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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'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.
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
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
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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.
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Yeah in fact, you're true. But I think your conclusion (== Money) is little bit to fast.
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Changing a whole IT infrastructure from Windows to Linux is not simple, as any other migration, but ther can be a TCO reduction I think. Though it won't be fast, it's a long term saving and the visible money saving may come up only after a few years I think. When you realize that there isn't anymore licence upgrading.
Another important thing that I would like to add, is that you will need a lot human resources and knowledge, at least for the start.
Hope I could help and keep me up to date about the evolution, 'cause I'm also planning a similar migration.
Best Regards
NeoEinstein
n-e
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.
No most people are plain ignorant.
Stupid people don't know linux.
Using Linux doesn't make you intelligent, smart and sexy either
Teaching Stupid people == Money
It also takes patience and knowledge on your part.
I don't know why people consider themselves to above the rest when they start using linux. Let me tell you its just an OS, get over it. Every person is good at what he/she does. For eg my mom, even after working on a pc for 8 yrs now thinks its her fault when something goes wrong or system hangs. She just plainly hits the reboot button. 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.
Personally its been over 30 years since people working on computers were considered god. Even my 7 yr old nephew can install a dual boot. And guess what he cannot spell most of the words properly.
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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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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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.
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:
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!
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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!
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.
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.
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