this. Sadly, none of us will ever see them.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
If your network is fairly homogenous, the most expensive part will be getting the first couple of machines installed and configured. If you're clever about how you do the first few instances, setting up the rest will be (nearly) trivial. There aren't many cases where you'll find reasons to limit yourself to server-only replacements. Linux is capable as a desktop OS, and is much easier to administer than Windows.
IME, getting servers installed and configured is easy. Getting desktops configured is harder, because the focus software tends to be less robust. Getting Wine and various Windows apps installed; making sure the plugins for the browser(s) are installed and working; setting up the default organization desktop with app icons and such; getting the login authentication mechanism configured properly; making sure network printing works... this is the labor-intensive stuff. Again, once you get everything configured properly for the first machine, you can usually clone the configurations to new installs, so all of the work is up-front.
After that, maintenance is fairly easy if you choose the right distribution. Some are better than others in that respect. Actual sysadmin effort tends to grow logarithmically -- rather than linearly -- with the number of machines being supported (again, if they're homogeneous). Help desk support needs are about the same as for any other OS.
Where you'll find the most savings is in licensing and sysadmin costs. If you have heterogeneous hardware, sysadmin costs can go up, although (again) it is the initial installation and configuration that will hurt the most.
The only thing I know about TCO and Linux is that all Student Communities at my University (about 33.000 Students) built up their own Network and Server Infrastructure on Linux. That is Web-,Mail-,SMB-,DHCP-,Database-,SSL-,Application-, NewsServers etc. and Firewalls and many more. Some even have it on their desktop.
Doesn't it say a lot about TCO if low-budget-students built up all their Computing needs on Linux?
I had forgot about the hardware issue and is very important! Unless of course you are buying new hardware, but it still needs to be concidered.
http://www.compaq.com/tco/models.html
n .h tml
http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Impact_open_source_i
... and we have found that overall, it was a good experience.
We found that with our business(high volume, low margin) that the new licensing from MS would cost us several thousand dollars every few years, not counting the initial cost to get everything we already had in house "current".
Also, the cost of the hardware to run Server 2000 supporting all of our functions was also cost prohibitive as we would have needed to replace our aging HP Netserver LH3.
In the end we wound up replacing the Netserver LH3 with a pair of Linux servers. One running SAMBA, the other sendmail/POP3.
Overall, the cost of our server hardware was roughly 1/2 of what we would have paid otherwise. Cost of OS, $0. Cost of time and training to come up to speed and trouble shoot all of the ins and outs: 12 weeks @ 20hrs a week of my life (insert appropriate salary here).
Miscellaneous savings: No more weekly reboots (though we still do a monthly to insure everything is still peachy), we have confidence in the stability of our server OS.
Nothing is obfuscated, we can look at anything under the hood that we want to and modify it for our business needs.
Wealth of knowledge: Every error that I encountered along the way was solvable by doing a simple search on the Web.
Expertise: In order to accomplish this task, especially performed by only one or two individuals in your IT department, you will need to cultivate in house expertise. It will not be such that all questions will be answered as if by an Oracle, or even a Guru, but it certainly will but them on par with many of the people running around with their MS certifications.
Downfall: This was not an easy task to just "do". All of our IT folks in shop (myself included) are UNIX systems administrators, at least in the basic sense, and it still took a fair amount of time to untangle all the bugs.
I could not have imagined being told "We need that new server up in 2 weeks." and just doing it. Now I could bring said server up in 4-8 hours from scratch, but in the beginning it was a lot of trial and error.
-- You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stay alive.
I am running Samba 2.2.6 here in a w2k mixed mode environment and do NOT need to create UNIX IDs on the Samba server. Samba authenticates the users through the w2k/NT domain controllers and then automatically maps the user to a UID and GID on-the-fly. Samba remembers this mapping for the next time the users logs in.
Visit www.samba.org and do a little reading. You obviously are running an old version of Samba.
First of all, one of the big selling points of Wintel is that you have a wide choice of software. In the future, however, Mundie says that you can expect your old apps to be broken.
"We have decided that we will begrudgingly forsake certain app compatibility things when, in fact, they don't allow us to have a default configuration that opts for more security. In the past, the biggest thing that happened to us was IT managers would come to the company and say, hey, all those new features, they're great, all that new security stuff, that's great, but whatever you do don't break my app. So just turn it all off and trust me, we'll fix the apps and then we'll turn it all on. And the reality is that never happened.
And so we're going to tell people that even if it means we're going to break some of your apps we're going to make these things more secure and you're just going to have to go back and pay the price."
Notice that they're breaking your old apps not so they can sell you new ones, but purely in the interest of your security, and furthermore it's your fault they have to do this.
The other change affecting your TCO is that, even though you just bought the new OS and the new apps, any security needed will be your responsibility, at your expense.
"And the other thing is that the customers, whether they're individuals or corporations, are going to have to make a decision about when and how much they spend to get these machines to be more secure. And to some extent you can do it by insulating them, to some extent you can do it by putting things around them or in front of them that protect them, you know, firewalls in some sense. And then in some cases, you can just replace them when you get new machines or new software or both that have intrinsically better capabilities."
So, when comparing your Linux TCO to your MS TCO, be sure you're factoring in the cost of replacing your software as often as MS wants you to and at of course at a price set by MS. Be sure you're factoring in whatever extra firewalls and virus protection you need against script kiddies exploiting a whole new generation of problems in MS software.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
I am part of a Wireless (802.11B) ISP that services ~400 business accounts. We have ~600 machines and an assorted amount of orinoco AP (~1000). We have been using older burned-in 486s and 586s that have had great for routers and small servers. They are also nice and cheap. We have 2 System admins that do the install, service the systems, AND handles the customer problems(in all fairness, we do need to hire a real helpdesk persons). The trick is to not do anything fancy, use only SOLID stuff, and above all else, KISS. /boot and / to do remote installs - somebody did not think this through, but also good for a fall back file-system when combined with watchdog.
Redhat 7.2 with aptrpm for doing distro updates.
configuration is handled by using rsync to push/pull updates(direct changes on the system via ssh is only used when absolutly needed).
We now leave extra partitions on the systems to allow for a second
Monitoring is done by NetSaint/net-snmp. We are looking at OpenNMS, but expensive on the java side (I am thinking of doing a monitoring with perl for the end points).
We have 13 office staff of which, only the CFO is on windows, but will change when "descent desktop" software shows up (jackass that he is - he has cuased more issues than the entire rest of the company - several viruses amongst other problems) . The staff at first will say that they need MS to survive. But I have asked all of them after they have been here for 1 month how they are doing. With the exception of 1 person, they actually like it better. The 1 person wants a mac (growl). we use Mandrake 9.0 (just upgraded) on the desktop with OO for office. Shared fax (hylafax), printing(cups), scanning
(sane), centralized font server/web server/web dav, NO forced standard mailer or browser.
the special apps are on 1 server, and every desktop is standardized install. This allows but GNOME and KDE useage( Wish they would use LDAP for ALL the desktop config for both gnome and kde).
We have one W2k box with vnc for doing the offbeat stuff by anybody. Normally, only used by somebody starting a sales job (kinda of like a junky being slowly weaned).
Oh, did I mention that all the above is handled by the 2 sysads, with just a bit of help by me ( a Software engineer)?
This same set-up in Windows would require a huge investment in equipment, software, and people. We would have gone bankrupt.
What some of the above posters haven't grasped is that you're being asked for a business case, not a 'Is Linux technically better than MS?' paper.
If you're being judged by business people, you need to speak their language, which all boils down to $CURRENCY_UNITS.
While you may have a template to work off if the upgrade to Win2k or NT was properly planned (and if you don't have it, it might be worth retrospectively doing this), here are the steps you'll need to go through in your business case:
The money bit
Now it gets really interesting. Assuming that you'll be calculating the costs/benefits over a number of years to produce a programme budget and calculating a break-even point some time in the future, you'll need to take into account that you're using money which would otherwise produce a return doing something else, and also that there will be inflation in the mean time.
Talk to your beancounters, and ask them what DCF rate is standard usage in the company - this is the rate by which the company assumes that money will lose its value. If you don't get one, use 10% as a fallback (but make it clear that that's your assumption). With a 10% DCF rate, a dollar will be worth a dollar today, 90 cents next year, 81 the year after, 73 in year 4 and so on - discount factors of 1, 0.9, 0.81, 0.73, 0.66 etc.
For each year, take the net operating savings (ie leaving out the initial project investment) that Linux will bring and multiply that by that year's discount factor. This will be the savings at Net Present Value (NPV - a term all beancounters consider as the real value). Keep a cumulative total.
Divide the cumulative NPV value by the programme cost of the change. This is your Return on Investment (RoI), expressed as a ratio or a percentage. When/if it reaches 1:1, you've hit breakeven. Be very clear about when you expect to hit this point - when it comes will largely determine whether you get the go-ahead.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
We decided to go with Linux as part of our business when we started 4 years ago. We managed to start after all the VC money was gone -- we're entirely self-funded at this point, and have worked internationally. In the beginning the absolute dollar cost of Linux was especially important. Now I think the capabilities it offers, particularly in a distributed environment, are far more important. The things we can do for our clients are far beyond what we could do with any other system I've used so far, with nearly 20 years in my industry. We think in terms of cost of acquiring capability, portability and reliability as well as simple cost of ownership. Linux is definitely the way to go from a business perspective.
There's two ways to adopt new technology: you can throw away everything you have and move to new technology in a revolutionary fashion. This is highly disruptive to an organization. Excessive training cost, numerous problems, etc. are more than likely. In short, you don't want revolutions in your IT infrastructure. The second option is to evolve your system. Replace things that would otherwise require new investments in licenses, things that you are not happy with etc.
If your exchange server is working fine, don't replace it unless you would otherwise upgrade to a new version. If your IIS webserver is adequate for serving the handful of word documents in your organization, don't fix it unless you need certain functionality offered by apache. Linux has a lower TCO for stuff like filesharing and printersharing. However, you have already invested in your existing infrastructure and if its working fine there's no reason to make additional investments in a functional equivalent.
Jilles
Either you replace every Windows PC with a Linux PC or you replace every Windows PC with a tiny, very powerful X terminal and serve up the apps from a centralized cluster. The first approach will save you a little money and ease IT's job a little bit. It isn't much of a step forward because you will still be stuck in the past. The second approach will save you a lot of money and make IT a breeze. It is an architecture which will actually take you into the future. The choice is yours. You will make one of these choices. Hopefully you won't merely replace Windows with Linux. Hopefully you will replace a decentralized mess with a centralized architecture.
Throughout all of these posts, there are always quotes like "...now we don't have to deal with crashing machines all the time...". What in the hell are these people doing to crash their W2K boxes? It's pretty widely known that W2K is *very* stable. My boxes (I know, anecdotal evidence) don't crash. Period. A few very strained web/db servers, a few POS machines, and a few random boxes. No crashes. Ever. What in the hell are all of these people doing to get their W2K boxes to fail? I'm really, really curious.
You mean 8.3, not 7.3
tco? fooey. pay "protection" money to some FraUDuleNT payper liesense peddling softwar gangsters? no way? not you J.? say it isn't so. be LIEk giving gotti money to keep those garmentiers "in line". those
without our tco of software being near $0.00, thanks to the good gnus, we'd likely never would be listed as one of "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm) , on fuddle's search thingy.
almost everything's gnu now. wait, there's more...
beat DOWn from trying to be a billyunheir/keeping your job? you may want to try some nice ktea . it's not snake oil, but it's still good for you.
> Basically someone has said that Linux is free
So is FreeBSD and it's much better for servers IMHO. It's kind of annoying that Linux gets all the press. Management types will probably never hear of FreeBSD even though it may be a superior solution for some applications.
I control the time!
Why not have the CIO himself/herself post here with a job offer instead? After all, if the poster is so lame that they haven't heard / don't know where to look for any of this info, they shouldn't be in charge of any sort of project to assess the technology in question, etc....
There has been mixed success so far..
The good...
- Significant drop in costs.
- Users are able to do their jobs still
:)
- Retained document compatibility with other companies.
- The email viruses are history now.
- Etc, etc
The bad...- The older staff members had a hard time learning the new system. They are getting there though.
- Certain custom systems were not immediately portable.
Overall I'd say it has been quite successful, for us at least--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
Initially, never mind the TCO calculations, PowerPoint presentations and mind-numbing meetings to get a committee of PHB's to agree to shift the status quo off center. Just set up a web server or print server this afternoon on an old klunker 486 or P1 Lintel box and show them how it can magically solve an existing problem in hours rather than weeks for the regular IT approach.
Initially go for the "quick win" on a simple pilot project with immediate returns, no downtime, and no expense. (Just make sure to tell them this is what is being done, so that they don't expect a miracle re-implementation of your legacy Accounting system tomorrow AM!) Let everyone see that it was easy and not complicated and didn't interfere with the existing infrastructure or Windows-based systems. Everyone is happy and co-exists, and plays nice. Once everyone has bought into the concept, THEN you can have your ROI meetings for the bigger infrastructure changes (Linux firewalls, NIDS, app servers, desktops, etc.) that take some planning to execute.
Regards,
-Walter.
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
Are you asking for trouble or extremely confident? :)
WHAT WOULD/DO I DO?
===================
UNIX for mission-critical apps but use Open Source and plan for Linux
LINUX for file, print, web, email, firewall
LINUX for middle tier apps and big development (easy port to big UNIX)
*LINUX for EPOS or "process user GUIs" ie simple GUIs/web pages
WINDOWS for "desktop power users" - those who use Office creatively
Final word to the wise:
Students of sales/marketing know that people make decisions based
on a bunch of personal psychological stuff - not always on technical
merit. My experience is that the guys who sign the check have a big
problem giving up their MS XP laptop (or whatever) as it gives them:
- Status with their peers
- "Membership" of the MS "club"
- Familiarity (theyve been using it since their degree dissertation)
- Confidence (NT was a bit unreliable but to them BlueScreen = normal)
Also, it's a MUCH easier thing to do at an installation that already
has extensive UNIXesque skills - far harder for MSCEs to learn.
I have marked * the key one here. Most are already sold on 1,2,3,5 as
sensible but 4 gives an opportunity to cut costs in warehouses, nurses
stations, ticket booths, etc. Why pay hundreds of $ for an OS when the
user only uses a browser?
We have just finished moving the entire infrastructure of a large UK construction firm over to Linux and Open Source. The TCO gains are enormous and fall into three main categories:
- Staff. Less maintenance/repairs means staff are freed for productive work (or staff numbers reduced).
- Licences. Pretty obvious really.
- Hardware. The upgrade cycle is _drastically_ reduced. Companies depreciate hardware - if you depreciate 300k over three years it costs 100k per year. If your hardware lasts twice as long that goes down to 50k per year.
The Company has entirely eliminated its windows servers and is very happy with the cost savings. They went on record with this in last weeks 'Computing' (UK industry magazine).We have the full case study here and several pages related to TCO at here
And has for ages now. Since the original 1.x series.
Try a search on the cyrus mailing list for more info.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
1- Read a few good Linux books, or take a nice Linux Administration class.
2- Replace Windows domain controller/print/file servers with Samba servers. This part is a little rough at first, but works incredibly well once you get used to Samba.
3- Replace Exchange servers with PostFix/Qmail (Both are great, read up on both and pick the one find comfortable).
4- Replace firewalls with multi-mac linux machines running IPTables. If you are into IDS, toss snort on the box as well.
5- Sit back and compile things at random all day because your network never breaks.
The licensing for Linux is free and the majority of the applications are free (and if there not they don't cost as much as solitare on windows does). But to maintain, built apps and to use the server will cost roughly the same or lower going forward.
There is a learning curve of course but that is the initial investment that is needed with any new deployment.
Good luck.
Replace the per-user servers with Linux. That'll bring you an immediate savings in maintenance dollars that you can now spend rolling linux out. Those per-user boxes are easy fruit to pick off.
...or people who dont know any better will insist that they need to spend $5000 on Adobe Distiller to convert Postscript documents to PDF, even though there exists a free tool that does the same (ghostscript)on Linux. This is just an example of the problems that are caused by having people who arent familiar with open-source solutions. If you hire people who know only about Microsoft, then all solutions that they come up with will involve running on Microsoft solutions, and this will negate your efforts to move off that platform. You need to either hire different people or educate the ones that you have.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
Making changes to the core network at an organisation is usually best done gradually. Few company directors will be willing to replace a complete network in one go. The major benefit of free software from a directors point of view is likley to be the massively reduced software license costs. Other benefits such as TCO, reduced staffing, reliability etc. are secondary.
:)
:))
Most IT costs are written off over time, so a Win2k server costing £4000 may have £1000 taken off its value in company accounts each year. Therefore two years down the line your server is valued as an asset worth £2000 in the company accounts. After four years have passed the server will not show up on company accounts. The amount of time purchases are written off over varies from company to company, so check how your organisation operates. In my experience few finance directors are willing to replace assets that still have value to the company, so don't plan on replacing that new Exchange server just yet.
When you try to convince your management to go with free software try to honestly compare different products/technologies. I have successfully implemented several Debian GNU/Linux servers running Sendmail at a company simply by comparing the product costs in front of company directors. The comparison can be quite simple, for instance the one I used for proving email simply put the costs of Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Debian GNU/Linux Sendmail side by side like so:
License costs
Microsoft Exchange £50,000
Lotus Notes £15,000
Debiam GNU/Linux £0
This will of course provoke an argument popular with company management that the free option must be cheep and nasty. So you will need to be able to show that *NIX has been perfected over thirty years, or that the server sofware you are choosing is the best in its class for your purposes.
Once they are used to the idea you can introduce added extras such as increased reliability, improved staff motivation and management benefits like cost/performance improvement and less management overhead.
For some more hopefully helpful information look at http://www.siriusit.co.uk
Comment caveats:
1 I am not impartial, I spend most of my time implementing free software solutions so I may have a slight bias
2 The company I work for http://www.siriusit.co.uk specializes in free software implementation so they may have a slight bias too
Steve Peters
Though you quite clearly have a leet understanding of MS-DOS, and you can be proud of that, you, alas, have no humour. This is a shame, because whilst your leet understanding of a dead OS might help you rebuild a vintage PC, humour would have helped you meet and socialise with *people*. Just pray for reincarnation and hope you can trade in your DOS leetness for a sense of humour next time round.
I'm sitting here at work browsing Slashdot with 'Zilla on my Redhat mail/web/SQL server next to my Windows 2000 box that's here simply to store files for about ten users and serve up a couple of web pages now and then. IIS blew up again a couple of weeks ago; now it runs Apache and that's one less thing I've had to check every day. I'm reading Slashdot because I have to keep an eye on the 2000 box while I re-reinstall Service Pack 2. Oh, look! It seems the installation has hung again. I'm installing SP2 because SP3 includes some things I don't like; mainly the ability to download and run code from Microsoft any time it feels the need to do so. So I have to apply each relevant patch as it gets posted. Nothing new there. I was doing that anyway. I'm reinstalling the Service Pack because yesterday the box decided it would pick and choose which apps it wanted to run at random, and a virus scan (Virus scan - Have I even done that on the Linux machine? Have I had a reason to?) yeilded no answer. Both of these machines are behind a hardware firewall, with only a handful of ports going to the Windows box, and yet the Windows server will still catch whatever the Malady of the Month happens to be most of the time. I'm venturing to guess this probably comes from all of our Outlook-happy staff storing files on it, but I'm thinking they'd never know the difference if suddenly Samba starts handling all of that and the worms have nothing to run on. I'm glad I was on an OSS kick when IIS failed, else I'd have probably been here all night trying to make it work before reinstalling the OS and restoring data from a backup. I've yet to know why this happened, but I don't care anymore. Ultimately, even when it's working like it's supposed to, our Windows server requires constant attention. Sure, I spent two weeks setting up this Linux machine to do what I wanted it to since I'd never been exposed to it before, but I haven't had to lay a hand on it since then, except times like this one when I catch up on Slashdot while waiting for this sad waste of hardware next to me to get its act together. Wow, it's already 10am, the 2000 box is still posessed, and I still haven't gotten any work done. I shudder to think what this would be like if I had to deal with these issues on a large scale. I have one word for you: Yes.
I've just been looking at case studies. The main thing I saw is that the TCO is different for every organisation as pointed out by so many people already.
Main benefits are:
I'll stop now, I'm boring myself...
Open Source Email Response Management http://www.logicalwa
I had a quick look at some of their documents (like www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/ casestudies/XO_final.doc and http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/ businessvalue.asp) and it looks to me like they concede that licences are expensive but you save on the "administration, integration and development" costs (ahhh... perhaps too many cheap MCSEs and VB programmers with 2 weeks CTEC experience??).
So if I were looking, these would be areas I'd concentrate on since M$ says that's where Windows is better (ie that's what they worry about... unless that's what they want us to think... or maybe they want us to think that they want us to... ahh hell I give up!)
Dyslexics of the world, untie!
Along these same lines of determining what are the real benefits that businesses are realizing, both technological and economical, I am writing a research paper concerning this very subject. I am looking for replies from individuals who have had experience using Linux in a business environment. If you have 10 minutes, please go to http://68.49.195.106/questionnaire.html and complete my questionnaire. I am planning to post this paper on slashdot.org around mid-December so any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
take the same approach replacing desktops. Start with a small group, like those using Windows instead of 'dumb terminals', then move up to those that use Word Processors just for memos, then those that use office to its maximum.
Customize your desktop linux installation to remove all things that a regular user could accidentally mess up.
Indeed, if you're into that kind of stuff...
The company I work for saved a tremendous amount of money by setting up Linux Terminal Servers. So now our entire call center runs Linux and we don't have to pay the high costs of "Software Assurance" from Microsoft.
Best quote I've heard: "Linux is free like a kitten"
Cost of ownership is key. If something goes wrong, who do you turn to? There are rich communities of people out there that can help if you have a question, but it is certainly harder to get deterministic support for infrastructure you've pieced together. If you need to hire and or re-train people, there are costs involved. Purchasing a package and support from a big company may alleviate this, but then you need to compare that price to your MS based costs. It's not nearly as cut and dry.
Just because the OS is freely available, doesn't mean it won't cost you.
I worked at a company designing several TCO models for various server-side technologies such as IBM WebSphere and Linux. You should check out the website if you would like more information on the product. It does very specific TCO analysis, very thorough. Basically, there are several costs involved in getting to Linux Migration TCO. Most involve professional development and personnel costs involved with migrating your IT personnel to Linux, but there are also hardware considerations involved. There's also a White Paper available on the CIOview, Inc. website titled "The Financial Impact of Migrating to Linux", which should be helpful. If you have any specific questions, feel free to send an e-mail.
I have implemented several print servers for NT4 workstations using Samba, so I will assume you have limited experience with this.
/usr/share/doc/ or you can try using the manpages.
To set up a print server I usually use the Common UNIX Print System (CUPS) as a backend running on a Debian GNU/Linux box. Samba makes an excellent front end for Windows, as it now supports native WinNT printing. So the users can install a printer themselves without administrator intervention as with a real NT4 server. In fact from the users point of view the CUPS/Samba server is a WinNT server, they really can't tell the difference!
CUPS is a high quality backend as it will support most if not all the commercial *NIX variants. It also works out of the box with Mac OS X (Making my iBook easy to use on site).
If you have problems with a free software package try to find help in the community. Most free software comes with good documentation as well as a useful FAQ on the project web site. Usually a free software project will also have a mailing list where you can ask questions. Try using google to see if anyone else has a similar problem. As an example the Samba team have a site at http://www.samba.org from there you can find documentation and their mailing list. The CUPS project can be found at http://www.cups.org where you can find similar material. Most distributions of GNU/Linux have documentation available on the system. Debian for instance put documentation in
Free software may seem harder to use at first, but there are a lot of people willing to help if you just ask.
Steve Peters
www.siriusit.co.uk - open source solutions - your future is now your choice.
We moved to a completely Microsoft Free back end.
We saved well over a hundred thousand dollars in the process, we have literally maintained 100% uptime since, and the users can see no difference.
I could set you up to talk to either end users or management. Either would provide an excellent reference regarding their experience with using Linux servers instead of legacy Windows servers...
mail me at consulting@myrealbox.com
Kev.
Bynari Insight Server/Connector
We had some difficulties with Bynari, but Contact seems excellent. It's a huge cost savings as well.
from Apple. Entirely dependent on your situation, of course, but the Xserve is getting a lot of favorable press these days (and for good reason). A google search will uncover a mountain of reviews with plenty of pros & cons.
This way, users see LINUX1, LINUX2, LINUX3, etc in their face over and over. Linux won't seem so 'fringe' if users are extremely familiar with even just the name and know that they're running it. Further, if they see better performance, LINUX get's credit. This helps you expand Linuxes realm, but it also helps me, because when your user leaves your shop, and starts working at mine, he'll know what Linux is, and he'll prefer it to Legacy Microsoft alternatives.
Second, Microsoft == Legacy.
Neither the word Microsoft nor Windows will be allowed to leave you mouth from this point forward without being preceeded by the word Legacy. Legacy has some ugly connotations involved with it. SO... talk frequently about replacing Legacy Windows servers with Linux. It makes Linux look good, and it makes Legacy products look bad. It also can't really be argued succesfully. And people look stupid if they start arguing it.
Lastly, reassure users that you want what is best for them. And for now, that means leaving their desktops alone. You can tell them that Linux is rapidly making inroads towards being a desktop product, but reassure them that replacing their desktops isn't even being discussed. People feel like they own their desktops, and changes to a user's desktop 'feels' threatening. Reassure them that you'll leave it alone until Linux is a perfect fit for them. That isn't to say that Linux isn't a good desktop, it is, and I run it as one. However, it means that users will trust your decisions as they see the situation improve on the servers. Management will trust you more as they see lower operating costs on the servers, or even the same costs, but better uptime. Once the trust is there, THEN you can discuss upgrading from the legacy desktop solution.
I'm giving a talk at the Boston Enterprise Linux conference that will cover some TCO and ROI issues. It's something we do on a fairly regular basis for our clients. You can check us out at http://www.olliancegroup.com/.
Chris.
-- I don't have a cool sig.
The biggest issue is, in my mind, use common sense. Make sure you have a better understanding of your current situation (systems and how people use them). In most cases, don't make all the changes at once - plan to do things in stages, test things out before you depend on them, then deploy - and examine how that stage went so you can adjust your plan for the next stage. Maybe you start by replacing a few servers, for example. If you're replacing desktops, maybe you start with just a few systems, or you replace Microsoft Office while keeping Microsoft Windows on a few systems.There's much to be said for incremental changes.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
What a nightmare!!!
Yet some people would say that Linux doesn't do what they need it to do.
HUMbug....
Linux does what you NEED it to do, but maybe it doesn't do want some Microsoft shill has convinced you, that you WANT to do.
Fooled by the WOW factor once again.
Companies would save millions by training the managers in charge of purchasing software to be more critical of salesman. Millions. As it stands, all a salesman has to do right now is walk into an office and WOW the pants off a manager and the company is saddled with a licensing scheme that would make Machiavelli proud.
Needs not wants should drive software purchases.
Distinguishing innovation from fluff should be a top priority.
Back in the day, I remember having to deal with a virus alert about every two weeks that would shut down the MS systems for 1/2 a day, maybe longer. At those moments I thought that it would be MUCH better to run a backbone of OSS(linux, BSD) to provide the day to day services of email and network storage. Let the windows systems get shut down and repaired, but the employees could still get most of their work done.
Yes it means some employees having two computers. Yes it will mean some interoperability problems. BUT adding up the downtime on our MSonly system would pay for a very Large Cruise Ship in one year.
I liked the you might be an ER nurse if list, i.e.
I'm sure a lot of professions are the same. Can you imagine what kind of war stories cops tell each other? Hell, even traffic cops frequently deal with corpses etc.
I'm sure mortician/coroner humour is pretty bleak.
Why was "Clerks" funny? I loved it because anyone who deals with people all day realizes that people are DUMB. Some individuals might be smart, but in general, people are dumb. Human nature is dumb, often silly.
Bank tellers, store clerks, call center grunts, tech support guys... they all deal with people constantly, so they get to see some real gems of human behaviour.
In some jobs (cop/doctor/nurse) you get to deal with people at their very worst, and the dumbness/sillyness just shines right thru. My hat's off to them, I couldn't do it.
Back in the day, I remember asking an old timer why we were wasting all of this cabinet space with all of these empty software boxes. She said it was due to licensing concerns. The use of a proprietary product was costing the company thousands in storage space!!!! What a laugh.
BSA audits???
These costs are completely overlooked in most TCO assessments.
Generally it's only at the server level, although we've installed a few workstations on a "try it to see if they'll like it" basis. Servers are generally a no-brainer unless they are running some server-side MS-specific utilities.
We've found that, when asked, virtually every Developer will claim that their application will not run if Linux is the file server. In all but one case they were dead wrong. (The one case was an application that ran on FoxPro on the server.) Most applications have no clue what OS the files are stored under and couldn't care less.
The downside to switching clients to Linux has generally been a reduction in our income from that client. One client even uses the "mail" feature of Outlook (mailing contacts and appointments to other members of the group) which generally sucked until we installed a nice Dell server which we loaded with SuSE Linux. Just like Exchange but without the costs. Also, unfortunately, without the headaches because they now call us for help only about twice a year!
From almost any standpoint you can mention (original cost, administration costs, utilization of platform, etc.) Linux comes out ahead. There's even damn little training!
Try it on a few workgroups at a time and see for yourself.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
What are the alternatives for workflows that you use now? If there are alternatives on Linux (that aren't too different) then that is one thing. If there are no equivalents, then you are in for a fun time.
Also, what about the work that you do? Are there alternative products on Linux comparable to the ones you use now? If so, then that is one thing. If not, then you are in for a fun time.
Do you own special/custom equipment that is driven by Windows machines/software? Are there drivers/software on Linux that will work with the equipment? If so... If not, you may be sitting high-and-dry if you migrate.
There is a lot more to consider than just the price tag on the OS. It's the applications and the workflows that your users use/have that will make/break your transition.
...makes it very nice.
Just run FreeBSD, then you won't have to worry about administering an unstable low-performance linux copycat OS.
For example, if there is only one document indexing server capable of reading your office suite documents then you will need to pay whatever they ask for their indexing solution and be dependent on them for security patches and fixes. You may be unable to roll your own custom apps to operate on your documents. The office suite may run on only one platform. What is the real cost of the office suite?
The office suite starts to become much more expensive than just the license cost. You are much better off choosing products that exclusively use open protocols, file formats and standards. Then your suppliers will behave like suppliers and be competing with each other to deliver the best value for the lowest price.
I will put my 2 cents in. I started a net-based company and came from a Mac background 7 years ago. I really only had two choice Unix/Linux or MS, cause Macs sucked with server stuff until OS X. The MS option was costly because of the OS, hidden server fees and additional little things that MS doesn't tell you about. I didn't know anything about UNIX/LINX and had Apache,q-mail and other web services up and running in six weeks. I had NO idea of command lines coming from a mac system and got it working.
I have figured out more about unix/linux in the following years. If your IT staff "WANTS" to learn they could understand the basics within a month and hire one or two LINUX consultants to teach the current staff about it and to trouble shoot... in case!
In the long run you will save money and apps are being developed to make LINUX/UNIX easier and a desktop replacement for Windows.
that must mean you have hardcore stuff working under the windows platform, there is a probably a comprable device/developer for linux i would reccomend 'find -name "linus" coffee'
If you change the design from desktop computers on peoples desks to having smart terminals on peoples desks that just run an X window system terminal then you can save a fortune.
For 1000 people the costs break down like this:
1000 desktop machines with 17" monitor at $300 apiece. $300,000
20 application servers at $2000 apiece. $40,000.
OS, Free.
5 FTE's at $80,000 to maintain everything. 400,000 a year.
The application servers are all on a gigabit network for talking to each other and use a distributed network file system to ensure that the file system is always up. All computers on the network share processing power using Mosix or something similar so that all possible processing power is used.
Now, look at the windows solution:
1000 desktop machines at $1000 apiece. $1,000,000
50 servers at $2,000 apiece. $1,000,000
OS and software costs $1,000,000 a year
20 FTE's @ $40,000 $800,000
Project both over 10 years. Don't forget to replace all windows hardware every 3 years. The Linux hardware will be good the entire 10 years except for hardware failures.
Over 10 years:
Windows $24,000,000
Linux $5,000,000
So, as you can clearly see for 1000 desktops Linux will save 19 million dollars over 10 years.
There is no substitue for remote management. Without it, your gains from running any Unix are not what they could be.
We are not talking about remote access, that is easy enough, we are talking about remote console. Intel based systems generally don't have access at the eeprom level to anything but standard VGA and keyboard.
In the case of catastophic failures, if you are in California and the server is in Chicago, would you rather try to talk to a tech, or get on the console and debug it yourself?
So when talking about converting from MS to Linux, you should also have a discussion about switching intel platforms to one that can offer remote console. It does exist, but it also does cost more, and not every implementation I have seen is appropriate.
is that many people were sold it years ago. They bought a package including 10 client licenses that cost a reasonable amount of money.
Nobody told them how expensive Exchange really was, and in a sense it didn't matter because there was nobody around to enforce the rules. The reseller was happy, since he got money for Exchange and for his installation. The customer was happy because the cost was reasonable. And Microsoft was happy because they got another suck...er customer.
Now Microsoft wants to enforce the rules (see the Business Software Alliance and the like). They figure that since people are now dependent on Exchange, they will pay up or face stiff fines.
There's a word for that type of marketing, and it's not pretty.
D
You can use FreeTDS to connect apache to SQL Server. Re-engineering your applications for another database, not to mention the database migration itself, is a lot of work to move to a less capable server. OTOH, converting to Apache will get you a better product that's cheaper and more secure.
http://www.freetds.org
companies that offer commercial support for open source software. that is if your company is not interested in handling all of the tech stuff in house. by finding a company to take responisiblity for keeping it all running you might be able to get a concrete number on what it will cost.
like the cost of cleaning virus infected machines, data corrupted by those viruses, the cost of having proprietary data stolen by hackers using holes in MS tools, the down time while email systems are filled with love bug emails, etc.
These costs are difficult to quantify for the future, but if you've had any of them in the past you can extrapolate those costs as repeated events into the future.
There are a lot of good ideas posted, the best suggestion is not to forget you aren't working on an IT project, but presenting a business case balancing expected costs for two different paths into the future.
The Mitre paper written on USA DOD uses of open source tools is very interesting, and comes from an unimpeachable and professional source. The recent Gartner Group recommendation that all businesses replace MS's IIS with Apache (or anything not MS) is also a very telling report.
Good luck, and please post your resultant paper here, so that others can make use of your work in the best open source way.
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1018.t co.html
If your management is willing to give up MS Office/Outlook/IE on Windows in favor of, say OpenOffice/Mozilla on thin clients, then the TCO picture is much prettier than if they want to stick with MS on the desktop.
You simply haven't given enough information for anyone here to give you a real answer, likely because you don't have enough information yourself.
You need to sit down with your management and determine exactly what functionality you're going to replace with OSS and over what period they expect to realize the savings. At that point the questions are fairly simple: (1) does an OSS app exist which can fill this functional need, and (2) will the costs of retraining be less than the costs of licensing over the time period given to you?
If you have that info, then you can answer the question yourself. If you don't, all you're going to get is a muddle of lies, anecdotes, and resounding maybes.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Forget TCO evaluation models. They dont work and generaly are biased. Plus, you either get a real evaluation of how much does IT costs in YOUR company (which costs enormous ammounts of money), or you just try and make projections of obvious costs.
.NET which is not really out there yet). Proxy/reverse, webmails...etc. Most network infrastructure (server programmes), are reliable, fast and scalable in linux. It just makes no sense at all to go for windows for anything at all in the datacenter. You name it, we got it.
Ive been doing Win2Lin migrations for years now. From datacenters to office environments and all i can say is that there are plenty organizations for which switching makes sense.
For example, tightly budgeted production oriented enterprises that are in licensing troubles. It will appeal to them to use free software rather than licensed because they are threatened constantly by SPA/FBI or whatever.
Another example: small accounting/law firms/school departments. They do not have really important document management needs (for which office automation is strictly required and a good part of the value of the enterprize, department or organization).
Yet anotherone: ALL datacenters. It still holds water to say that its cheaper to run oracle on linux than on windows (better uptime). Apache+perl+php+python et all. is a tough to beat web technology. Its superior to anything microsoft can offer (until
Finaly. Your number one variable in any radical technologicall change is resistance to change. The datacenter admins will want to kill you, users will spit in your eye.....oh, the suits will love you forever....youve saved them 100's of thousends of dollars (and you still made more money than the microsoft consultant).
Its business. Microsoft will have the share it wants of this market but for some reasons, their scheme does not include many little niches.
They cannot compete in certtain markets....and thats where we are, and its where you should be (but not in mine cause ill shoot you).....
NO SIG
I forgot to mention, The New York Linux Scene is about to, or already has made available a video of the linux business demo presentations made more recently at CUNY/LaGuardia College. One of the presentations did include TCO/total cost of ownership. So there should be a full video of the presentation available for purchase. NYLXS is currently undergoing non-profit organization, and funds from video sales, free software class fees from its FSI/Free Software Institute and other income is put to work to further free software goals.
Please see the website for more information, and for email/contact links for the video information.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28008.html
Therefore, going to Linux is going to cause problems if you already have a Windows only infrastructure.
It'll be an uphill struggle to implement a low cost high performance Linux based infrastructure with people who don't really understand the concepts or requirements.
Course the dumber and hence loser management won't understand this either.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You don't give us much facts to go on. But if you don't already use some kind of thin client system for your desktops, this is an area where Linux can help you save money. Look at the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) to get a quick start.
Use native Linux apps where you find good ones. E.g. let Open/StarOffice replace MS-Office, let Evolution replace Outlook. Run the rest of your windows apps from a standard windows terminal server. Yes there are clients for Linux that makes this possible. Then phase out those last windows apps as good Linux alternatives becomes available.
Lock down your thin net booted Linux clients tighly, and your support cost will go down dramatically.
Make sure that you set up a very simple user interface on the clients, don't get tempted to make a windows look alike. Users usually don't need to set background images or new screen savers, play audio CDs etc on their office hours. But streamline the desktop to do business tasks and nothing else. E.g if your users need 6 apps for their daily work, make sure that all of them start automagically at login, perhaps on different virtual desktops. Add some menu choises to restart them if they should fail to your desktop menu. This way you get a much more effective work environment than in windows.
And as the uses have less things to play around with they can screw up less things. This is why your support costs will be lower.
On the server side there are good alternatives for filesharing, and print service (use CUPS).
The big question is what you do with exchange if you currently use it. There are good replacement for SMTP and IMAP mail services. But when it comes to calendering and address books the choises are somewhat limited at least if you want to use free software. If you are prepared to have a propriatory solution you could use bynari that is a more or less drop in solution for exchange, available on anything from x86 to z390 platform.
You could also go for some web based solution, and there is lots of them.
For authentication and user management use LDAP.
E.g. OpenLdap. But if yuo still have some Windows competense left in your company e.g. to handle your terminal servers you could integrate your Linux clients into Microsoft Active Directory.
There is an AD extension called AD4Unix that makes this possible.
Things like database system could also be moved
but what systems you should use very much depend on what you already use. E.g. if you use SQL Server you should probably look at Sybase in the Linux world. Oracle and DB2 runs well on Linux so they should be no problem to move.
To do all this you will have to spend a lot on education of your sysadmins if they currently have no unix experience. But as you probably will be able to fire three out of five sysadmins when you switched it might be a good idea anyway.
Correctly set up you could expect each sysadmin to handle thousands of users.
If you replace the application for your desktop users they will need education on those apps too.
But fortunately many Linux applications try to mimic their windows equivalents (do OSS developers lack fantasy?) so the costs may actually be quite low. E.g. I would expect that a switch from MS-Office to Star/OpenOffice would be about the same as when upgrading from one version of MS-Office to the other.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Reading the post reminded me of this document.
It doesn't have many hard dollar figures, could use some more recent data, and has a slight focus on the US military, but seems fairly thorough with lots of sources and is probably general enough to provide some insight for most businesses.
We ran a desktop pilot for a 500 user company in Sydney recently to evaluate using Linux instead of Windows. It was a greenfields rollout/replace (they were in-sourcing after having out-sourced and thus owned no licenses or equipment).
The pilot led the to them choosing Windows but at a major discount to licensing fees.
Their concerns were:
- Lack of Linux sysadmins in Sydney (this was wrong IMHO)
- Easy of management - they believed 'group policy and active directory' superior to the linux approach of roll your own.
- Risk. We could mention overseas sites such as Largo but no sites in Australia of their size running linux on the desktop.
- Group scheduling. Exchange meeting booking was superior. Thats why I initiated the 'jical' http://sourceforge.net/projects/jical project to beef up evolution in this area.
- Document compatibility. One of the major issues was how documents could be read and transfered between suppliers/customers who all used 'word'.
Of all of these, the biggest issue was risk. The managers were gutsy enough to go ahead but the risks seemed too great for a 'big bang' 500 desktop rollout.
Maybe next year!
email me for more info via the jical project.
This is not meant as a flame or an aggressive comment. I'd just like to note that you're lucky, because my experience is that W2K crahes. Less than NT or 98, but still.
I use a Win2K box with latest SP applied, mostly for office work (someone port Notes to Linux!). I run web browsers, a few telnet sessions, Notes, Acrobat Reader and a few Java apps. I have ample memory (512MB) and I am barely paging.
Yet, I often arrive at the office in the morning to find my W2K box showing a BSOD with "Starting physical memory dump". I also sometimes get a BSOD doing very innocuous things such as typing an email.
So if you know why I keep crashing and how to fix it, please let me know.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
here
I had been trying to push CUPS for printing for our ~1000 users (about 90% Windows, I'm at a large university) but it just wasn't as easy as Microsoft's Windows 2000 Internet Printing. When a user needs a printer, he/she hits a web page, clicks a link, and the printer is installed including drivers. All over port 80. No wizards or chances for folks to make mistakes. No Samba shares or authentication worries. It just works. People are happy. Our few *nix folks can print via lpr, as can MacOS users.
I would've loved to stick with CUPS for printing, but the driver support for all the oddball printers people buy and put on the network just wasn't there...Not to mention the lack of easy driver distribution and printer installation for my Windows clients. In our environment, Windows IPP makes more sense than any Linux solution I was able to find.
I wouldn't mind having someone prove me wrong here...I'm not thrilled about the IIS requirement for this setup.
My current employer deals in offering a lot of services to its customers over the internet. We started off as a "Microsoft only" shop, even though we have at least 100 Sun servers here that run the back end databases and such. Our management finally got smart and noticed that the downtime reports almost never listed any of the Sun servers. They comissioned a study to see if we could improve our service by changing operating systems. They were considering replacing our Windows gear with Sun stuff.
We pointed out that we could keep our current gear and just migrate the OS, so for us, this is an ideal situation. We've begun migrating to Linux one application at a time. Our uptimes have improved dramatically, which has reduced the amount of hardware we have been allocating to each application which in turn has allowed us to speed up the migration. The most difficult part has been getting the development teams to use the "other slash".
Because our admins were mostly all cross platform to begin with, the migration hasn't been terribly painful. I realize that we are unusual in that aspect. We've begun training those that are single platform only by pairing a Unix-only with a Windows-only in a sort of buddy-system. The biggest part of the learning curve has been figuring out which distro to use. We have found that as long as we stay with RedHat 7.2, we really don't have any issues with the OS and hardware. I would like to point out that not every distro will support every vendors proprietary server hardware. We tried using newer distros and ran into problems with the kernel not supporting things. We tried using other vendors distros (Mandrake, Suse, etc.) and ran into problems as well.
My advice would be to go slowly. Port one thing at a time. Get your admins up to speed on that one thing. Once they get up to speed on that one thing, they'll be able to work the kinks out. Once they get the kinks worked out, then you can move on to the next application. I can't stress enough that you need to proceed SLOWLY.
HDGary secures my bank
You can also use Novell GroupWise for a back end and use Outlook as your client. I haven't used it much, but I have set it up and it works.
Make sure you invest in training.
Even if you don't end up migrating, in which case get more training in the systems you use now.
I've seen some lousy IT due to lack of training.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
this is a completely circumstantial situation. in some places Windows will not be significantly worse OR better than linux and vice versa.
/home directory in most instances. And a simple tar command can backup everymachine to a compressed file, and stored easily on the server/tape/cd-r. This is much more difficult and time consuming on windows. And linux can be used to backup windows machines via tar/rar/zip and Samba/CIFS where Windows does not have the ability to backup Linux machies without inverstment in other software and a lot of time.
Generally, i believe Linux provides a low TCO over the coarse of 1 year if measured from a "start from scratch" perspective. On the other hand, to convert from Windows to GNU/Linux is more time consuming and will generally take >1 year to see TCO go down. When licensing comes up on 200+ machines, Windows will certainly feel a lot more expensive, while linux will be free.
Finding IT staff than can handle all of your Linux AND Windows machines is a tough. Most Linux guys have purposely turned their backs on windows and in turn, lost some of their talent at fixing all the windows workstations that WILL exsist on your network.
One thing that i don't think has been addressed is cost of backups. Linux requires no extra backup software like windows does, and windows typically requires a complete system backup for every machine unlike linux, which can be backed up effectively on a per partition basis, litterally just the
mod parent up. No need to be redudant when hes one of the first posters.