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Win2k Cheaper than Linux
An anonymous reader writes "According to this story, Win2k costs an average of 11%-22% total cost of enterprise. The study showed that the initial investment takes up less than 5% of the total cost. Linux did beat Win2k in one category, Web-serving." Man did this thing get submitted a lot.
You have to know what you are doing to use Linux.
Willy Gates has made Windows so easy anybody can use it.
Profit from ignorance!
A Windows 2000 license is around $150 area. Most Linux distros are free. Yes tech support to get Linux up and running costs money, it should still cost substantially less than Windows 2000.
TCO doesn't matter.
Linux costs me anywhere between 1 hour and 5 hours to download an iso of my favorite distro. Win2k costs me 5 minutes to burn a CD-R and 30 cents to buy the blank disc. Overall I would say that since with a minimum wage job I can make 6 dollars in an hour that win2k is by far the better value.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Finally someone realises that the initial cost does not reflect the TCO. Wonder why Mac OS X was left out of the quotation.
;)
Oh, probably because macs won every other TCO report I've seen
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
of windows 2000.
Morphing Software
I can define TCO my own way, but it might prove that BeOS was king (yeah, right); and other's may define it their own way. We'd need to know exactly how they defined TCO to know.
if you only buy a single copy and then install it on your entire network!
From the comments under the article ('BSD user'):
Reference: Here we read that Mainstream support for windows 2000 servers will end 31 March 2005 That's only 2 years and 4 months from now. I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?
Readers might wish to balance this article with the rest of the story, found here.
IDC: Windows 2000 Offers Better Total Cost Of Ownership Than Linux
Win 2000 offers cost advantage in four out of five server workloads
By Paula Rooney, CRN
Framingham, Mass.
4:55 PM EST Mon., Dec. 02, 2002
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of Windows over Linux for the four workloads ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period.
Linux demonstrated a cost advantage over Windows in only one category--Web serving. According to the survey, Linux offers a cost advantage of 6 percent over Windows for running Web applications over that same time frame.
While Microsoft's Licensing 6.0 acquisition costs are significantly higher than those of the free Linux OS, software acquisition represents a small percentage--roughly 5 percent--of the TCO, IDC found.
IDC says factors other than software acquisition cost--particularly staffing and downtime--are the most significant factors when determining TCO over a long-term period. For example, IDC says that IT staffing alone accounts for 62.2 percent of TCO, while downtime represented another 23.1 percent of the costs. Software acquisition, in contrast, accounts for a mere 4.6 percent of the TCO, while hardware represents 4.4 percent.
"The study shows very clearly that up-front costs, including hardware or software, are not the most significant items contributing to the five-year TCO value," said Al Gillen, an IDC analyst. "Think about it. How long does it take to surpass the cost of software when you have a high-paid staff member managing the system? That staff member cost is there regardless of what the original software and hardware cost," he said.
Expenditures for managing, maintaining, troubleshooting and restoring the systems operations of a Linux server were, "in almost every case, higher than for systems running Windows 2000," according to the study, titled "Windows 2000 Versus Linux in Enterprise Computing."
IDC attributed the Windows 2000 win to the maturity of Windows management features and third-party tools in the marketplace. This countered the immaturity of Linux system management tools and low penetration of Linux management platforms in the enterprise.
However, the report also noted that the increasing availability of respected management tools for the Linux platform--including BMC Patrol, CA Unicenter, HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, NetIQ and Novell Zenworks--will likely improve the installation, deployment and maintenance numbers for Linux servers. "Over time, the gap in support costs between Linux and Windows will contract," the study stated.
I always knew I should have used FreeBSD. ;)
slashdot!=valid HTML
Part of the cost of maintenance on the Linux platform is surely regular installation of upgrades which are freely available.
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version. . .
Just a thought.
Larsal
One part of the article seems to imply that managers of Linux systems are paid significantly more than managers of Win2K systems, making the use of Linux systems more costly. Is this really the case in other peoples' experience?
Practice random acts of ineffability.
I think you have to remember how 'rough' linux was 5 years ago. Isn't it easier to set up (and maintain) a server running linux these days?
IBM thinks differently in this paper and so does CyberSource here.
As a technologist I'm very sceptical to economic calculations. I believe that they can be twisted in any direction.
There is a principle of uncertanty. Of the three items cost, time and product you can only know one. So if you want to know what product you'll end up with, you can't know the price or time...
Anyway, it is good to point out that Linux systems has problems in the management area. But still, people are working on it.
Give it away till they are hooked...
keep in mind, we had the full $2k/year MSDN subscription for each developer, paid each year, as well as some very experienced staff on hand... MS charged us $150/h to talk to us about a problem that we were pointing out in their CMutex MFC class (a bug they later admitted to) This was back in 1995 or so before MS jumped on the newsgroup bandwagon. At any rate, i wonder if these kinds of fees factored into the TCO?
it takes many highly literate propeler heads to support Linux while it only takes a handful of newbies to run and maintain a Windows based setup.
Quit Slashdot Today!
I do believe at this point in the IT field that Windows is cheaper/easier to support compared to Linux.
/. nerds know Linux and would prefer Linux, but not every single IT person comes here.
More IT profesionals are trained to know Windows and deal with Windows. Yes I understand that you
/. is obviously aimed at the Linux/OSS crowd, no wonder everyone here thinks Linux is better, no matter what... Although I agree it is too =P
Google: IDC microsoft
and you will see taht IDC has a history of tooting the MS horn.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Do I smell Microsoft rigging something here?
haha... those fools
Everyone knows Linux is cheaper on all counts
I love this comment on article on CRN's website:
"It just sounds strange that this article claims a five years study using Windows 2000. As of today, this study should have began by Dec. 1997 ! That means getting Windows 2000 two years in advance. "
So they must using a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) to come up with it TCO figures.
A 5 year study of Win2k, eh?
Have I missed something?
Hmmm... Calender still on 2002... What's going on?
And in other news the RIAA announces that the TCO of overpriced CDs is less than for free mp3s...
You get meta-karma, for actually using the word "balance" in the same sentence with a link to the register. I was impressed. If course, it's unbelievably funny, but I was pretty damn impressed at the effort.
On another front, you can get well-balanced news stories here.
Five years of Windows 2000? Let's see, if Windows 2000 came out in 1999, then it's been out for 2000, 2001, 2002...that's only three years. So there must be some extrapolation going on here, even if we allow that some of these shops were using a beta version of Win2k a year ahead of release. Then there is the question of hardware costs, since Linux potentially needs less hardware to perform the same jobs. And finally, it'd be nice to know how the 104 shops were picked.
Insert standard Mark Twain "statistics" comment here.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I should have waited for Linux2k....
Hmmm... Ok.. Chivas on the rocks.
Here is a good commentary from the register.
"IDC's findings, published Monday in a study commissioned by Microsoft, suggest that the Windows 2000 Server operating system has a lower total cost of ownership than Linux, mainly due to savings associated with staffing. The findings contradict some claims that Linux is cheaper than Windows over time."
This paragraph says it all. Of course it is cheaper for Microsoft to run Windows 2000 then Linux. Windows 2000 is free if you are a Microsoft employee.
Hmm... How could they do a 5-year study on an OS that's only been out for 2 years?
It just makes clear in wich camp the researcher was this time. The first independent report hasn't been released yet. I think the real TCO is more dependant on admin than on OS.
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
NT for 5 years now. It's simple. Like owning a dutch wall, with a lot of generous boys to plug the holes. I upgraded to Windows 2000, which is NT 5.0. Whole domain, simple. And everytime some horrindous security hole appears I just visit the pretty blue and orange microsoft.com and there is a little dutch boy waiting to plug a hole in the dike. But don't think for a second I don't have my public on anything less than a Nat/Firewall box. Oh you clever kiddies you..
We use Windows 2000 running .net. This always to write very dynamic code for our web sites. If we used Linux, this would lower our quality of our web sites to our customer and increase our development cost. Saving a few $$ is crap compared to the value it bring to our customers.
The article says the study is comparing the last five years. I think that implies no windows 2000 in, at least, three years of the study and, also, important differences in Linux.
Moreover, five years ago, Linux was used by so few people that almost all the enterprises that now use Linux used another OS before. It would be more interesting to compare five years after for the same enterprises.
windows will always out do a 2nd class os like linux
linux blows ass
Linux admins are relatively "new". Let me elaborate.
You have a previously win32 shop where everyone know how to support win32. You either train or hire someone to support Linux. That is where you incurr the cost. From there, you have one person supporting 1-5 boxes (typically in test deployments) and so your divisor is low, with a high numerator.
What these studies don't do is assume that you have the same size install base of Linux as for Win32. Everyone knows that Linux is more reliable (and having worked in IT as a professional for 7 years, (and still working in it now) that is not heresay) so the same person can support more boxen.
Another problem is that the people who train rather than hire have the problem of unfamiliarity. Just like with any other job, it takes newbies longer to do anything.
Finally, the last reason is because it takes more to be a good Unix admin, and their salaries reflect that fact. But fortuneately, the stability of the boxes more than make up for that fact.
We will never have a proper TCO study unless conversion is 100% with proper support staff. The closest thing would be the migration of Hotmail to Win32. But we all know how that turned out...
"Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study..." Hehee. It was about time they found one study to prove how Windows 2000 costs less over a five year time span.
Never mind that Windows 2000 hasn't been around even close to that long.
Never mind that Microsoft stops supporting it in year 2005. Wonder how a six year time span would have looked like...
She could at least have linked to the study itself...
We see a similar effect where I work, an NT box costs us about 30% less to run than a Solaris box.
Why?
There are less mission-critical systems running on NT, so there are less DBAs, less backup, etc. The print server sits in the corner and gets a 3-finger salute if it plays up, so it's cheap to run. The mission-critical boxes, running web servers, databases, etc can't go down, so we have administrators to look after them.
IMNSHO - if we normalized for what each box is doing, Linux and Unix are cheaper to run.
Alan.
Without some details it's impossible to tell either what these results were based on or the specific areas where win2k was found superior to linux. I didn't see a reference to the actual study, so there is no way to gauge the validity of the results. There's just no meat to talk about with this marketing blurb dressed up as a news report.
???150$???
are you talking about W2K professional or W2K server.
W2K professional sucks bigtime since its IIS can only host one domain...
This is a major shortcomming for a webdeveloper!
Microsoft claims Linux administration costs more because of the technical expert you need to run it. Apparently they are hinting that any old dumb-ass can run a Microsoft system, I prefer not to save money by relying on dumb-asses.
Considering TCO can be defined many ways, most will agree that system uptime is a huge factor, as downtime has the direct cost of the people working on the server as well as the indirect cost of lost productivity from users who are unable to access the server resources.
The main knock against Windows here on Slashdot is that it is not nearly as reliable as Linux. I maintain that the two most significant reasons for this are that the typical Linux admin is much more experienced and that Linux is installed "bare-bones" and features only enabled by direct action. Windows, on the other hand, is designed to install with a ridiculous number of services and applications by default.
A properly configured Windows Server can be quite reliable. The main problem is reboots to apply service packs and hot fixes (although this is getting better). An experienced (not "certified") Windows admin knows how to configure Windows Server with only the necessary services and the proper security restrictions. You actually can get pretty good uptime if you know what you're doing.
The story mentions that downtime contributes more than 20% of the TCO of a system. With uptimes of months to years for *nix boxes; whereas you are strongly advised to reboot Windows boxes on a regular basis, where is the logic that 23% of the TCO of a *nix box comes from downtime?
We have linux servers at work that have downtime every 6 months for servicing, and then only for a handful of hours. Other than that, they don't come down at all. I fail to see how less than 1 day downtime/year (planned, at that) can contribute 23% of the TCO of the system.
2 sysadms at ~$70k/yr = $140k/yr. $0 for licensing. That would make downtime cost roughly $32k/day (23% of 140k, assuming 24 hrs downtime/yr). If you house something critical, like your CRM system, on 1 machine, and it goes down, I could see that. Then again, that would be your own damn fault for having 0 backup/redundancy.
There's a lot about that article that doesn't add up, and not just the 5 year study on Win 2000...
When it was only released in 1999... gotcha
What's under yellowstone?
note this does not even include the tax on your 6$ or the sales tax you pay on windows, so really youre probably looking at close to 30 hours of $$ to buy windows..
It should be noted that Microsoft commissioned this study, which I'm sure did not skew the results.
k we tried this at our company.. 217ppl.. and i tell ya.. we didnt do a percentage.. but it IS more xpensive to going linux rather than windows for 2 very simple reasons: a LOT more ppl are certified on Windows.. this means training of aminds as well as a fucking lot more time spent on fiddling around with linux to get it right PEOPLE are used to winodws from EVERYWHERE:. so when ya set them down on a linuxdesktop.. PEOPLE GET CONFUSED.. for the first 5 months or so.. puters kept breaking down on a minutely basis and ppl lost files all over It may pay in the long run.. but to switch sure was not a very cheap idea.. even with all the money saved on the lincese.. all the extra time/money spent on helping ppl get thingd working.. buying extra tools to get formats over on linux and downright loss of data a lot of the time didnt.. To everyone who's gonna flame me now.. try it urself!
* Wonders if this is another piece of MS propagander * Let the -1 Troll modding commence :)
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
I am the IT manager for a company with about 400 employees, we run 90% win2k servers, the rest are linux servers for our webserver and our intranet servers (again web servers), and 2 database servers...
There are two other IT employees here, and they won't touch linux, in order to get someone else to deal with the Linux machines, I'd have to fork out $10k more per year... which isn't worth it imo...
like the article said, eventually the price gap will shrink, but for now, i agree win2k is cheaper to run as long as the company is large enough
peace.
So was Win2K around in 1997? What am I missing? Hell 2.4.0 wasn't around that damn long either, so this is pure FUD.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Eat it Mac'o !
Windows 2k network for say 100 employees requires at least three IS/IT guys employed full time just to keep the damn thing running. Our Exchange server went down for several ours just because someone sent us a mail with Korean text encoding. Superb.
We use Linux and Solaris for the intranet and samba servers. Over a year uptime and never ever any problems. Same thing with external website (running Solaris), requires no maintanence what so ever. I wonder what's cheaper after a few years, *nix or windoze?
Ciryon
I am really sick of reading all this rubbish about the cost comparison between linux/unix and windows.For the sort of work that i do which is scientific based, the applications that we need are not available under windows. So it is impossible to run a cost difference between linux and windows, linux is basically priceless. And I am sure that there are some people that it works
the other way for as well.
In order to decide what operating system to use, one should first know what one wants to do with their computer and then decide what operating system to use. Cost should not be the deciding factor (although an important one) when choosing an operating system. If an operating system does not do what one needs it to do, then no matter how inexpensive it is, it is just wasted money.
As for training costs while using computers. It has got to the point now where the basic operation of all operating systems are very much the same. Using a browser in linux is almost identical to using it under windows. So it is impossible to say that training costs are substantially different for any operating system.
TCO is a made-up statistic whose factors are widely varied. You can get different TCO for the same setup depending on what you track and how you track: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
The TCO number is amounts to nothing more than a young-eath argument. Creationists offer up good numbers and solid math, but the problem is that there are glaring flaws with how the numbers relate and the logic they use. i.e. when obtaining a straight line of best fit, they only find one point, and use the derivitive at that point.
To believe any TCO argumemnt is to have an excersise of faith. And when it comes to sciences, that is not an appropriate tool to use.
According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of dumb people over smart ones for the four types of work ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period.
Smart people demonstrated a cost advantage over dumbies in only one category-- web surfing.
I expect a lot of side-taking on this one.
But I cannot see how they can support the argument except that at the moment, there are simply more Windows administrators and techs out there than there are Linux administrators and techs. What's more, I have encountered people who proudly make statements like "Microsoft Only" as if it were some status symbol or major accomplishment and who won't even go NEAR a machine running anything else as if it were diseased and might infect his mind. (Brings to mind certain flavors of Christianity)
But as there are more Microsoft-supporting professionals and so many of them are still out of work, it stands to reason that the TCO is low over 5 years... except one thing-- will Windows2000 still be supported in 5 years or will their license terms change again encouraging [requiring] upgrades to their latest OS? So yes, MS people are more available and will accept lower pay. Linux people are still more rare and generally expect more pay because we know a bit more... and usually know MS in addition to other OS's pretty well.
You still get what you pay for, for the most part. But the TCO figure is a very subjective thing... and has anyone asked if this was also yet another MS supported study?
If you let a person not used to UNIX/Linux administer the linux-server the cost is likely to go up, which seems to be the case here.
Why even bother comenting it? (can't belive I just did)
I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
There are lies, damned lies and statistics. In this case the statistics dont point out so MANY facts with so many so called 'corellations' that dont corellate.
Damned statistics. This article is just another piece of FUD. It is misinformative.
Now let me begin, most people here state that the statement offered above is wrong. From reading the article I see that that the total cost of ownership is in staffing smart people that understand Linux and can adminster it as well, if not better, than a windows admin can administer Windows. While Linux may not be point and click, and it offers a multitude of options, generally most IT professionals in the field have no freaking clue how to use it.
Not only that, but where do you send these people to get trained? There is no single Linux distro that is a "standard" and there is no single known place to get training. If you do find training, the costs of sending employees there is too much. Many people who know squat get certified in Windows Administration and then find some jobs at companies, with Linux there is a bit of a curve and less demand.
Lets also look at this in another way, say I wanted to change careers and get into the new latest fad of a business. Say I choose to get into day trading stocks (not different as people did a few years back) but didn't know where to begin. I am going to sign up with E-Trade or some online broker and begin trading. I am not going to open my own firm to day trade stocks. I am not saying Linux needs you to do everything, but for someone coming from a Windows enviornment, even the grep command is a bit much.
What is the point of this article? The best solution is always to evaluate what is the best solution for each particular need. It is not proper to say that Linux or W2K or Mac OSX will be the best for anything everytime.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
CRN already was a pro windows site before they even made the review or article. Proof you may ask for? Well, their web pages are in ASP and not to mention that the pages are servered on an IIS box. This proves they used M$ technology before hands and are not open minded to other solutions.
If you have a skilled employee in Linux and they are unskilled in M$, it would be alot cheaper to implement a linux box than a M$ box. The article is using the other side appproach, a M$ skilled employee that has no clue about Linux, will cost alot more to implement Linux.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I agree. It's entirely unfair to stretch the TCO out over five years without including the cost of *forced* upgrades. And what about cost savings by enabling managers to move to other (open source) tools instead of being 'locked in' to the Microsoft world ?
Another job well done the IDC advertising department... Slashdot has better editors.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of Windows over Linux for the four workloads ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period.
"Statistics can be made up... 37% of the population knows that."
It's on it's way to being slashdotted already...and look, it's one of those cheap windows systems. Shoulda spent the extra cash to get Linux luxury ;-)
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
is that you don't get ANY points for installing it. You get 1 MS Licensing point for each copy of XP, 5 for MS Office and 10 for 2000 Server. No points at all for Linux. How can it be good for your business if you can't get any points! And levels. When you reach certain numbers of points you get new levels.
I think the new MS licensing agreement was actually a RPG system that fell into the wrong hands.
For a good headache...
A lot of companies will tolerate "reboot Monkeys", if they can pay them only Peanuts.
IDC Research is under investigation by the SEC for insider trading of Microsoft (MSFT) shares.
Shares are up 15% today after news of Microsoft Windows 2000 server being cheaper than your mom.
Part of the lower cost comes from the factor of scale. If you're looking to do some consulting, well Microsoft has a massive and undeniable lead in the number of users- so you start up a business to take advantage of this and offer services for Microsoft software.
But everyone else is doing the same thing, so you have to lower prices and they lower theirs. (This is overall mind you, not pinned down to any two support services) Microsoft products are also quite easy to manage on the whole. Especially since Win2K came rolling in, plus with NT4SP6a you shouldn't have too many major server problems either.
Everywhere you go you can find all sorts of Microsoft camp product support. Once you learn one Microsoft product you are well on your way to knowing another.
Many corporate level packages also come on Microsoft (ERP, etc.) so that gets added into the mix as well - if you want a Linux solution you are really going to have to take the long way around for a lot of this stuff.
Linux is doing quite well, but entry into the Linux world is like running into a brick wall for many. There are far fewer Linux users around and the system is totally different from what most people are used to. There is a staggering amount of things to learn when taking on Linux, kernel recompiles, following the chains of dependancies, all of this takes time to learn and internalize. Most Microsoft type products are a matter of getting the latest service packs.
So there are fewer Linux users and fewer people overall familiar with Linux. The cost of finding someone to help you is going to be higher. Plus, I would argue there is *far* more to learn so you're going to pay the high priced people even more.
This presents a massive total cost barrier for those who would seek to save licensing money by switching to Linux. It is far easier to pay out to a software company for support and pay cheaper mainstream consultants and get things done than it is to start entering this whole new world of OSS. And you'll have to keep paying out more money to expensive consultants and employees to keep up-to-date, even though the initial costs are cheaper.
Then there's all of the little things that Linux can't quite do yet. Incompatibilities with the mainstream software products, pieces of software that just aren't available or which just aren't up to snuff when compared to the MS world. Add these in as indirect costs - even if you get the money to start up with Linux these little niggling issues will make management wonder why they bothered. Finance is not going to be happy without running Excel, the VP is going to be annoyed by not being able to access his IE only stock market site.
On the flip side, if you happen to have employees that known their Linux and know it well, there are definitely benefits to be had. If you want to add a new web server, W2K Adv Server is going to cost you more than the hardware and your Linux-savy employee can probably get an Apache server running nice and easy.
The problem is Linux is just not quite popular enough yet so these gifted people are hard to come by. Trying to insert Linux into a corporate world of Windows raised folk via consultants is going to mean huge dollars - basic stuff that everyone at least sort of knows how to do in Windows may require more consultant hours for instructional purposes.
But, even as the article mentions there are places were Linux is making itself cost effective and useful - like webserving. These tasks should be Linux's thin-end-of-the-wedge. Slowly get Linux in there for these tasks, and then maybe it can take over one more job, then another. Sys Admins can slowly learn more about it and become more experienced. Eventually that TCO is going to balance towards Linux.
There is a long ways to go though - and screaming that all MS users are idiots and they just don't realize how far superior Linux is, is counter-productive. The technical snobbery that often goes on (knee jerk MS bashing, even near-religious fervour found within variations on Linux, newbie bashing, etc.) helps nothing. The rest of the world will just ignore Linux even more and continue on doing their business using MS and closed-source products that they are comfortable with and *that work* as often as not. They *really and truly* don't care what software they use as long as it works, and as long as it is cost-effective to use it. Most business need to use computers, but what computers they use are irrelevant to them. They just need to, well, take care of business.
Find ways that Linux helps them to that in a cost-effective and friendly way and I'm sure more and more business will bite.
XP/.NET activation.
do you think the cost of licenses and "subscriptions" will be more than, or less than the cost of W2K to do the same job?
Help please!
i need to find a quote of a well known code guru or comp-sci celebrity saying something along the lines of "code portability is a good measure of code qaulity"
im sure i remember seeing larry wall and charles hannum say it, but i cant find where!
if anyone knows a usenet post or link of these guys or someone else daying it, please reply!
They quickly learned not to troll from the Redmond campus, like so many were doing early on.
I've also wondered if they were true believers or do they requlary check in with Redmond to see what their opinion should be.
The author of the story didn't seem to think to even try to get a quote from anyone with a different point of view. What this means is that this "news" is only a press release. It's very sad to me. I would at least have expected a quote from *somebody* in the open source community---perhaps someone from RedHat, but there's nothing.
end of line
The article backs up its own point about running webservers on Linux:
bash-2.03$ telnet www.crn.com 80
Trying 66.77.24.17...
Connected to crn.com.
Escape character is '^]'
GET / HTTP/1.0
two minute wait.. three dropped connections..
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Totally worthless... they will say whatever the company paying for the study want to hear.
... one linux admin can handle WAY more linux servers than 1 windows admin.
I'd like to see this study with 10 windows vs. 10 linux servers, or 100 vs. 100
To anyone who has been following the industry for any length of time, IDC will ring a bell.
They were bashing OS/2 back when it was a viable threat, and now they're bashing Linux. Not really a shocker, as much of their funding of their "studies" comes direct from Microsoft.
Right.
I had to reinstall my Win2K last week, because it was crapping out on me every five minutes, and this morning I find my NTFS partition completely hosed (even after a proper shutdown yesterday). I'm reinstalling as of right now.
Lower TCO my fucking ass...
Fuck whomever wrote the fucking report, I'm not even going to read it. He/she/it can go suck BillG's cock...
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
a different conclusion?
okay people we need the links to salary surveys of both Linux and MSCe professionals to counter with an editorial rebuttal to IDC..
I rea done not 8 motnhs ago but cannot recall who did the survey..was it DIce.com?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
From the study:
measuring total cost of ownership of the two server operating systems over a five year period
Let me see a show of hands, how many of you are still running NT 3.51 in production? Do you think you'll be running 2000 in 2006?
How about this: how many of you are running a 2.0 series Linux kernel in production? Do you think you'll be running a 2.4 in 2008?
After five years without a system upgrade you can finally make back the initial investment in Windows, as long as you don't run web services, and assuming your admins start the race with Windows familiarity and without Unix familiarity. OK, I believe the study, but what does it have to do with the real world?
More perspective is available from The Register.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I find it interesting the way arguments are going around here.
"Well sure any retard can run Windows so of course it is cheaper TCO"
And that is exactly how MS will market their products. Wanna web server? No problem, sure linux/freebsd is free, but the staff to support it will end up costing you more in the long run.
You folks act like being easy to use is a _bad_ thing. While the rest of the world thinks it's a good thing.
You call people who install a win2k server for their small business idiots and they're idiots for not mastering unix. But maybe they don't time to learn all that is needed, because they have a business to run, and it is simply cheaper(in the long run) to run a Win2k server than a linux one.
Think about it.
Sometimes it seems like slashdot folks sits in their geek tower and spews insults at all the morons for using MS. Without ever knowing what's really going on in the real world.
BTW, I use linux/freebsd and love them. But i also love computers in general.
Talking with some of my friends who run their own business they are really nervous about going to linux yet they are interested.
I can't give them support and they are afraid that supports costs will be too high, and Jim down the hall is pretty good with Windows so we will just let him do the administration.
Sorry for the rant I know everyone on slashdot is not this way.
This makes a lot of sense to me. It actually seems pretty obvious. The fact of the matter is that win2k isnt neccesarily such a bad piece of software. It's pretty stable and its pretty easy to use. Alos not much investment in training your staff is neccesary (this assumes you dont work in an IT field where most of your workers would know Linux). Putting working knowledge of Win2k in your job hunt wont narrow down the quantity of applicants whereas for the major job market putting working knowledge of Mandrake will. Just a few thoughts.
...including a pack of whores publishing a "study" nearly identical to the spin excreted by your marketing department.
So what? How is this news?
Man did this thing get submitted a lot
We shall see this story again, but with a new title...
Taking bets now who will post the duplicate...
1) Hermos,
2) Michael
3) Taco
4) Taco's Wife (pertending to be Taco)
Tournament Management Online &
oh, and if you are Larry Wall or Charles Hannum or anyone else famous and reading this, and you dont think youve said it before, nows the time! hehe
Also, remote administration on a windows box is still a major hassle, with many products *cough* webtrends *cough* demanding that they run on the console, even though they are scheduled jobs by nature. You are forced to use VNC to remotely administer these pieces of crap. Not that TS is much better. For GUI remote admin, X11 is still far beyond anything windows has to offer.
Win2k itself is pretty decent (except for the hardware requirements). The problem is the way developers still write their apps as if they are for a single-user system with no concept of security. And, as shown above, they assume you like to walk out to your datacenter and actually sit at a machine to administer it. Dumb.
That said, I still prefer linux solutions for most tasks. Hell, with the mod_ldap module we can even authenticate users on apache using active directory now. No more need for IIS!
For the last two years we haven't done any further upgrades on our main business system.
It's been the easiest and most stable two years I've spent in IT!
Software upgrades and changes really mess things up. Even assuming the latest version is 100% stable, even something as simple as moving a menu item can really trip the average user up until they get used to it - and if you follow every upgrade path by the time that happens you're changing it on them again.
Another test would be to recost the current google TOC assuming their 10,000 machines were running a MS OS.
I doubt that in either case MS OS would be cheaper to run over 5 years.
I know you're a troll, but ... all your comments are belong to us! Imagine a Natalie cluster of M$FT!
Direct from the CRN Atricle.
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
There is no doubt, (I'll do my research tonight to prove it to myself) that MickeySoft payed for this 'survey'.
In related 'news' Sinclair Research is celebrating the results of a 'study' that the ZX-80 hardware/software platorm offers a better cost of ownership for maintainence than Windows 2K.
In other related 'news' Mars Candy Corperation is celebrating a 'study' that shows that thier Almond Joy product is healthier than mothers milk.
The people who hire IT personnel assume that Windows must be easier to administer because all you have to do is point-and-click. Most of them use Windows and think, "How hard can it be to administer a Windows server?" Additionally, there are so many applicants who can claim Windows experience that they have many applicants to choose from. Since Windows seems easier to administer, and the pool of applicants is so large, the Windows administrators are paid less.
Linux, on the other hand, seems mysterious and scary to those who have never used it, and the pool of applicants is smaller, so Linux administrators get paid more. Within a couple of months, all of the scripts have been written so that the Linux machines practically administer themselves, and the high paid Linux administrators spend most of their time trying to look busy.
Where I work, there is a full-time IT person who handles all of the Windows servers. I have a few Linux servers set up, and I log in for about 30 minutes every month to install updates. My Linux servers e-mail me the status of the daily backups and if any problems occur (like running out of disk space). The rest of my time is spent on my primary job, which is programming in MACRO32.
Tom
At my shop, we up to around 20 Linux servers. Keeping up with patches can be a pain. But since we started paying for (imagine that) an enterprise subscription to redhat network, the difficulty of this task has all but evaporated (except for kernel upgrades, which are a bit of a bear on our EMC SANs).
With RHN, I just pull up one web page with all of my servers, click click click, submit, and the servers all update themselves next time they check in.
Now if I only could have something that easy with my dozen Windows servers. We looked into Microsoft's SUS (software update service I think), but it "requires" an IIS server, which we don't have, so I need to get one of them up just to maintain hot fixes sanely? Sigh... Plus every hotfix on Windows requires a reboot. On Linux updates, I only need to reboot when a kernel is upgraded.
Anyway, as a manager of a shop that runs about 50/50 Windows and Linux, I think this is all bullshit, at least with my site's size. Linux gives us far less grief and requires less care and feeding.
But I do think management products can play a greater role in reducing TCO than a lot of you think when you get into hundreds of servers in a big data center. I'd be curious to hear from others who run "real" data centers...
btw, I thought Unicenter and others already supported Linux. No?
I find it most interesting that the rabid geekdom of /. who all swear to only stick by OSS/*Nix and any other anti M$ o/s seem to know so much about installing and maintaining Win2K!
As a personal observation I would say that if you find 2000 difficult to maintain and administer then you obviously dont know it well enough to look after it! Maybe a few MCSE exams would help?
As for the cost - now that is another thing....
"According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of Windows over Linux for the four workloads ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period."
A survey, HUH? This was a survey of PHB's! This was not a scientific "study". IDG can make it sound like they want it to. Anyone who takes this seriously is kidding themselves. Until a scientific study with full accounting reports is performed, no one will know what is cheaper. Money isn't everything anyway, with Win2K you can get by on less money (maybe) but piss off all of your customers with downtime, slow response, crashes, etc... SAME OLD FUD.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows.netserver/evalu ation/whyupgrade/top10w2k.mspx
and look at reason 7 to upgrade. It's because Windows is finally getting smart and becoming more like *nix! Sure says something for how hard it is to manage Windows vs Linux.All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
That comparison is totally off.
Parking is easier if you know how to handle a manual trans. Its only ppl who are not used to it who find it harder cos all the clutch-work involved. High speed driving (100+) is also easier, you have more control over the car.
Automatic is easier on high traffic and stop-go jams.
Windows is easier to admin in large qty than linux with tools designed for that like hyena and sms. The same things that make win more insecure are its remote admin/audit capabilities.
I read this article elsewhere last night. It was linked to from google news...
m l. asp
Microsoft commissioned the survey!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.ht
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,741730,00
My question is, why doesn't this particular article mention that important fact?
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Sure the price is cheaper, maybe. But what about in less developed countries were talent is far cheaper and software is far more expensive relatively.
I have been travelling around South America for the last 2 months and I've probably been to about 20 or 30 cybercafes. Nobody is using windows XP. Hahahaha. People were fine using Windows as long as it was free but now, with the piracy protection and all they are just going to stick to win2k and win98. This is kind of like the computers getting too fast issue. Everyone has a computer now and they are fast enough. Windows doesn't crash anymore and people don't need anymore features.
I talked to a guy who asked me about Linux who I met on the beach. He was the head of a large Chilean corporation who said that the software cops were coming to check out his licenses. I told him RedHat 8, Evolution, Star Office. Get the Point Of Sale and Call Center Running on Linux first. Oh yeah, and get a LINUX GURU.
Just tell Microsoft you're about to defect to Open Source, they'll give you the software for free :)
...tko'd code red and y2k "issues" from teh tco.
"The study shows very clearly that up-front costs, including hardware or software, are not the most significant items contributing to the five-year TCO value," said Al Gillen, an IDC analyst. "Think about it. How long does it take to surpass the cost of software when you have a high-paid staff member managing the system? That staff member cost is there regardless of what the original software and hardware cost," he said.
----
Why is that?
Because any monkey pulled off the street can "run" a Windows based server. I mean, it's not like it doesn't come secure out of the box, right? What more do I need to do than turn it on and start IIS?
On the other hand Linux needs securing and optimizing! That requires skill and intelligence. Your average IT schmucks lack these.
I imagine they factored the cost of the windows licenses in with the Linux solution since everyone knows you can't just go straight to Linux and have everything work right the first time. You have to get hacked/cracked/used as a DDoS platform for 10 weeks straight before you switch to Linux. THUS TCO for Linux is higher!!!
Someone turn Redmond to glass, kplzthx.
Also, as others have pointed out, Win2k has only been out for three years now, so how could a five year study be anything but conjecture? You could say that they projected the number out a couple of extra years, but then how is it a "five year study"?
It's certainly possible that a windows box would be cheaper to maintain as a print server. Pretty much you just plug it in and forget it. I'm just not convinced this "study" has proven it.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Frankly from a business standpoint all these TCO evaluations are pointless. Any SA worth his salt will easily be able to tell you that being a homogonous Win2k or Linux shop, or a heterogeneous shop has both its disadvantages as well as its advantages.
If your business is heavily dependant on proprietary Win apps, then of course making the switch to Linux will be costly. On the other hand if you are upgrading a service, ie building a new mailserver, then a switch to Linux/BSD whathaveyou, may be a resonable consideration.
Take a large bank for example. Banks use many different services. The obvious email and file sharing, but also specialty ones such as automatic funds transfer applications, credit approval programs, loan applications (Fanny Mae etc), county and municipal tax mainframes, and inter-bank loan applications. In addition as most banks have or are in the process of converting paper documents to electronic records, data integrity and security is of the utmost priority. To give a blanket statment of, "switch to Linux" is unreasonable because the bank is probably locked in to proprietary applications that they cannot have ported over due to the fact that they do not control their development. Surely some of the background services can be switched over, but most SA's that I know do not have the time to create another project when their current system is handling the [email, database, security, etc] at a satasfactory level.
Linux is not a silver bullet for most businesses, but rather it should be thought of as a viable tool for consideration when determining cost/productivity/use analysis.
"IDC's findings, published Monday in a study commissioned by Microsoft Corp., "
Here
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"-CmdrTaco after receiving too many story submissions.
IDC says factors other than software acquisition cost--particularly staffing and downtime
Let me see if I understand this. Linux has MORE downtime cost than 2000? I don't think so. Ever try to install software on Windows? Ever manage to do it without having to reboot? Especially an MS app? I don't remember the last time I had to reboot my Linux machine, but it was most likely due to power issues or hardware failure than anything else. This goes for every Linux server I've ever managed.
As for NT and 2000 servers, every time I install or upgrade a package, I get down-time. Not to mention, 2000 servers generally take longer to reboot than Linux servers.
Sorry, I don't buy the downtime side of that article at all, which makes me skeptical about the rest.
Methodology matters too. There's a big difference between "Windows Update" and trawling the lists, downloading, patching, and recompiling... Of course, "apt-get upgrade" or RHN is a whole other story.
"Brings to mind certain flavors of Christianity"
IT also brings to mind Islam.
It brings to mind the over-the-top Linux people.
The fact that you focus on christians shows a deep seated phobia of god-knows-what.
I'm sure god will smite you by making you a geek, giving you bad acne, making you repulsive to women, and playing Everquest. A fate worse than death.
I was dissatisfied with administrating her Win98 box so I set up her machine as a diskless host (the Win98 data on the HD is still there but the boot floppy prevents Win98 from booting). She seems to be understanding it okay (GNOME) and she's in her 60's - plus I can rlogin to her box and see what's going on/wrong should the need arise.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO:
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_wi
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
So, in this "survey", they are talking about a 100-user network. If the server cost ~$1000 and each user license cose ~ $100 (which is is actually more), then we are looking at $11,000.
According to the survey, that leaves $787. So, for the next FIVE years, you have $787 to spend on support, upgrades, and such...
Hmmm, I just can't see it.
-- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
Apparently, the "study" is an exercise in pulling numbers out of thin air then.
How long ago was it that the MS/Hotmail internal paper was leaked showing that administration of the large server farm was a nightmare with Windows 2000 and that with Open Source software (FreeBSD in this case, ISTR), it was vastly simpler and consequently required far fewer administration resources?
If OSS takes a fraction of the admin resources, and is robust and reliable, offering potentially lower downtime, *and* by their own volition these account for the vast majority of the cost (also disputed in the MS/Hotmail paper), then unless they're paying the OSS admins six-figure salaries and the Windows admins are on minimum wage, then it simply doesn't add up.
So who funded this "study" ?
would it be too much to ask of people to read just a few other comments before they post. for crying out loud.
i cant even count all the people who posted oh so clever "5 years? it aint been out no stinkin 5 years!"
by the way, is it really that hard to believe that someone could come up with a report that trashes you precious linux? comon people, its not perfect!
What did the latest Halloween document talk about, but how Microsoft needed to emphasize a lower TCO.
Well isn't it nice that you can simply go and fund a survey to have that very thing become news.
Hasn't Microsoft repeatedly been doing this? Under the guise of supposedly independent surveys, benchmarks, and/or studies (not surpisingly funded, supported, or sponsored by Microsoft) the answers come out in Microsoft's favor. Recent victims of this include Open Source, J2EE, and now Linux.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! This isn't independent news, it's just advertising. And it's damn effective because it appears legitimate.
In all the discussion about Microsoft TCO, you missed The Register story of the day...
Woman jump starts car with cyber-infant.
It's just another one of Microsofts bought reviews. Nobody with any clue about the way the IT world works will belive it.
There is an review of this on The Register's site that takes it apart and shows it for the PR job it is.
IDC should be ashamed of themselves. If they're going to prostitute themselves they could at least have done a better job for their client.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,107517,0 0.asp
"IDC's findings, published Monday in a study commissioned by Microsoft..."
...So Cheap that it couldn't handle a little slashdot traffic. Probably using ISS on win2k the jerks.
Literally though, what could cost more on linux than win2k. With so much more OSS software for Linux, it's obviously less expencive for software, and hardware, and you don't need as many people to run a linux-based network as windows based.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
We can see the great benefits of a MS solution firsthand by the performance of your server.
The site www.crn.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on unknown.
What is the TCO of replacing that smoldering hunk in the corner, guys?
well the original article was about tco of running linux as a server, and not really aimed at developers.
one thing to not about Free software is that the support base from the community is huge. as a result when you are having problems there are many more resources available for you online than there are for proprietary software. also people developing Free software are more likely to admit bugs and problems with their system than those who close their source to the public.
my own personal expirences have shown that developers in the linux community are more likely to respond to you personally than those from say microsoft. take for example a problem i was having with a network card. i was getting strange errors in syslog and i wasnt sure what they ment. i poked around on the net and i couldnt figure out what was wrong. in a last ditch effort i emailed donald becker. perhaps you've heard of him, he writes most of the linux network interface drivers and he came up with a little clustering concept called beowulf.
well i emailed him with the problem i was having, and do you know what he did? he didn't ask me for money, or a credit card number, or a beer. he emailed me source code for a diagnostic program. i emailed the results back. this continued for a couple hours and eventually we determined that the nic was bad. oh did i mention that he responded to my initial query within an hour?
now i ask you, if i emailed support@microsoft.com and asked them for help with my nic do you think the guy who wrote the network card drivers for windows would respond to me personally within an hour to work out my problem for free? this is the difference between support costs in windows and linux. you might not appreciate them, but i do.
-- john
One of the common citations that are bandied about is that Linux admins make more than their Windows counterparts. But, the evidence seems to contradict this "wisdom". Most of the Linux admin jobs that I see posted offer lower salaries than comprable Windows admin positions. Surveys, such as this, also indicate that Linux admins are actually paid less than their MCSE counterparts. This naturally begs the question, are Linux admins truely more expensive than the Windows admins?
Another issue is the "difficulty" of administrering Linux, as compared to Windows. While, there are some valid arguements to support this hypothesis, there are also some important details that are seemingly ignored. That is, the difficulty is in fact due to unfamiliarity. Windows admins are unfamiliar with Linux and it is therefore more difficult for them to administer it. But, were these Windows admins born knowing how to administer Windows? Is Windows truely so simple that they can do it without any prior knowledge?
No! The fact is that the Windows admins have had specific training in administering Windows. They have gone to classes, MCSE Boot Camps, seminars all about how to manage Windows. They also have a bookshelf FULL of Windows administration books that they have studied. Now, after all that, Windows is familiar and relatively easy for them to administer. I challenge anyone who makes the difficulty claim to build a bookshelf of equal size to their Windows one. If these people read just as many books on Linux as they have on Windows Administration, they would not find it any more difficult than Windows. This would likely be true even without any Linux classes or Linux Boot Camps.
It has been proven by a legion of CNEs who find Novell no more difficult, in many cases far easier to manage than Windows. Yet The same Windows admins will say that Netware is MUCH harder to manage than Windows.
Also, on the subject of training etc. These TCO reports always factor in the expense of Linux training. However, they do not seem to factor in the cost of Windows training. Let's not forget that the books and the classes and the MCSE boot camps cost a lot of money. Even if that money has already been spent, it must be factored into the TCO. These MCSEs were not born knowing how to administer Windows 2000. It costed thousands of dollars each to raise this generation of MCSEs. In most cases these training courses were paid for by the companies. How can they be simply ignored by the TCO studies? Are these MCSEs going to live forever, or are they going to be replaced by a new generation that will have to aslo be trained at a cost of thousands per head?
It's interesting to check out netcraft's statistics about web servers with insane uptimes.
They only list the fifty highest uptimes, the 'winner' (FreeBSD/Apache) have been up for 1410 days. That's right folks, three years and 315 days.
I'm aware that OS uptime != service uptime, and that most admin work on a *nix doesn't require a reboot, but still it indicates that they have had no major problems due to the OS.
Too me it seems like this is a great advantage when running a production server (is that the term in English?), and that it at least indicates a lower long term maintenance cost. Admittedly, those servers are only web servers, but I would think that you would observe a similar trend for servers running other kinds of services.
I'm not an admin (not yet, currently studing CS). Still, am I way off here? I see no Microsoft software on that list... Just a thought.
I'm eager to learn, corrections/observations are most welcome!
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
Hey maybe they're right!
To install Linux I need the following:
- buy a new computer
- order a Cable net connection to download the CD
- buy a CD burner to burn the CD
With Windows I just need to:
- dial 1-800-555-DELL (free)
- give credit card details
- receive delivery of new PC with Windows installed
So really buying Windows saves me money as I don't need the net connection or the burner!
Ok ok, so that was bad. But it's only 8:21 and I'm half asleep.
If this article is true, it means that linux_admin_salary = (win_admin_salary + initial_win_cost + cost_of_win_downtime) * (1.11 ~ 1.22) Right?
No, actually, she could not have. IDC research studies are not free, nor available online. You can, however, BUY them, for many thousands of dollars. For example, you can buy this 13 page study about the "future" of photo printing for $4500!
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
Acording to Netcraft, the site runs Microsoft-IIS (v5). I guess those guys did not read their own study
Methinks this could possibly have a smidgen of M$ bias. Any accomplished debator can select his facts with care and present a concise argument for his chosen cause. That's why politicians pay themselves so much of our hard earned cash.
Money talks and bullshit walks!
Guess who probably got a free IIS/5.0 license out of the deal? December 3, 2002. Cute.
o de_w=on&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crn.com&submit=Exami ne
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&m
Looking at the IDC website (http://www.idc.com/), I can't find the study.
While I doubt they would just give it away, you would think it would be listed in the press releases or the articles & studies that they sell.
It's not in the Research section, the New Research, the Global News, the Featured Research. Their search function doesn't find it either.
A google search of their site doesn't find it either.
Real example (somewhere in Europe):
Large network: 6000 users
Servers:
-about 15 Solaris
-4 linux
-about 10 Windows NT4 / 2000
Admins:
-1 Unix (Solaris+Linux) admin (me). I also do physical servicing of machines and service automation (scripting). And I even have time to browse Slashdot.
-4 Windows admins (always busy).
Downtime:
-Solaris machines (Oracle, NIS+, DNS, Lotus Notes, Apache, Samba): little
-Linux machines (DHCP, NFS, Netsaint, SMTP with antivirus, DNS, POP3, Apache): never
-Windows: frequent memory leaks forcing reboots, ocasional blue screens and lockups
Wages: admins' wages depend on the professional category. Unix admins don't make more than Windows' ones.
Difficulty:
I have managed both OSs and Linux is way easier! You have plenty of diagnosing tools and access to full docs and sources. Windows is quite opaque. You have to figure how a lot of things are done internally.
That actually sounds like a fairly standard "how to lie with statistics" approach. It's true, but not TRUE, if you know what I mean....
As for the title, think about it. When you own a car, or better yet lease a car since it simplifies these numbers, you have regular costs such as payments, registration, insurance, fuel and maintenance. You also have an irregular expense if you're involved in an accident.
The latter might be rare - I think it's something like 5 years between accidents on average across all drivers - but the cost of an accident can easily dwarf all other costs. So these isolated events skew the numbers when you mix the regular and irregular expenses.
(The same thing is behind the statistic that for the average person the vast bulk of your health insurance money is spent during the last week of their life. Of course it is - most years you aren't fighting for your life!)
This is why "downtime" expenses are so high for Unix systems - they're so rare and often caused by hardware failure. Windows, while getting more reliable, still has more downtime so you have more 'bumper benders' as opposed to the catastrophic mechanical failures.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I just took a class which focused in using W2K.
Administration work was clearly a lot harder than
on linux. If you want to setup a w2k and linux
system with as good security and quality, i would
say linux would be a lot faster and a lot more
easy to setup.
I don't have time to trace the whole trail back right now. But, crn.com is owned by CMP Media and they are owned by United Business Media, (a London-based marketing information company). Somebody somewhere up the chain either:
a) Has a lot of Microft stock.
or,
b) Was given a lot of money by Microsoft.
Follow the money and you will find the truth!
It should be pointed out that this study was commissioned by MicroSoft, so you have to consider that it may have been biased. My version of the article submission pointed this out :) Yes, this thing DID get submitted a lot, I'm sure.
New Linux Kernel 2.6 Has Lower TCO Then 2.4 in 12 Year Study
Frank Torvalds reports on long term TCO of just-released kernel
I wonder which OS gets slashdotted more as a percentage of being linked to? That would be a really interesting measure.
I get furious every time I see this statement. Why? Because (under NT, at least) you can only back up the registry files to a rescue disk (ha!) IF THEY FIT ON ONE (1) 1.44 MB FLOPPY! The brain-dead assholes at Microsoft gave you NO WAY under NT (right up to SP6A) to span diskettes! Their ingenious solution as posted on their web-site? DON'T BACK UP ALL THE REGISTRY FILES. And foisting this kind of shit on the public made Gates the world's richest man!
Another concept I rarely see included in TCO studies is the cost in unpaid time to the admin. I know Windows admins who donate many hours of their lives to their companies in unpaid overtime. This does not show up in the accounting office. Downside to being salaried.
83% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
This sig no verb.
Which neighborhood would you rather live in? One where the neighbors freely helped each other out? Or one where all appearance of friendliness depended on the passing of money?
The point is, your neighborhood's valuations are affected by the neighbors, and their neighbors. Linux admins have as neighbors a vast network of people who will help them, most often for free. Plus they also tend to be on friendlier terms with both hard- and software. So if it costs more to have them in the next cubicle, what you're paying for is a real increase in the value of the real estate your own desk is on.
Of course, some people find it romantic to live in rough, ugly places full of prostitutes and confidence men, viruses and scams, where respect's only measure is money in the pocket. But they don't usually expect to pay more for it, relative to real estate costs elsewhere in town. After all, there are broken windows.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
but honestly how well do you think he would handle support requests if %95 of the desktops in the world (or even %20 of the servers) were all using his code and their administrators were all asking for support?
why don't you compare the volume of support that microsoft handles with the volume handled by the open source community, and then compare turnaround time on problem reports, and finally compare cost.
dicking around for a day or so, emailing back and forth, only has zero cost if your time is worthless.
Volume (read: corporate) editions of Windows XP and Windows .NET server do not require activation.
"Man did this thing get submitted a lot."
Surprise! Slashdot has slashbots and not all the slashbots are linbots. There are plenty of winbots, macbots, occasional sunbot, and a few bsdbots.
Good post, but I have a correction and some comments:
;-)
One should note that the cost of upgrading Linux software is $0 for Debian, and negligible for RedHat (as you only have to buy one license).
This is untrue. Red Hat's distribution is every bit as free as Debian's - you don't "have" to buy any licenses with Red Hat. Plus, Red Hat have released official ISOs of their distro since the beginning (where are those official Debian [or SuSE, while I'm at it] ISOs again?). That said, Debian definitely earns major credit for being able to do whole distribution upgrades essentially on the fly.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO
While these studies probably ARE of greater merit, one must admit that they are just as likely to be biased - the Cyber.com.au study is done by a big Aussie *Linux* consulting firm. As for the IBM one? That's done by an ASTRONOMICALLY LARGE Linux consulting firm... IBM.
The Free desktop that Just Works
Maybe you should get a second opinion.
See what The Register has to say about this study here, . And don't forget to check out the link, near the bottom to this IBM study (PDF) , a study researched by the Robert Francis Group.
Interesting second opinion, more in line of my experience.
You know when people say "But, Linux costs nothing... how good can it be?"
Well, thanks to this study, Linux now costs more, so we can say "Excuse me, but Linux is more expensive than Microsoft Windows 2000, so it *has* to be better, duh!"
I quote from the article:
"According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of Windows over Linux for the four workloads ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period"
This article states that windows 2000 has a lower TCO than linux. How can they have done a 5 year study when Windows 2000 hasnt been out for 5 years?
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
Sure, I could get an IIS server up and running from scratch faster than an Apache-on-Linux server. The problem is that the quickie Windows-IIS installation will have swiss-cheese security. If I actually take the time to set up a Windows-IIS server that will stay secure and stable for more that thirty seconds, I have to start investing time. So, for me anyway, the difficulty/time of setting up either system really doesn't provide an advantage either way.
Once up and running, I find a similar thing happening. Windows servers (and desktops for that matter) are only easier to administer if you take the default MCSE route, clicking all the pretty little icons. Of course it's "administrators" like that who's servers are still sending me Code Red hits.
perhaps for a secretary or someone to administer the company's webserver. I have used windows much longer than linux, but setting up an apache webserver is amazingly simple if you have a basic understanding of the structure and operation of the OS. All you need to do is RTFM (M for Man-page). Apache running on linux has a hell of a lot less overhead than windoze runs on its webserver. I personally find apache easier (even initially) to administer than the beast that is IIS.
Generally these comparisons of number of admins for one type of server based on the OS are nonsensical. The real comparison needs to be focus on what function the server is performing.
Database servers require far less daily change control than File/Print servers. Even less when you consider it's the DBA doing changes, not the server admin.
What if you have one NT admin for every 40 NT servers, but only have one Unix admin for every 4 Unix servers? Isn't that a nonsensical comparison, when the NT boxes are 1U Compaq rack-mounts, but the Unix boxes are HP Superdomes?
And besides, when people talk about administrative functions they are thinking enterprise level. Not your dorm room.
We slashdotted crn.com!
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
I saw it in IDG.net. It's pretty funny...
Well for nearly 11 years I have been in the fileserver world. I touched lots of file servers. From old ancient LANtastic and Netware 2.15, going through most Novell flavours up to 5.0. For 11 years I worked with, administered, tweaked and crunched so many different file servers that I don't remember all of them. Lots of Novell flavours, OS/2, NFS on Solaris and Linux. I worked also with Windows "solutions", from WfW up to Windows2000 Server. From all these I sincerly prefer Netware. Netware is far better and manageable than any other file server system. Naturally as Novell did it specially for file servers. However there is a problem with Novell. Its prices are prohibitive for many customers. But, if your work highly depends in file server services, surely the TCO is far lower than everyone else.
Among all the systems I used, the most crappy, cumbersome, crash-proned, time consuming and nervestraining was M$ crap. It came up into hanging a whole local network, just because M$ thought it could play at will with TCP/IP stack. But there are tons of stories about the crap. Let's just pick the most recent.
In April this year, I met a medium-sized Compaq server in one highly important organisation. Compaq's dealer sweeted a lot to have that lovely machine there. And sweeted even more to have it working. The thing worked, naturally, on Windows2000 Server. I was asked to tweak the crap so that several problems were gone. And the problems were: workstations loosing connection with the server, Apps frequently hanging up, file transfer working slowly (in a 100mbits network it looked much like 10mbits), and a episodic events with the machine crashing.
After some administration we came up to the conclusion that the machine was going into sure doom. The DNS was crashing every day, WINS and SMB were giving wrong packets into the network, the file system was getting wrong data, user accounts were not freed, CPU never lowered behind 30% and lots of many other problems. Besides we found that, everyday, 30 minutes of workday was lost on backing up data (it was a damn important server) as no one could work while backup was going on.
Well, we created a backup server, curiously on Linux, but with the objective to reinstall Windows2000 on the main server. We lost ONE week trying to do it. As we discovered, the original installer had also huge problems with that machine. The machine was simply unable to work stable with Windows2000.
Considering the pros and cons I decided to use my old weapon The Penguin Dancing Samba, against the huge oposition of many people. However the situation was Hell in Flames and there should be a fast solution. So the bosses agreed the change.
Well I had a whole day of headaches to install it on Compaq's RAID. Also I had lots of trouble creating a secure, stable and automatised environment. In the whole, it took me 2-3 weeks to do all the work.
Today, nearly half-year later, the admin approaches the server 1-2 times in the week. Most work is log checking and some rare tweaks in the configuration (mostly adding users), the machine carries several early warning scripts in case something goes wrong. Backup is completely automatic. With the exception of one single user (some mystic problem), everyone works without hangups, crashes or lost connections. The system lives perfectly in its 100mbps network and the problem of slow connections is forgotten. Besides, the average load of this machine is just 3% and it now carries also a MySQL server that is frequently used and which, in the future, may substitute many file server tasks.
Is this the the higher TCO they talk about?
Is this another bit of Microsoft self-PR, saying that they're cheaper to run than free, again? {sigh}
:)
I'd be interested in reading the article, but it seems that their web server bit the dust. I do love the error..
---
HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy
---
Poor guys. Couldn't fix up the web server so it could take extreme abuse, it just screams to all their potential (now lost) customers that they couldn't take the heat.
BTW, the server reports itself to be Microsoft-IIS/4.0. nmap comes up with a funky response, saying all ports are open, and can't give me a fingerprint. I suspect because of a funky firewall in the middle. Good work there..
If they'd get the article up again, I'd like to read it. I'd like to see the new logic where the cost (free > windows). As for us, we have Linux servers and workstations deployed. The most work I do to support a LInux workstation is dig into my drawer, pull out the CD and hand it to anyone who wants to use it. It's followed by the friendly offer, "Feel free to copy it." Microsoft would probably get a little upset if I handed out my 2600 edition of XP and said that.
(Note to MS Piracy police. That last part was a joke. I don't own a copy of XP, and I don't have it on a CompUSA writeable CD in my top desk drawer marked "The Devil's Work". If I did, I'd only use it as a frisbee to throw at new employees. hehe
If you'd like to investigate, I live at 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond Washington. Oh ya, and bite me. Send me one more BSA notice, and I'm sueing you for the 5 seconds it takes me to read it, laugh, and throw it away ($150k/second at my estimations))
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Where I work, we have about 100 sites in a metro area. We have Linux servers at each site handling printing and file services, for hundreds of users per site. We have built a rapid-install feature to put new boxes out, with very little time being necesary to configure the machines to match the existing setup. We have configured https-driven web front ends for things like user addition/deletion (for the samba accounts), printer addition/deletion/queue-clearing, and the like. We have ONE guy whose job is to maintain the backend of these servers. There are a total of four network engineers here, maintaining these, the Novell servers, the network backbone, and all of the other loose ends that come about.
Show me this working on NT/2000.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
To be honest I can't say I can see this.
When I decided to set up a linux server here at work I had near 0 experience at *nix minus the basic ls cp etc. After snagging a copy of Mandrake (mock all you want It's damn good) I covered the basics in the help files that came with Mandrake and had a samba server, apache server and a nice ssh server running on our little intranet in less then a week, now all I've ever really had to do is check the logs every once in a while, change the passwords, and play a little Amatage Tron ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H run a couple tests. It's now been up and running for a little over 10 months without a single reboot needed. The TCO on my admin of that server is next to nothing. On the other hand the XP ME 2k etc boxes are where I spend my time.
Noah was a drunk. Look what he accomplished. And no one's even asking you to build an ark. All you have to do is go to New Jersey.
-Metatron (Dogma)
This is not a sig
...anyone with a clue knows SWAG = Stupid Wild Ass Guess.
You some kind of manager?
but was donald becker working on someone elses time during your support effort?
Just because you didn't pay for it didn't mean that supporting you had zero cost. It's very nice that many developers are able to support their products on someone else's dime, but let's not confuse the facts be implying that your support call didn't cost $150/hr, when in fact it probably did approach that cost (it's just that you didn't pay for it).
I like how my work Win2k box reboots itself unexpectedly. It must do that to increase my productivity....saving me valuable time from manually rebooting to clean up. I remember Windows NT Workstation and how I had to go through the annoying procedure of re-booting when explorer would slow to a crawl after working with IE Java based Oracle utilities. SOmetimes hitting the reset button on a blue screen of death. It's great the Win2k no longer does this. It just goes ahead and reboots. Whap!...I am 28.2% more efficient now.
It is so much more inexpensive and handy than a linux box that doesn't crash and restart. Restarting sometimes three to four times.
FROM the Event Log:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xa127dc34, 0x00000000, 0xbff071cb, 0x00000002). Microsoft Windows 2000 [v15.2195]. A dump was saved in: C:\WINNT\Minidump\Mini120202-01.dmp.
P.S. Internet Explorer does it too. Crashing and sending a notice to Microsoft.
Technology...is sooo sexy!
I think the best writeup of the article comes from the register, to summarize, Windows is cheaper because it compared all the expected costs, Linux/Unix administration costs more becuase the admins have a more hands on role in setting the system up, while Windows admins need the skill of a trained monkey to get everything up and running. However, when something goes wrong, as it will, the Linux/Unix admins will be better able to correct it, both by design and because of the hands on role they had in setting up the system, while the bargain basement windows admin will pilot his cursor around the screen hoping things fix themselves. A smarter Windows admin will be better able to fix the problems, but your cost savings goes away.
Also, the write up pointed out that if you add in an upgrade, the Linux system would come out ahead, since upgrades are free, and the cost differences are small.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I have an easy way to overcome just about all of the limitations this article sites. LTSP. A LTSP server serving up clients who in turn provide services to the network. Problem with a server? reboot it. DNS server stop working? reboot it. Print server no longer working? reboot it. LTSP server goes down? Then you need a tech to restore from the last backup. Manage lots of LTSP's? then set up an extra one that will reimage the LTSP servers if they ever do a network boot.
Compare this with windows :-)
http://www.suse.de/en/business/services/support/ma intenance/licencing.html
Maybe this is due to the fact that Linux is used in more "Mission Critical" applications. Therefore, the companies running Linux boxen are going to be more likely to keep their boxen secure and up to date.
... but I think they way their site held up to a good slashdotting shows how good Win2k solutions are...
For instance, most corporations have went to using Win2k for their desktops, yet it is rare to find a desktop Linux box. The TCO of a desktop is certainly less than that of a web server!!!
I'm going to guess that the lack of detail is intentional...
Of course with a little sleuthing, you can find out they're running IIS...and this page describes themselves as a marketing company (hey, it's the same company that owns TechWeb).
Go a little further and you find they're handing out awards for M$
if you liked the story "Win2k Cheaper than Linux" as posted on slashdot.org, then you'll just love these companion stories!:
"Animal Protein Healthier than Vegetable Protein" as posted on vegetarians.net
"Peaceful Dialog Goes Farther than Violent Conflict" as posted on alqaeda.gov
"Censorship Attempts Actually Lead to Greater Mass Appeal of Target Sites" as posted on scientology.org
"My Uncle was an Monkey" as posted on creationism.com
don't delay! visit now!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does this include lost productivity due to Outlook worms/virii/ILOVEYOU/etc? I know we lost a lot of productivity here (3 days worth) because of Klez.
I use Linux by choice (home), and Windows by force (work, which lost a lot of productivity thanks to Klez)!
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
When I've seen similar articles in which Linux is claimed to have a lower TCO, the article always provided a detailed explanation of where they get their numbers from. This article is all fluff. No numbers at all. It's just the words of some survey company. If someone can find a link that has hard numbers, it'd be much easier to have a reasoned discussion about the results.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
You exagerate. Extended support ends 31/3/2007. That's 4.5 years from now. End of life will be some time after that.
But I know what you're saying. My P75 that is only capable of running Win95/98/NT4 will still be running Debian years after MSFT offers are too badly in need of patches to consider putting on a network.
Commenting on this gives it an apparent air of credibility that is completely undeserved. File it in the circular file under marketing bullshit and move on.
Have YOU actually seen it?? TCO Such Bull... Total Cost of Ownership. Lets see here. I've been running Linux on the server for about 2 years now. I've spent maybe $.35 for the CD-r. I've spent a few (total) hours downloading packages I needed. (pop3,apache2,samba,pine,..) I've maybe spent 7 hours configuring the box the way I want it.(including installation, installing eggdrops, configuring X) Thats 10 Hours and 35 cents. I'm currently running Windows 2k Pro on the desktop. $100. Office XP Pro. $300. Count all the software needed (Nero, Eudora, Flash MX, etc) $400. An hour installing. At least 2 hours for installing all the software. 2 Hours to get my ATI TV out to work. Countless hours tring to get my HollyWood+ DVD Decoder card to work (which never did). 30 minutes finding a driver for my Xerox laser printer that MS claims doesn't exist. 30 minutes for each Service Pack install. So thats 11 Hours and $800. Lets tally this up here. Linux Windows 10 Hours 11 Hours $0.35 ~$800.00 Granted this is only a single server. And Server vs Desktop. BUT I believe there is no difference. And in the corporate environment you can hire 2 or 3 MCSE Admins to run the show. OR you can hire about 5 part time College students and an Admin to Supervise and Manage. I will never believe that Windows will cost me less to run than Linux. Period. I rant too much. Ancker....
When you purchase and install a Win2K product, you give Microsoft the right to "audit" you. They performed one of these audits on a company I worked for. I am certain we owned all of the software that was on our machines. We had a corporate policy of no piracy, buy what we need.
We just couldn't produce EULAs for 13 out of over 600 products. Their lawyers also wanted $6000 for the MSDN copies we had. These guys don't seem to even understand Microsoft licensing and appear to be trying to squeeze you for every cent. I had to fax the MSDN user agreement stating that MSDN CDs could be freely distributed within the company. It did not seem to matter to the law firm that we could produce the CD covers for the other products. No EULA, no credit. It cost the company $13,000 to settle. The lawyers got 2/3rds of that for their "work". The remaining third went for purchasing software which I feel we already owned.
I felt scammed and violated. This ticked me off so I looked for alternatives. I discovered FreeBSD. I installed SAMBA and had the same fuctionality as a Windows Server without the risk. I had to buy 2 Samba books to figure it out. I had to reinstall FreeBSD multiple times until I figured out how to do it. I can do it now in my sleep. It is not that FreeBSD is harder, it was just unfamiliar.
If you think this is an isolated incident, it is not. Audits happen everyday. Sometimes, the target really deserves the attention, sometimes it is just Microsoft biting a hand that feeds them. Sometimes, Microsoft's lawyers go over board and put the squeeze on a non profit or school and then people squak at Microsoft. Then there are a number of small companies that, unwittingly, find themselves in a bind.
There are alternatives to some of the Microsoft software. I suggest to everyone that will listen to use the alternatives first.
Windows *is* cheaper because the type of person you employ. If a company uses *nix then they want a higher level of service and employ better qualified and experienced staff. Some companies do not care about level of service and have anybody to look after the computers that can insert a CD and follow prompts. The *nix guys with their better understanding will predict problems and cure them before they happen, whilst the MS guys will have problems, blame them on the system and fix them in time. No one notices the *nix guys as the system just works. Everyone gets to know the MS guys and if they are nice guys they get a cup of tea and a chat and people are still happy.
When they did this study I doubt if they took into account the cost of the lost time by users who just work through with *nix and do not have the same amount of down time etc. If you value your data the extra cost of the staff will pay for itself many fold.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
In related News Today, Mcdonalds announced thier survey results showing thad thier food is good for you.
I wonder how many of these problems come from people trying to admin Linux in the Windows way, not the UNIX way. A good example of this was the converse argument presented in Microsoft's memo about the Hotmail migration. They noted that Windows didn't work well when people attempted to administer it like a UNIX system.
While it's true that Win2K does much better in terms of uptime than Win NT, it still doesn't even come close to Linux.
The Raven
You are missing the point of TCO.. when u factor in the cost of the software and the upgrades to that software in most instances they are penuts compares to the salaris of the administrators that maintain these machines.
The reason that this article can be viewed as valid is becuase any idiot can go to windowsupdate.com and patch their server box. In my area of the world a MCSE might make 40 grand a year, a Red Hat certified Linux admin might make well over 6 figures a year.
Hencforth that makes the TCO of windows less than that of linux. While it is generally true that a linux admin can handle more boxes simutaneiously than a windows admin... most companies that i deal with only have a max of 5 or 6 servers. Which one admin can easily handle no matter what the OS.
So there are some instances where linux may have a larger TCO than windows. That is not to say by any stretch of the imagination that I would ever install a windows server in MY office. I have 6 servers sitting in my server room and not a one of them is running anything other than SlackWare. But thats not to say that it may be cheaper in some cases to run windows, but nowhere near as reliable.
Why is it everyone's always saying *NIX or WinXX or mac is the best for this or the best for that. There's no best this or that for anything. It depends on who's using it, who's administering it, your budget, and a number of other factors. I know of places where setting up a *NIX network would be a horrible idea, and the same goes for some places with WinXX. I for one am getting tired of these *NIX/WinXX pissing contests on slashdot. Surely there's more important things to discuss out there.
Considering that noone takes the time to update most Win2k boxes with the latest patches it makes perfect sense.
A properly administered linux box will take more time and money than a crappy and insecure Win2k box.
But you were going to pay them anyway.
This article is just another stupid spin on figures that could be interpreted anyway you want. All the information that the article gives us is that the only real significant cost is that of IT staffing. How much are they factoring in these costs? Do they include the entire salary of the entire IT team? In that case, Windows should be ashamed that it racks up anywhere near to 4% of the total cost. For a single IT tech person, paid around $60,000 (a low figure, I think) a year for 5 years, 4% of that is $12000 that the company has wasted in "software acqusition."
Furthermore, there is *nothing* inherent to Linux that incurs the extra cost of paying IT staff more. Are we to believe that IT professionals are demanding a 20% increase in salary because they are "Linux Professionals?" It's more likely to be the other way around. Are we supposed to believe that using Linux requires more IT professionals? Perhaps 10 years ago, but now Linux is an accepted part of the industry, and no longer an esoteric piece of software. As hard as it might be and as long as it might take for Granny to set up Red Hat, IT people use it just as easily if not more so than Windows 2000.
Which leads me to believe that the survey only shows us this - that companies that use Linux pay their employees 20-30% more or they hire 20-30% more staff - in which case, I say go Linux. It may also be the fact, that due to Linux's increased market share, more large companies and more IT intensive companies are using the software, thereby skewing the stats even further. Hypothetical scenario: Windows 2000 is now only used in small businesses with a single IT technician in employment. Linux is used elsewhere. According to the factors used in this survey, Windows 2000 could end up being 1000% cheaper to run than Linux! Multiply that by the fact that only 104 North American companies participated in this survey, and 11-22% more expensive is starting to look a lot more like FUD.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
According to Ernie Ball (a company that switched 2 years ago), Linux saves them more than 1k / user / year./ 27/0211 27hnerniball.xml?s=IDGNS
http://infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/11
So take you pick on studies and numbers:
All studies from MS that says that MS is cheaper.
or
studies from IBM and a number of independant companies who claim that Linux is far cheaper.
Personally, I have noticed that all the companies that have switched to Linux have announced savings. I would be interested in seeing one or more of them switch back and find out what the true costs are.
BTW, I would expect that companies who made a partial switch and found Linux to be more expensive, would say that Linux is saving them tons of money in this area, but they would quietly switch back. Have there been any switch backs? I have only seen cases where Linux takes on more responsibilities. Never back.
@leased in the long term, & other such MiSleading marketeering MiSnomers, spewed forth buy the kingdumb, are being tallied, along with the other rumours of fuddle's demise, giving credence to the notion that fud et AL, is on LIEf ?support?/deceased. we've sent flowers.
God bless the hobbyist dogooders. almost everything's gnu now.
As the only system administrator to manage 20+ linux servers/workstations and a few Windows server in a small department, I have the following experience:
1) Utiliziing RHN, I can configured the system to automatically download/install/upgrade all the servers whenever the patch come out at $60.00 per year per server or I can schedule the download/install/upgrade via RHN with my Internet browser at home. After the upgrade, I can choose when to restart the server without "forcing" to reboot the machine right after the upgraded; and potential more sub-sequence reboots because more patches over patch(es).
2) Once a very long while, one of the server may experience hardware failure (yes, we still have hardware from the year of 1995 and runs like a champ), I can simply swap out the harddrive from the old machine and put into the new machine (even with a new motherboard) and boot up.... everything back to normal.. humming along.. Try that with Windows, you will get the BSOD...
3) Recently we have a old Mac (using Mac OS 9) in the network, all I need to do is to enable the kernel appletalk IP module in a configuration (for automatically loading after reboot) and then dynamically load the kernel module without rebooting the server... instantly, the Mac user have access to our Linux file server. Try that with Windows... I need to go thru a lot of work to get it to work.
4) All the Windows workstation are also talking to the Linux file server via Samba. Performance wise is rock solid stable with no hiccup...not to mention I can use CVS to version control the file if needed.
5) The only thing left now is figure out a way to replace the Exchange server with a bundle of open standard softwares...
In all, it may seems hard to use Linux, but it is sooo reliable and predictable. I am willing to pay an extra time to learn and spend my free time for myself instead of fire fighting at work in stupido'clock. Linux made my life easier.
I'm not going to try to defend the notion that a Linux desktop has a lower TCO than a Win 2K desktop, because frankly I doubt that it does. Linux requires admins which, unlike MCSEs, aren't churned out by the dozens by your local community college.
The problem I see here is that most of these Linux vs. Windows TCO studies hinge on the idea that you are replacing a Windows 2000 desktops with a full-fledged Linux desktops, and that's the wrong way to do it.
I'd like to see a unbalanced TCO review of what the City of Largo, Florida has done. Basically, they've got 800 very cheap thin clients (230 concurrent) running X-Windows applications (KDE, etc.) off of a couple big-ass terminal servers. Very similar to the Linux Terminal Server Project, and very cool.
There are so many businesses paying $200 for Win 2K Pro and $350 for MS Office just so their employees can send email and dabble in Word or Excel. It's insane. They could be saving $550 per machine in software costs alone! Not considering the fact that the thin client hardware costs much, much less than the average desktop. And there's essentially zero administration costs on the clients. Let's see a TCO comparison on that.
I'm starting to get off-topic, but I'm excited about the project so what the hell. I'm currently doing a little in-house pilot of the same thing at my employer. I've customized the KNOPPIX bootable ISOs to basically be X-Windows thin clients. You just pop the CD in a machine, reboot, and you get a KDM login box for our terminal server. Very, very cool. Even free server licenses from Microsoft couldn't persuade me to drop this project.
Everyone please note MS commissioned this study from IDC. The study was framed to highlight the advantage MS has created for itself through corrupted standards.
News at 11.
This is good news for Linux.
My experience with IS/IT professionals is that they will gravitate to a more expensive to adminster system since that increases their own departments budgets and makes them more important to the organization. Every company I worked at that had Macs and PCs saw the Macs phased out only because the IS/IT department didn't need to help manage them.
If Linux costs more to admister than Windows, then long term, IS/IT people will gravitate towards deploying them.
It takes a hell of a lot more to be a 'GOOD' Windows admin than a good Unix admin, have you ever seen a 'GOOD' Windows admin?
(nb not the one with a 'to re-install is good, to format is better' T-Shirt).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The windows system is simple, logical, and makes sense with the physical layout of drives, (all are at the same level and are all separate). Linux on the other hand is a much more powerful and useful method, Allowing you to add room where you need under the same directory tree.
When I started with linux, (which was not very long ago, about a year and a half), the idea of having your hard drives mounted all over the place or in some directory called "/mnt" baffled me. Now that I understand it, (roughly), I appriciate the system and the technical options it allows me in usage of my hard drives. It's a matter of understanding something that on the surface is more complicated, but more powerful.
I do security
...that I will not charge you ANY MORE for configuring/supporting a Linux server than I would a Windows server. It sounds to me like the problem isn't the choice of platform, but rather the lack of shopping around for technical support.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Being a long time /. reader I know it is going to kill all you *nix BIGOTS but it is true: Windows IS Cheaper. In a REAL enterprise (you know where we ACTUALLY pay for licensing, hardware and support costs) the Windows platform is roughly 25% the TOTAL OPERATING cost of the same functionality on *nix platform. Now BEFORE all you before mentioned *nix BIGOTS explode: EVERY Fortune 50 company I have worked for REFUSES to run Linux on Intel BECAUSE they want somebody on the phone and somebody's ass on the line if a system is down. So you are facing the hardware and licensing costs of either HP, Sun or IBM to get *nix. This BY FAR outweighs the cost of a couple of CHEAP WINDOWS ADMINS to keep the buggy Microsoft platform running. Face it, most applications can afford a little down time at %25 of the cost.
The Windows and Linux/Unix admins in my company are not paid differently. Same holds true for past jobs too. The main difference I've seen is that the Linux guys can generally get the job done faster than the Windows guys. Linux is a hell of a lot less complicated than Windows, and the Linux guys are generally more competent than the Windows guys.
And in my business, we have lots of Linux boxes directly serving users in various ways. Because we have lots of identical boxes, it's mostly brainless to service and maintain them. If a machine misbehaves or dies, we pull it out of the rack and reinstall it - a mindless and simple operation. The key here is that Linux 1) runs forever, while Windows doesn't, so the admins don't have to reboot servers much, and 2) we didn't pay a penny for the software. I would hate to think how much a Windows server farm would cost us. I shiver at the thought.
You know, I think there are reasons houses like Google, Pixar, and so on, all use Linux for their server farms. TCO is only one of them.
Heh, good to see other slackers like me, around. I also run Slackware on my servers. I am stuck with 7.1, and no rush to upgrade.
(What I do miss in Slackware (or Linux in general) is something like OpenBoot from the Sun SPARC boxen, and something like Solstice or Veritas VM.
Sigged!
You say this was submitted "a lot", and yet you choose a particularly incomprehensible submission to put on your front page? I had to open the article just to figure out what exactly the guy was talking about. If you take the posted text literally, it looks like he's claiming windows costs 11% of "the Enterprise". What, the space ship? A corporation's total profit? C'mon guys, editors are supposed to MAKE STUFF READ RIGHT!
I support 4 large AIX boxes,3 HPUX boxes, 6 Sun boxes, and 40 Linux boxes. After the initial setup of these boxes I find myself with a great deal of spare time that I dedicate to Open Source configuration R&D. I am paid 57k. How much is a Windows sysadmin paid for supporting the same number of boxes? How much time does he dedicate to R&D? If Linux was not extreamly reliable I could believe this study. Also keep in mind that the study should take to consideration that Linux is relitivly new to the enterprise. The comparison should be done using the first 5 years of windows product use in the enterprise.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
ALL MOTHER FUCKERS MUST DIE A FIREY DEATH TODAY!!!!!
Now that I've gotten that out of the way; My serious part of the post. The reasons that people use Linux instead of Windows have less to do with TCO than they do with security and open-ness. While Microsoft has improved to a certain extent by releasing patches more often, they still are not likely to be very open about potential exploits, and bugs. There is a quality and value in the free *NIXes that you will never get from Microsoft even with their "Shared Source" initiative.
The problem with the people who claim lower TCO is that they are leaving out some important factors in their projections. From the Microsoft point of view, a server (network or internet) should be a "set it and forget it" proposition. I think since Code Red and Nimda, they've had to accept that this isn't the case. To further the problem. The typical Windows admin wants a server to be a "set it and forget it" proposition. They are usually too busy doing other less technical things since they are usually employed to manage machines AND less skilled people. In the *NIX world, you might pay a lot more for one or two really good admins, but that's pretty much all you'll need for a small to midsized organization. The same is not true of Windows since everything seems to be less centralized. (The MS position: It's the desktop stupid!) Windows Terminal Server and Citrix could change this, but there aren't a lot of Windows admins that even grasp the concept of centralized applications and administration. What little they do grasp is hobbled by the "Easy to use" admin tools. When something REALLY breaks and they can't fix it from the GUI... it's time to call MS. However, a UNIX admin is much more likely to be able to solve the deeper problems that they may encounter in their chosen flavor. Additionally, many of the UNIX admins I know are extremely well equipped to handle Windows admin tasks (including the deeper level fixes) than their MCSE toting counterparts (I can speak since I am an MCSE AND a Sun, Tru64, Linux admin). More than likely the IDC results are weighted in favor of Microsoft and pay no regard to the different way of thinking that Linux and other open source projects encourage.
Semi off-topic:
Let's talk about "Shared Source" for a minute while we're at this... While Microsoft is claiming that they want to build a "community" around Windows to keep up with the Open source movement, it's still restrictive. Look at it another way:
You can choose to live in a REAL neighborhood or a "Gated Community". In the REAL neighborhood, not all of the houses match in terms of style. The landscaping varies. Some houses look better than others, and the residents can come from a variety of backgrounds. This type of neighborhood (with it's problems) allows more freedom in terms of what YOU as an individual can do with your house. In an ideal "Gated Community", there is no variance in the style of home (many are mirrors of each other). The landscaping is typically identical (and sparse). About the only thing you ARE free to do is change the internal look of your home, but you must conform to the style that everyone else has on the outside. Most people who live in gated communities don't have widely varying incomes and backgrounds. Most of them are professionals that make $50,000 and up. This kind of environment is really, truly limiting. This is identical to the "Shared Source" initiative. You can look at the source code, but you can't touch it. So you have to make your code conform to what Microsoft dictates. Even if Microsoft is wrong. Sorry, but that is just a model that gives lip service to "community". Microsoft will never be ab;e to compete in that arena. There is something to be said for open-ness.
OK? So DIE BITCHEZ, DIE!!!!!!
Un-news
It depends on what we use it for...
:).
:-))
/.ers we should hear fewer such comments in the future. Let us do all that it takes to make computing nicer for the teenieweenies. After they should be enjoying life, not working FOR computers, the way we do :-)).
First is it the issue of difficulty in configuring Linux? Are we just trying to get some basic services such as File Servers, Print servers, Mail Servers, Web servers etc. up and running? Though one might need to see the command prompt a little more, doing such dumb things does not require the wizardry of a kernel hacker
What does Enterprise refer to?
Does it mean companies running Linux or Win2k for mission critical applications? If so we must think again... The entire game is different...
Teenieweenies cannot run mission critical applications irrespective of OS. These applications in many cases determine the destiny of the organisation and need people with sound analytical abilities to manage them. Large databases, critical data etc. They charge for their analytical skills and a good programmer or admin always is much more than the languages or OS he knows...
Then again 5 years is too long in the IT industry. Let us sit back and think how the IT industry looked in 1980,1985,1990,1995,2000 & on.
Remember Novell Netware reigned supreme. At a particular instant of time Novell could have had a better TCO & NT. All that happened within very short durations. The IT industry will change faster than we can even dream for it.
It makes no sense to pass such generic statements and no manager can decide on the basis of such claims for a 5 year period. Even if it is projection there would be many other factors to be considered with respect to the particular organisation.
How much does scalability cost?
Ever thought that you would be satisfied with your Win2k or Linux servers five years down the line? So how do you scale up? Heard of s/390,zSeries Mainframes. ASCI purple? that is scalability. It costs a LOT to migrate custom designed applications from one platform to other. Especially between very dissimilar OSes. Do you want to continuosly hope that your organisation and its apps will not grow exponentially so that you can stick on to your favourite OS.
Business decisions are very different from fanatics crying foul at the other person's OS. Even in the front of maintainability we have noticed the TCO of Linux reduce exponentially. But these dumbos have not noticed that.
They DON'T know how 5 years looks in the OpenSource world!!! How could they extrapolate
You must have guessed it, I work for *** the company that is granddad of Linux. Maintainance for Linux is still costly, but let us not forget, any *nix user typically writes a script to the admin. What a Win2k user would keep clicking around for 2 days. would be scripted by a *nix admin in 20mins. That is built into the genes of a *nix guy. To sum up the judgement is too specific to be of any significance.
But buck up
MICROSOFT! What else would expect this report to say. If this is the case, how come we see so many articles detailing how companies IT save over 40% by switching to Linux. I believe Amazon.com was one that posted significant saving by switching to Linux.
I just checked my Win2K Pro CD, and the files are dated 9 Dec 1999. So Win2K is 3 years old, not two. (Don't have Server handy, so can't check that.)
The first W2K release candidates came out almost a year before that (can't find those CDs offhand or I'd give you a date, but IIRC it was around Feb.99). So one could justify up to almost 4 years since W2K became available in a testable form.
Even so, I agree that whatever merits the study has are severely undermined by the obvious use of long-term projections rather than hard cold facts.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I used to run a win2k network. I installed it too. Other than viral infections the workstations worked great. Win2k server and active directory sucked ass however.
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
1: I'd like to know which companies they asked.
2: I'd like to know what sort of involvement those companies actually have in Linux.
3: Exactly how big were some of these companies? For a 100 seat company, yeah, the cost factor is somewhat negligible. However, for a 1000-10,000+ seat company, the licensing issue becomes quite a chunk of change. You can't tell me that support staff for Linux is going to cost more than support staff for Windows PLUS the cost of a site license.
4: What exactly are each of these task categories they divided things up into?
5: How can they make a 5-year comparison with Linux? Win2K hasn't been our 5 years. Are they guestimating? Or are they talking about WinNT4 as well?
6: Have they taken into account upgrades from WinNT4, all the downtime from various worms, virii, etc?
7: How does this compare to the fact that the majority of OSS apps being used under Linux are essentially free upgrades forever?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The link posted above comes from CMP. Most of the other news organizations, including ZD-Net and even IDC-owned InfoWorld are admitting that the study wa s paid for by Microsoft. People aren't stupid, and even if they were, complaining about it on /. won't help.
That said, I'm not happy with CMP's reporting.
If you've ever read the CRN weekly, you'd know that they're forever pushing Linux as the answer to everything. They're almost like /. -- gleefully promoting the latest MS difficulties whilst simultaneously giving reams of coverage to Linux inroads.
Heck, if you'd read them a year ago, you'd have come away convinced that Linux would be on the desktop in a majority of Fortune 500 companies by now.
I find it amazing that all these instant pundits and press-release-repeaters haven't noticed that the IDC study was funded by Microsoft; this could call the results into question.
At least at eWeek, someone noticed this:
"Study Finds Windows Cheaper Than Linux (continued)
"Many drivers of cost need to be uncovered in such an examination and evaluation, and the 'risk/return' trade-offs of Linux versus Windows may not be as obvious as they appear at first glance," they said.
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The fact that Microsoft paid for the research is likely to be used as a weapon against the findings by some in the Linux community and will also elevate the debate about how valid calculations of total cost of ownership are for any given comparison.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed to eWEEK that the firm had completely sponsored the White Paper but said that IDC had controlled the methodology, data and findings. IDC analyst Al Gillen agreed, telling eWEEK that the firm undertook a lot of custom research for individual companies and customers."
And Galli also goes into detail about the methodology, so you can have fun picking that apart.
Whether your transmission is auto or manual has little relevance to ease of parking for _normal_ driving[1]. Power steering and turning circle does.
With the auto, just use the foot brake for speed control at low speeds. If you're impatient, left foot for brake, right foot for accelerator, but you better be used to that or you'd dent something and you could wear out your transmission if you aren't careful.
Link.
[1]For stunt driving/parking a manual and a good handbrake are required. Stunt drivers can _slide_ _sideways_ into parking spots. If the parking spot isn't too tight and they're driving a front wheel drive they can still get out by turning the front wheels, spinning them whilst locking the rear wheels with the handbrake. Now this requires a manual - since controlling tyre spin on an auto is kinda difficult. So you may be right, but that's not what I'd expect for normal cases.
.... the world is flat.
If anyone did their research they would find out that other news sites (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-975848.html) are reporting that this analysis was _sponsored_ by _Microsoft_.
Windows admins are cheaper than Unix admins.
-ted
Still running NT3.51 and 4.0 over here and I have yet to see the gun pointed at me forcing me to upgrade. I still get support from my vendor, and the machines are (surprisingly) running so well that we rarely touch them.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Business 1 spends $100 this year and makes back $25 - thats only 25%
Business 2 spends $1,000 this year and makes back $500 - thats only 50%.
Which company really lost more tho?
Ave Molech Setting
You might need to do daily admin on a Windows print server, clearing out bad jobs and such, but a cron takes care of this on Linux. And if you're doing daily maintenance on a file server, you've got some issues. Adding new files is not "maintenance."
Do a little educational reading:
Why UNIX is better than Windows... By Microsoft.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
I can park my automatic anywhere you can park your stick. And yes I can drive a stick too (the first 6 years of driving was on a stick for me). See automatic's actually have more then one gear you can shift into. The gears really don't have anything to do with it. It's about knowing how to finesse what you have.
The news here is that microsoft paid for a study that concluded that linux is a better web server. Do we care about the other part?
These results are based on a *survey* of businesses, and it reflects what they *think* the 5-year TCO is going to be, so all you guys who are fixated on flaws of the study or that Win2K wasn't available 5-years ago are missing the point. The point is that this is what the business world believes, not what reality is. You can complain all you want about MS, but I think of it as a good wake-up call: it tells us what the rest of the world is thinking about Linux and points out where we ought to be focusing our efforts.
Servers do not exist in a vacuum. Clients connect to them. Does this study factor in the TCO of clients as well, which accompany the server? What good is a slightly cheaper TCO of a server when the TCO of Windows workstations are astrononically higher than Linux (preferably Debian) workstations?
Does it means that they will pay me for using it? Hmm.. beats helping that guy from Nigeria..
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
First of all, does anybody still use Win2k for servers? Seems like a waste of processor cycles. I remember playing with Win2K on a dual 500 machine (that was previously working with Slackware 7.1). We installed Win2KAS and voila! I instantly turned a working no-downtime machine into a full time windows-update machine. :) Not only that, but system performance is incredibly unbelievable on a Win2K machine. in my opinion, it turns a worthwhile server into a bloated system-loading waste of space. The ONLY thing Win2KAS should be used for is domain controllers. But, watch out windows.. Samba is making some pretty huge leaps in that venue as well.
As for cost - a copy of Mandrake which is every bit as good as redhat is completely free - as are its updates. Only redhat has non-mandatory update costs. in most cases, those updates can be gotten from somewhere else (not redhat). Being that linux is so standard and that so many different distros share component similarities, if something is broken, fix it.. However, you talk about updating constantly - why would you update if your server hasn't been rebooted in 4 months... and you don't plan to start now... Seems crazy to fix something that isn't broken.
Windows 2KAS is a globally retarding waste of money and blank cd's. As for the software piracy posts - Windows 2KAS isn't worth pirating. The 7cents per cd is too much capital to put forth. Large corporations that rely on microsoft servers need to re-evaluate their needs.
Microsoft Server Families are a flying-ninja-jump-kick to the corporate testicles.
Amen.
--Micah
"I know this... this is a unix system" -- Jurrasic Park
carries quite a good story on this and brings up several valid points;
the survey was paid for by Microsoft,
the five year ownership DIDN'T include the cost of upgrading the hardware,
that Microsoft recommend / require upgrade cycles
that downtime wasn't taken into account.
Hmmm.
The solution is quite obvious...
And stop reading /. while we're at it!!
<duck>
From the Reg:
Windows 2000 servers are cheaper to run than Linux ones, sometimes, says an IDC study which was by strange coincidence sponsored by Microsoft.
'Nuff said
I hate to start a new thread on this, but I will. I will not compare ease of use between Linux and Windows in a desktop environment, (although those goddamn GPL violators Lindows are changing that) but I actually believe the Linux is much easier as server than windows. For instance setting up IIS requires mulling through several layers of menus, while apache only requires editing a short text which has simple instructions contained within. User priviledges are more complicated in windows, and don't do as good a job with program access rights as Linux, ie. more processes are going to have Admin/root access in windows than Linux. Hence Linux/Unix generally has by design inherently better security than windows. Backing up a Linux server is much simpler than windows as all than text config files can simply be backed up (along with whatever data your serving) rather than the whole system. Windows does allow the creation of a special recovery disk(ASR), but this complicated and often doesn't work. I digress, as I am running out of time. In a server environment editing text files can be much easier and faster than configuraring layers and layers of GUI configs.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it.
Sorry but I cannot take this report seriously. There are no facts given. I had to do a little investigation to get to the bottom of this. The article takes into account three primary costs; Initial Software, Staff Support and Downtime. The Initial cost is really not a big concenr for corporations since, rightfully so, the largest expense will be in manpower. The Dowtime impact is never really compared between Linux vs Windows vs others. They state it has a 23.1% affect to ownership but do not state which one cost more. Based on experience and all the available evidence it seems that Linus would have a lower dowtime and therefore a cost advantage here. This seems to be supported by the cost efficacy of Linux in the Web hosting space where dowtime would have a much more significant effect. The only other factor must be then Support cost. The presumption is that a Linux sysadmin is more expensive than a Windows 2k admin. I have never actually took this to task until now. It does seem a logical presumption but do the facts bear this out. I decided to check this out. The site I used to compare this was http://www.pencom.com/isg.html. I compared just Linux OS to WinNT OS only and found a Windows NT admin (no win2k mentioned) salary was $2,000 greater than LINUX admin. This held true regardless of region or skills provided that the skill sets were equivelant. The only explanation I can think why a Linux sysadmin may be given a larger salary is the fact that they would not just be a Linux Sysadmin. They would also be required to administer other *NIX systems and probably some Windows systems. This broader skill set would command a greater salary. This still would be much cheaper than a seperate Windows admin with a seperate Linux/UNIX admin.
First, the study is done by IDC, a company that has repeatedly done M$-funded studies favorable to M$ products. And the timing of the release is highly suspicious - right before the Enterprise Linux Forum. These are the same guys who said W2K had a longer uptime than Linux - setting aside scheduled reboots, of course.
Secondly, it wasn't really a study - it was a survey. There's a difference - if I word a survey right, I can get a group of middle-aged white Republican males to say they will vote Nader in the next election. Let's face it, most PHBs know nothing about technology (or anything else, for that matter) and will reflexively respond, "oh, yeah, we run Windows and it's fine."
Since when hundred-odd does not constitiute a valid sample size by any stretch of the imagination. Who got surveyed? How were they picked? What questions were asked?
Third, the comparisons were invalid. Win2K hasn't been out five years, so much of that time was covered by NT4. Linux has come a long, long way in the last five years (it still has a ways to go before it's a viable desktop solution for most people, but I digress).
Fourth, did that TCO consider such things as Code Red? ILOVEYOU? Nimda? And God-only-knows how many other email worms out there? Speaking of security for those with short memories, Microsoft got hacked at least twice due to well-documented security holes in IIS! I would submit that the 22% "savings" from using Windows would be quickly eaten up by the loss of some important intellectual property.
It is correct on one point - MCSEs are a dime a dozen these days.
If yes than you would know that the big disadvantege of W2K is that also the adminstrating tasks are bound to the GUI and that the scripting quality is poor. Thus adminstrative work on W2K scales with the number of serveres you have to maintain.
Linux on the other hand stands in the long Unix tradition. It might be more difficult in to learn the first primtives but it is much easyer to administer a bunch of Linux server than a bunch of W2K server.
Considering this facts and considering other studies, there must be something wrong with the study.
"...study which was by strange coincidence sponsored by Microsoft." Looks like some of you forgot to read the whole article.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
The study says it was a 5 year study. When was W2K released? 1997?
I don't know about anyone else, but I've found the safest and most reliable way to run Windows is by using VMWare on Linux with an undoable drive. The only time I commit the changes is after I've rebooted and made specific changes to the OS
This way, whenever anything goes wrong, a simple reboot of windows brings me back to a fresh installtion.
TCO? Well obviously running Linux alone would be better, but I have 1 app that I can't run on Linux, which I need to do my job :(
Do you really think I'm go to put something novel here?
Anyway, regardless, this report seems to be 100% pure FUD. From the top of the article:
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
Wonderful timing, eh? No wonder it is breaking news! This report seems to be timed as an attempt to take some steam away from the attention Linux would be getting.
As for the study itself... Windows 2000 is less than 3 years old, yet this is a five year study.
Everyone else has brought this up.
What is this? You have to pay a Linux guy more than an MSCE? Not to bash all MSCEs, but there are a good number that don't know what the heck they
are doing. At the last job I had, it took 3 MSCEs 2 days to get my password changed on a single NT server. I'm not making this up, seriously. It is no wonder a Linux guy is better paid, if they know their stuff. As many other people have said, I doubt they are including the costs of calling MS tech support for $150 an hour,
which a lot of MSCEs probably do.
Also, did they include the costs associated with security holes? Remember that nasty Code Red outbreak last year? I highly doubt they took that into account. Heck, I still at least a few attempted Code Red attacks on Apache server logs.
How about costs when your exchange server goes down due to "Outlook Viruses?" Doubt it.
For everyone I know in a small business setting, the cost of Open Source has always been cheaper. In a small business there are usually one or two guys who can maintain every Linux and BSD box, and
are able to do two or three times as much as the equivalent number of MSCEs, without spending a dime on tech support.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Did someone notice that the article about this research is dated Sept 1998 on MS site?s /1998/9 -23idcresearch.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/feature
And you will see the biggest unrealistic caveat: the study assumed no upgrades over a span of 5 years! M$ tries to force an upgrade just about every frickin' year or so. It is unrealistic to think a company will have the same windoze running 5 years down the line with M$ breathing down their neck AND M$ dropping support for their 5 year old OS after a mere 3 or so.
Another interesting and true point is that those people you hire to administer a linux system setup are more knowledgeable, period, than the MSCE admins for doze so that when something really goes south (on windoze almost anything beyond people forgetting their passwords) the windoze admins are useless while the *nix geniuses can easily whip out a fix - probably without terminating network connectivity while they do it.
An M$-funded study is the same thing as a "study" produced by the M$ marketing department and has the same legitimacy.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Atleast that's what our security-manager-guy said the cost was for us when ILOVEYOU hit.
About 1000 win-boxes per site, not all infected though.
Posted anonymously to make sure I can keep my job.
Why would you buy it then?! :-)
three cdroasting, file serving machines, 3 years, almost zero downtime (excepting upgrades). Running 24/7. No nasty EULAs to reviews. Priceless.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
If your environment is setup in a unix/linux friendly way, TCO of unix/linux will be low. If you take an environment setup for windows, and try to plug linux or unix into it, the TCO will be higher.
Interesting to note that downtime was the second highest cost in TCO. Are they saying that windows has better uptime than Linux? (Which is absurd, even if you don't factor in the downtime cost due to viruses). Look at http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html The first windows machine comes in at 14th place.
This study is just dumb. It's a projection, nothing more. Probably funded by m$.
given that microsoft sponsored this study, do you think they even had to pay for that one copy?
The Hotmail migration whitepaper included the Windows license cost into TCO. It calculated TCO on the premise that the Windows and MSN divisions of Microsoft Corporation don't share revenue.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't see the disk thrashing you speak of with Mandrake 9. However, I am running with 512MB of RAM, which is the maximum for the i815 chipset. Mandrake update is smooth as butter. Just got finished with it no more than 5 minutes ago...downloaded and installed the security updates for Galeon and Windowmaker. Was running KDE at the time.
Tasty, tasty mandrakes! Eat 'em with catsup!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Lookie at me! I can play the percentages (albeit more accurately) than the sorry folks at CNN/IDT. Who did the monkey-math arrive at the 11% to 22% figure?
Over on the Microsoft Training site they have a bunch of lemmings shouting about how Microsoft training is just the cat's pajamas and can give you "challenging opportunities, quicker promotions, and a leadership role".
This training AIN'T cheap.
Now, on the other hand, this article post here on slashdot is uhm....basically saying that you have to hire a sysadmin to run your machine and that's the expensive part. They lead us to believe you'd have to pay the linux guy more.
However if you compare These Numbers with These Numbers you'll see that the microsoft trained guys get paid more than the industry average.
So - I'm missing something here. Either Win2k doesn't need a sysadmin (yeah right...my ass) and Linux needs a small geek army, or the Microsoft Training (sounds like something Scientological - "Standard Tech" kinda stuff)is a bunch of bunk.
Microsoft is either lying about Win2k's total cost, or they're lying about the career prospects/validity/usefulness of their MCP training.....and all the industry surveys show that MCSEs make more money than linux geeks (cert-ed or not). That's damn well the case where I work.
So which one is it, Billy? Lying out the left side or the right side of your face....
win2k is free now?
I've had customers turn down free linux for expensive win2k because they didn't understand linux.
"how can it be that good? it doesn't even have a start menu!" --anonymous customer
They're using their grammar skills there.
I am certainly glad that I got into Linux and OSS before I ever heard of slashdot. Otherwise I don't think I would have ever tried it.
Brings to mind certain flavors of Christianity
sed s/Christianity/atheists/
sed s/Christianity/Muslims/
sed s/Christianity/slashdotters/
Its nice to know Christians need not apply for Linux. Let me ask you a question, what the hell does what people do with their Sunday mornings have to do with Linux? You sound like more of a bigot than any christian I have ever met. <sarcasm> You know what, when I am with christian friends, you know what we do? We laugh and make jokes and insult muslims, hindus, athiests, jews, all of them. </sarcasm> What is it with you that you need to bring comments like that up? Have you nothing better to do here other than troll and beg for mod points by making anti-religion comments? Personally, I think we should mock ford drivers instead of have discussion on the article here. And if we have a chance, maybe someone else who likes chocolate. We know those chocolate lovers should all be MS folks, lets make off hand comments about them too!
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I think there is a important thing that wasnt mentioned in the study :
/user and year - and this is a low price for a corporate with about 10000 Clients under MS EA.
Client access licenses
if one , as our company is forced to an enterprise
agreement with Microsoft the sum for CALs ( file & print, SQL Server, Exchange )to pay to microsoft is about 60 $
That makes in my company with about 20 servers and 500 clients a sum of 30000 $ a year.
I have only one man to adminster all our servers -there are 13 Win2K and 6 linux based servers.
This single man works about 15 % of his time on the linux servers ( web, firewall, SAP Systems) and 30 % for the win2k boxes, the rest is WAN stuff and SAP administration - which would be exactly the same work if the SAP systems are run under win2k
If get permission to use linux based mail and fileservices, it would be possible to save about 25000 $ a year for CALs , spending 5000 a year for commercial support on linux based exchange services, SAPDB ( GPL) and samba for fileservices.
Whats really true:
People who know linux are rare and more expensive,( here : 60000 $ a year, all inclusive) but after my bad experiences with "cheap" MCSE's i prefer to work with skilled people - they are worth their money.
People not skilled in linux, who try to work with linux will definitly need more time than with win2k, so higher TCO will be likely.
If you already have skilled people its another thing - and whats sure, if you force them to work only with windows they will look for another job.
"How about driving down a long hill? Do you keep pressing the brakes? On a manual you just gear down, and let the engine brake for you."
Or you can just buy an automatic Rav 4. Its engine is already its best brake. I know, I own one.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
If you read the article a bit more closly and check the comments for referance, you'll notive the article says that this study was done over a 5 year period of time. Windows 2000 wasn't out 5 years ago making this rather impossible and thus pretty hard to believe. And I can imagine that starting with Linux 5 years ago and using that till now probably would cost more than it would to start now and carry forward 5 uears because so much progress has been made. Were upgrades allowed? This article is very light on the details. Would a service pack be allowed then? Wouldn't this make Linux better because for free, you get better and better upgrades. Win 2000 only gives you a few services paks, unless you upgrade to XP (ha!)
So in the end I am really confused at how this is even possible and sort of able to believe part of it because of the severe age-ness of it. But really. Come on, we need way more detail before I'll actually believe it.
Car buyer: The spare tire doesn't fit in the trunk of the car you sold me.
Car salesman: Use a smaller spare.
Car buyer: A smaller tire will be useless when I need it.
Clueless Anonymous Coward: Do what I did. Go to Trunk Co. and buy a bigger trunk.
Doesn't TCO mean "Total Cost of Ownership"?
Seems a bit disingenuous, then - I can download a Linux distro, install it, and by all rights, I OWN that copy of Linux on my machine, and have (under the GPL) every possible right of ownership, so long as I preserve others' rights of ownership to their copies.
How much do I have to pay Microsoft to equally "own" my install of Windows 2000 Server?
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
You have two shift keys on your keyboard. One of them must still work!
*best Homer impression*
Emerge.... gaaaaahh *drool*
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
have you ever heard of someone actually paying for Windows. I mean other than when it comes in a packaged deal with a computer. I have worked for several companies with multiple machines running various versions of windows and none of them are actually paid for versions. Even the Xp versions are hacked. So in that sence yes windows is cheaper. :)
However I would rather run a Paid for version of linux then a free version of windows.
The corporation I work for is still on WindowsNT 4.0 with Novell. Only recently did we upgrade to Notes 5 across the firm, and in the next 4-5 months the migration to Windows2000 is supposed to take place. The larger the firm, the slower they are to adopt new technologies. At least that's been my experience.
Needless to say this article is completely silly to "us" slashdot types as it does not deal with issues we're familiar with. We aren't constantly trying to figure out how to use applications, we just do. We aren't constantly boggled by the inner workings of a computer, we just know. The one thing that is tough to grasp is that 98% of the people who comment on slashdot know more than 98% of the people who use computers. And that's why running an IT department is so expensive, "WE" screw them out of as much money as possible.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
WHERE did he say ALL Christians? I guess you must agree with the doctrine preached by Rev Phelps (godhatefags.com) or the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (aka Aryan Nations)? What about the Christians that say only THEIR specific dnomination is correct? Or those that wish to impose the bible as the law of the land ala the Taliban?
Until you have dealt with RADICAL Christians, you have no clue how close in thought they are to people like Osama bin Laden.
That said, many, if not most, Christians are decent fair minded people who are willing to allow others to worship in they way they wish.
Gonzo
Probably another study bought and paid for by Microsoft. What its basically saying is that since Windows admins come a dime a dozen and most are probably begging for jobs right now its cheapter to go with Win2k than it would be to hire a real IT staff with Unix knownledge.
I don't know of a clueful outfit in existance that uses Win2k for anything besides workstations or specialized apps that require it. Its just ignorant.
Well, it did take me about 6 months to learn how to parallel park smoothly. But - once I had learned, it was in fact much easier, because the clutch gives you an added dimension of control as you slip into a tight parking space.
It was only easier because you spent 6 months learning how to do it, not because it's simply easier by nature. You really got used to your own car. Spend a few months with an automatic, and suddenly IT will become just as easy! Because in an automatic, you get an added dimension of control due to your ability to brake and use the throttle at the same time. Or didn't you think of that?
Tying this back to the operating systems, sure... Linux would be a lot cheaper to administer and easier to use if everybody used it in-depth for 6 months. In the same way that playing piano is pretty easy once you spend your life learning how.
HOW can anyone claim that an OS that needs to have security patches applied almost every week and needs to be rebooted when they are applied is cheaper to run? It is literally impossible to have a windows server with more than a couple of weeks uptime (unless you don't patch the thing, and then it's an insecure/unstable mess). In addition, security patches are release when MS want's them to be.. not when the hole is found (as is the case with Linux). Only a MICROSOFT SPONSORED "study" would be so biased.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
That while the price of product A may be cheaper than product B, they both come with their own set of costs.
Lets use an extreme example to illustrate this point.
When you build a bridge, you hire the best talent and use the highest quality resources money can buy. Because no matter how much these things cost up front, they're nothing compared to what it will cost if your bridge collapses.
You make similar tradeoffs every day when choosing between two products.
You may be able to save by economizing on employees or software, but if it results in a huge security compromise where all of your systems are trashed, confidential data is leaked to the world, and it takes you a month to recover from the damage, you'll probably wish you hadn't been so frugal.
Or maybe not. You have to decide which is more important, and if you're not qualified to make the decision, ask someone who is.
IBM thinks differently in this paper and so does CyberSource here.
Summary of the CyberSource comparison study (all $ in US):
Scenario
245 workstations
5 file/print servers
3 developer workstations
1 each mail server, proxy firewall server, intranet/SQL server, e-commerce server
3-year usage period
Caveats
Assume all hardware costs are equal (that MS costs are not already applied to each box)
Assume all server and infrastructure costs are equal
Assume all connectivity costs, consultancy fees, and miscellaneous costs are equal
Windows costs
Norton Antivirus: $49.95
MS IIS 5.0: free (bundled with NT and 2000 Server)
MS Windows 2000 Advanced Server: $3,999 per 25 licenses (extra licenses $67 ea.)
MS Commerce Server: $12,999 per processor
MS ISA Standard Server: $1,499 per processor
MS SQL Server: $4,999 per processor
MS Exchange Server 2000: $1,299 per 5 licenses (extra licenses $67 ea.)
MS Windows 2000 Professional full version: $299 per user
MS Visual Studio 6.0: $1,079
MS Office Standard Edition $479 per user
Total software cost, Windows: $282,973.50
Linux costs
Choice of Red Hat 7.2: $59.95; Mandrake 8.1: $55.00; SuSE 7.3: $79.95
Apache (web server): included or free
Squid (proxy server): included or free
PostgreSQL (database): included or free
Iptables (firewall): included or free
Sendmail or Postfix (mail server): included or free
KDevelop (development): included or free
Gimp (graphics): included or free
OpenOffice (office suite): included or free
The Exchange Project (e-commerce): included or free
Total software cost, Linux: $79.95
Conclusion
Linux software savings: $282,893.55
Translation: More than $1,000 savings per workstation. The only other applicable difference is in administration costs. Just for Windows to draw even, it would have to cost an extra $1,000 per workstation to administrate Linux across 250 workstations. That's a lot of extra money available to spend on competent Linux administration.
"Folks just call him Buckethead." -- Les Claypool
Most likely the extra expense that is brought into this study has nothing to do with maintaining a linux box (which in my experience takes far less of ones time than any windows box). I would bet that the extra expenses that made it appear that open source software was more expensive was because of the added uses of open source software, the fact that you can get into the source and make changes and adopt it to your needs. The fact that businesses that run linux may have more techs on hand may have more to do with the special needs of the companies and the adjustments that CAN be done with Linux.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Albert Einstein
Okay, this study is a *joke*.
(a) This is commissioned by *Microsoft*. No *shit* it shows Windows systems as cheaper TCO most of the time. Watch *Red Hat* commission a study, and you'll get some equally "selected" statistics, just the other way. It's all in which numbers you pick.
(b) Did you read the criteria for the tests? They interviewd a bunch of random people, asked what they did with their server, which OS they ran, asked them how much it cost, and did some averaging. This approach is utterly and completely bogus for this kind of study. People usually do *not* use Windows on higher end servers. Yeah, those things with some serious-ass load that *matter*. So, not surprisingly, the less critical servers tend to be Windows-based...and sonovabitch, the company spends *less* on those! Who woulda thunk!
I expect ESR or someone will run out and do a nitpicky analysis that tears it apart, but these items stand out to me, in a quick skim of the thing.
May we never see th
"You might need to do daily admin on a Windows print server, clearing out bad jobs and such, but a cron takes care of this on Linux."
No, you need to do daily admin on a print server because people are constantly moving, adding and eliminating printers in the environment.
Same with file services. New shares need to be created, permissions need to be updated, groups need to be maintained.
"Do a little educational reading:"
It baffles me when people who have obviously never been server admins think they are in a position to tell me how to run my servers.
Win2k drops an average of 11%-22% total points of user's IQ.
I admin Novell 5.1, Debian 3.0 and WinNT servers and a host of Win Versions from 95 through to XP on the desktop. Novell is by far the most thought out and easiest to administer (NDS and NDPS) and Linux the most stable and flexible. The NT server is stable but only because it runs exactly one application as a service (Navision) and still has to be rebooted once a month to clear memory leaks. The desktop is a nightmare and I wish we had the money and a PHB who would let us move to Mac OSX there.
I used to admin a Win2k advanced server and AD was a pain and Win2k would often lose network sync.
No way. I don't have the time for those problems.
... windows offers a better tco than linux.
A good unix admin has spent at LEAST 3-5 years LEARNING his trade. Thus commands a reasonable income.
A good windows admin has spent at LEAST 30-45 seconds learning that rebooting will fix 99% of windows problems in a manor no one will know the diff between that and a real fix.
See? Windows IS easier to admin.
Honestly however, I worked at an isp where we had half a dozen windows 2000 and about 3 dozen unix (freebsd, slackware, sol7, and irix) machines. I spent ~2-3 hours a day working on the windows machines to keep them in tiptop shape while the most I ever did for the unix machines after the initial setup was occasionally add a service the automatic setup service we wrote for our customers couldn't handle or replace a raid drive when it died.
Unix works as well as the hardware it runs on, end of story. It's very easy to automate. It's almost impos to kill without manual deletion of everything or hardware failure.
Windows is iffy. A bad patch will terminate windows in a very perm, unrecoverable way. The registry is a trashheap. There is no good way to automate tasks in windows with out a macro recorder, and god forbid someone leave a window up.
A good admin of any variety is a pricey beast. Most people think just because someone has a bunch of capitalized letters infront of their name with the word 'microsoft' attached to one of them that the person is qualified to run their network... which is just plain stupid.
Shadus
Licence costs are usually only 5-10% of the TCO of a desktop. I've read several reports that have come to that conclusion. So the fact that linux is free, is not really a big selling point.
The fact that it is open-source by itself doesn't sell it either. It doesn't really matter to them as 99% of normal businesses have no interest in looking at it, fixing it or even maintaining it should the product wither away and die.
Linux should focus on having solid, open, extendable standards. Personally I think that is the best selling point it could have. No lock-in, no proprietary formats.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why do we waste time listening to rubbish from Micro$oft and those paid by them???
Save yourself the lies and FUD and just ignore them. Trust me: They do *not* have your best interest in mind.
Why do Mac users use the word "emulate" so much.
linux has dumpe2fs. It is command-line compatible, and functionally equivalent.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I would love to find a follow up report on the LTSP project in key largo as I am really into using LTSP wherever I can.
If you read the article at the register you'll see the first sentence reads "by strange coincidence [this was] sponsored by Microsoft."
Specifically, I would like to know who maintains an Exchange server be 5.5 or 2k, that agrees with this article?
I have administered Exchange boxes in one form or another for about 4 years. (i also admin other stuff:-) And just last night... Stop POP3, Error1053, Service is stuck in "stopping", Start options in "Services" and "Exchange System Mgr" are greyed out. So I try to use the Stop option in the SysMgr (only option avail), Error "POP3 is not running"... ARGH! After a few hour joyride on support.microsoft.com and reading Enterprise "solutions" such as "reboot", and delete the instance and recreate. And last Exchange Support call I did cost me $297 bucks (that was two years ago).
Look I could care less Linux, Windows, WinManix, whatever. If it works, I will use it.
By the way that $297 dollar solution... Extract the ExhPubDb as a *.PST thru outlook, and copy it back to the public info store. This had to be done ONCE a week.
These solutions absorb too many man hours, that could be spent on proactive and productive projects. I'm not here saying that Linux is better, but I can't possibly think that the TCO for Exchange in the Enterprise is an acceptable cost.
And for the record I personally think Win2kPro is still the best client!
peaCe
Awesome!
And what about the people that believe a price can drop 120 percent!!??? I love that argument.
A price goes from 50 to 100 sheckels. Thats a 100 percent increase. The economy craps out and the price drops back to 50 again. Is that also a 100 percent decrease.
These kinds of things are so important when working with stocks.
Supposedly this study is based on the TCO over a span of 5 years, but Win2K hasn't been out 5 years. 5 years ago, Linux was much more difficult to install and admin than most distributions now, and the user/support base was much smaller.
And from the perspective of hiring support, I don't see what makes people think a Linux admin is more expensive than an MCSE monkey. In fact, I just got free support from RedHat about an issue we were having with Apache (Problem with Date::Manip). Super helpful, figured it out instantly, we fixed it, done. Three days prior we had a 3 hour call to M$ tech support (@$250/hr) for them to tell us to reboot, re install all the service packs, and finally just blaming us and telling us we'd have to reinstall the entire system. After a bit more fussing with it, I got everything back and working without reinstalling. (A tech tried uninstalling Windows Media Player, and it wreaked havoc)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
The real problem here is that MS seems to be suggesting you don't need a network administrator for a network of 100 people.
Does this sound sane to you? Do you really want to be running a network with 100 computers on it and not have an administrator who can fix critical problems? What about security settings? I don't care how easy they make it, it's still not easy enough for the company receptionist to administer.
I guess MS is saying nobody needs MCSE's either...
I'd be kinda pissed off with them if I had a MCSE and read this report.
Having to go back into a MS shop and dealing with all of that crap. I was extremely tired of dealing with the rebooting, the reinstalling, etc. And the licensing??? Don't get me started.
A corporation can buy a computer with WinXP for $800.00 or they can buy a computer with no OS for $730.00 and spend $79.95 for Suse or Mandrake and have a techie install it at about $100.00 for the payroll costs. Oops, Linux is already more expensive. Next, everybody in the office already knows MS-Office, relearning something else will kill productivity for weeks, costing tens of thousands of dollars.
God help you if you need graphics... PaintShop Pro sells for $249.00, the Gimp is free. In a half hour, anyone can do graphics with PSP. In a half hour, anyone will be sick to death of the Gimp's utterly horrible UI and those profoundly stupid dialog windows that so inconveniently pop up on top of where you're trying to work. It will take weeks of effort to learn how to do things with the Gimp that are obvious in PSP or Adobe. Quick - draw a solid straight line 3 pixels wide, or a filled circle. Sometimes "free" is more expensive. Graphics is one of those times.
And we all know about all those wonderful GPLed corporate-level accounting packages that are available for Linux. Oops, there aren't any. The choices are, hire a team of programmers for a zillion dollars and hope they get it right in a couple years, or go spend a couple thousand bucks for a Windoze accounting package that will run today. Which costs less?
In the server room, Linux kicks ass. I wouldn't have a MS box there for any reason. On the desktop, Linux has a long, long way to go. Lack of intuitive usability is expensive in the evil corporate world, and outdated or non-existant docs are not acceptable. "You got the code, fix it yourself" is a really, really, lousy attitude. It's like a car manufacturer telling you "You got the shop manual, you get 50 mpg out of it."
Personally, I'd love to see Linux do the "world domination" thing. But it ain't gonna happen until it's easier and better than the competition. The corporate desktop is where the majority of computers are, and most of the people using them could care less about knowing anything about the inner workings, they just want to get the job done quickly and easily, collect their pay, and go home. When you win them, you'll win the OS war.
...as I absolutely HATE Microsoft, I was amazing at the hairball that is Linux the first time that I installed Red Hat and tried to configure it as a gateway. My experience is limited. What Linux needs is a good set of sane management tools and better configuration tools and then watch out Microsoft!
It is impossible to be more than 100 percent cheaper than anything. Impossible.
If a price drops 100 percent, then it drops to 0. Start with any price. ANY. Lower that price by 100 percent. What do you have? Thats right ZERO.
I offered my $170,000 car to my friend at a 100 percent discount.
I also offered a $2 book to my friend at a 100 percent discount.
How much did my friend have to pay for the car and the book? I will come back here in a couple days to look for your answer.
The problem with this kind of study (and I'm also including the ones by IBM that favor Linux over Windows in this) is that there is no general case that you can model results for. All these studies assume too many specific things about the "typical workplace" and "typical server needs" and "typical staff" that are not universal, and then have the hubris to take their conclusion and make the bold public statement that it applies universally. TCO calculations are especially prone to this since TCO depends largely on the staff's ability and willingness to learn the technology, and that's not the same for every situation. For us at work, Windows would be more expensive than Linux simply because we don't like it, and thus would spend the minimum time necessary to learn how to make it work just barely for us.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
What do you mean by "finally"? People have realized this for a long time. The argument for Linux has rarely been that it's cheaper because you get the software for free--Linux is cheaper because it's more reliable and easier to maintain for people experienced with it.
Oh, probably because macs won every other TCO report I've seen ;)
In some environments, Macs have lower TCO, in other environments, they don't. For example, for home users, I really do recommed Macs. But trying to integrate Macs into our UNIX environment has been a major headache: Macs lack many of the management and software update features that Linux and even Windows have, and there are many non-standard and quirky things going on under the covers.
I have a fairly Large Linux Server in a school. I have spent less than 40 hours in 3 years working on it.
Just the licencing complience to run the DHCP server on win2k for the number of workstations they have is more that what I as a freelancer have charged them for 3 years of maintance and updates, including upgrades. And this machine does it all (web, email, dns...smb, etc)
I have by far spent more time on the phone getting the stupid Library to just reboot their machines before assuming that there is a hardware problem.
Too right its Cheaper - easier to break like Cheap plastic! =)
Disclaimer: I dont break things on purpose.
Pixels keep you awake!
This is surprising BS from IDC. They've lost all credibility with me, and as usual, hardly anyone really read the article who posted before me or they would have noticed this as well.
But that will eventually change: your hardware will not last forever, and eventually you'll be forced to upgrade if only because hardware that is a drop-in replacement for what you have will be very difficult (thus expensive) to find.
And at the point you are forced to change hardware, you may well be forced to upgrade, because there's no guarantee you'll be able to get NT3.51 drivers for things like the new RAID controller (or networking card, or ... you get the idea).
That means upgrading your OS to something that does support your (new) hardware.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Seen on IDG.net: "IDC's findings, published Monday in a study commissioned by Microsoft Corp....."
'Nuff said.
You're wrong. Our sysadmin booted our Windows server using a cdrom and replaced a file deleted by a disgruntled employee.
Vote for Pedro
Whether there are or are not more trained Windows monkeys out there really doesn't matter for an individual company. What matters is the cost at which you can hire expertise. A Linux admin is probably no more expensive than a Windows admin, and he is likely going to be more efficient and effective.
Everywhere you go you can find all sorts of Microsoft camp product support. Once you learn one Microsoft product you are well on your way to knowing another.
That's just plain nonsense. Except for non-standard lingo and the existence of lots of dialog boxes, Windows system software is no more consistent than Linux system software.
They *really and truly* don't care what software they use as long as it works, and as long as it is cost-effective to use it. Most business need to use computers, but what computers they use are irrelevant to them. They just need to, well, take care of business.
Linux does "just work", and it works very well and cost-effectively. It would work less well if it became more like Windows. What Windows gives you is the illusion of usability and easy administration. Windows gives you a shallow initial learning curve and then gobbles up time and money with inefficient and cumbersome management procedures.
Pretty much all professional tools in any field are hard to use at first, and there are good reasons for that. If people want to waste their money on expensive, hard-to-maintain Windows systems, that's their problem. Linux users can't do more than spread the word that it's worth investing the time to get over the inital hurdles.
Actually, assigning server IP addresses through DHCP reservations is quite a nice way to do things, in my experience. You have one central place to manage the IP addresses for all of your machines (on the DHCP server).
You left out the internal Microsoft report that claims Unix is easier and cheaper to administer. Here it is as reported on Slashdot today under the BSD section.
yeah, and poop costs less than a strip steak. I'd still rather eat the strip steak...
VERITAS VM is available for Linux now. (Although Slackware isn't listed as supported.)
"No, you need to do daily admin on a print server because people are constantly moving, adding and eliminating printers in the environment."
On a daily basis? I'll conceed my point and scamper off to the trollie pen if this is the case. If not, please restate what you said.
---
"Same with file services. New shares need to be created..."
New shares are a part of daily maintenance? Can't you come up with a system that's a little bit more steady and dynamic?
---
"permissions need to be updated"
Oh? Were they not set properly the first time?
---
"groups need to be maintained."
Agreed, however when imagining groups like "documentation", "client_services", etc., I find it hard to believe that this can account for much maintenance, even in a large system.
In general, I must admit I've never admined servers for more than 50 or so folks. However, it seems to me that you're doing a lot of work that can be automated or negated with a good service design.
---
"It baffles me when people who have obviously never been server admins think they are in a position to tell me how to run my servers."
If indeed you can't set up your services to me more maintenance free, as stated, I'll run and play with the other trolls.
If you're an admin set in your ways, of course it would appear to you that I've never admined servers... I'm not doing it the right way [your way], right? Just something you might want to consider in an unbiased fashion.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Win2k costs an average of 11%-22% total cost of enterprise
Let me guess, they added up the numbers for the study on an original Pentium right?
Thus, for a single payment of $0.10, you can have ten "hard-working" MCSEs! Whereas one bearded Unix guru will cost a good $100k+ per year. If you opt for the cheaper route, a good Linux admin will cost a $60k+ per year.
Personally, I'd recommend the Unix guru, because you could make him dress up like Gandalf for Halloween and for the opening nights of The Two Towers and Return of the King.
Now on a more serious note, does anyone else here believe that TCO calculations are a complete waste of time? A manager who sends fresh into the workforce lambs to the slaughter against a troublesome box will definately be burning through his budget faster than another manager who just hired a bearded Unix guru.
The guru will shrug, kick the box soundly, causing the case to dent. He will then mumble secret incantations from the Book of Bourne, the greatest shell scripter who ever lived. At which point, AOL disks will seep from the walls, the box's monitor will spin around three times, and all will be well.
Meanwhile, back at the other manager's place, the clueless will be standing around the box, uttering phrases such as, "Gee, boss, I think we need to hire some more help."
Exactly ! Comparing my own workplace, the roles of the Unix and Windows admins are VERY different. The Unix guys tend to do work for themselves and the DBAs. The Windows guys have to deal with literally thousands of users making regular requests for work to be done - install an app (very easy using GPOs), restore a file because I deleted it last week, share my files with someone else, plus all of the other routine stuff. We have a big ratio of Windows admins to servers but by working smarter, not harder, they keep the sites up and running while moving the business forward.
The point is that Microsoft is not forcing an upgrade every five years like the parent post incorrectly asserted. Obviously, as with any technology, you eventually have to upgrade.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
wow, thankos. But I could not find which distros are, in fact, supported. I only saw that they have the VxVM install guide for Linux, but that's all.
Sigged!
It can be argued that a savyy SA will know how to harden and make W2K boxen stable enough. Often it is not W2K's fault. If the shares are shared, then you get NIMDA/CODERED etc. If permissions and passwords are flaky, you get intrussions. I've run W2K networks for at least 2.5 years, and so far I've no problems with it. This is because I've had to disable shares, set rigorous permissions and control wayward l-users. Otherwise, the boxen behave just fine.
The only time that I've had problems with W2K boxen is when i let clueless developer monkeys get a hold of my servers. We had a SQL box down las week because this dumb ass developer thought that the DTC in a server was bad, so we did a reinstall. Only to see the error come out the next day. The guy just shrugged his shoulders, and I wanted to kick his godforsaken ass to kindgom come!!!
The Linux/W2K debate is getting old and stale. I don't discard using Linux in the future. What we should be focusing upon is in interoperation between both Linux, Windows, Novell, Solaris, etc. Not one platform is the be all, end all of IT. A wise SA should now the similarities and differences between platforms, and the way to make them work seamlessly. After all, l-users don't care what they are using, as long as their job is done.
This is exactly why I feel that Linux is simply not ready to be used as the core NOS on a large network. It's all about managing NETWORKS, not servers. Server-centric operating systems are good for specialized tasks like web serving or applications, but for larger companies with multiple physical locations it just doesn't cut it.
Our company runs Netware as our core NOS. We have Linux servers set up as mrtg servers to monitor and trend network traffic (among other things) and soon will be used in Intranet and Firewall boxen. But if we were to replace Netware and go all Linux/*BSD our IT operating costs would go through the roof. This is because there is no way to easily administer network resources under Linux like you can with Netware (via NDS) or even Windows 2000 (via MADS)
This is exactly what i'm talking about. Network-centric Operating Systems are the present and if Linux want to gain acceptance in the enterprise they will need to abandon the "flat" server-centric model. A powerful, scalable, open-source Directory Service (and I don't mean LDAP) would be a great start ...
-- Jim
what a crock of shi*.
A cogent argument, supported by this report commissioned by IBM. Note how poorly Solaris rates - something many should be able to sympathise with.
Don't believe the nonsense, unless you hear it from me directly.
Google news found a few more stories (including the Slashdot "story"...) on this topic. Since MS paid for the study, but has not released it to the public, it might be worthwhile to read what little details are available.
Study Finds Windows Cheaper Than Linux
Windows costs less than Linux . A bit . Sometimes - MS study
Infoworld
and more
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Please mod down the IDC study for flamebate
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Microsoft actually sponsored this study:. htm. Of course, we all know Microsoft to be a bastion of integrity...
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126953,00
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
This is as silly an argument as the MAC vs PC ramblings!!! In properly trained hands Linux and W2K Server are equally adept at running the average corporate networking environment. I've really not found too many things that one can do that the other can't. Sure W2K requires a bit more in hardware, but then again, what company is really going to use the minimum hardware anyway? If they are that kind of business, then they are the ones that skew the results of these kinds studies anyway. I'm truly amazed how many people stand on one side of the issue or the other and shoot their verbal darts at each other. Is it really that hard to see? I've used and implimented (for clients) both platforms and find them equally adept. I think that the only reason I'd possibly move towards the Linux solution is the TCO bottom line. Paying for Server Licenses, Exchange Licenses, MS SQL licenses, ancd any other licensing can be a deterrant to many small businesses going with an all MS solution. Do yourself a favor and learn a bit about all of it and you may find that there is some value to each platform.
Microsoft paid good money for that study. If you take it seriously, that just proves your last remaining brain cell has died. The more you dig for details the more ridiculous their claims are. If you want the truth, read the article on the register, and check out the IBM study a this link... http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul 2002.pdf
What this is proving is that the world still needs a non-OS operating system.
A) For those users who don't want to know about files, permissions, etc., so they can use the system without messing things up.
With Windows, Linux, etc., they can blow away files and get in a load of hurt.
B) For running simple tasks, such as print servers, etc.
Why would anybody need a full-blown OS for that? But they want something more configurable than a Cobalt box that is stuck doing only that task.
Basically what users need is a box that hides all of the details of the underlying OS from them.
Again, I do like your post...
Its nice to know Christians need not apply for Linux. Let me ask you a question, what the hell does what people do with their Sunday mornings have to do with Linux?
I love that certain Christians ALWAYS have to make it look like the are SO persectuted--get over yourself. The reason he singled out christians is that most of us have met more idiot christians than we've met idiot atheists, muslims, etc--it's a simple matter of demographics. If he'd been living in India, I'm sure he would've referenced muslims or hindus.
Don't forget there is a delay between a cd going golden master and when you can actually run out and buy one. They need to press cd's so they have enough for the initial launch. 2k probably went golden master on the 9th of December but its unlikely that you were able to run out and buy a copy before January.
Can't believe you guys missed this one, but.... Cost of win 2k $150 Cost of admin, 1 year $50,000 Cost of all your data being erased because of yet another security hole in a microsoft product..... Priceless This is the real reason to use Linux. my 2 cents, Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
I've seen many posts here on the merits or not of being able to backup your registry vs. backing up configuration files. That's all fine and well but the biggest admin tedium I encounter on an ongoing basis is upgrading my servers' from a hardware standpoint. The ability to replace a motherboard and processor in a server... and bring up the server minutes later with the old hard drive and everything operating as it had is one of the most compelling arguments I have ever seen for Linux. Try that with an MS server, or better yet, switch now and save yourself a bunch of pain in the future.
For folk who have an interest in the sciences, pooh-poohing a scientific study, with probable extrapolation, without looking at it objectivly is probably about as un-scientific as it gets. You want empirical evidence? Here's some:
I have been trying to break from MS for ages. I can't condone a switch yet. Why? Admin costs. It isn't because myself and the other 2K admins can't understand or transfer our expertise to an archaic CLI based OS. It's not even because we can't work out how to do familiar things in *nix because we're all thick (much as you lot would have us believe).
It's actually the cost of having more staff to administer each machine. If I were to switch 100% to Linux I would have to administer each machine individually at the moment. In Windows I can simply change the group policy for whatever AD object I wish to change for, say, a virus database update or a permission domain wide for installation of a certain program. In *nix I would either have to log in to each machine myself or write a script for a machine to do it for me. Each way faffing about is a process involved. Simply put, *nix hasn't got the group and domain managment facilities that Windows has. Until it has, there's simply no competition. And yes, I love the OSS idea too, but i'm also a realist. Sorry.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
I bet that they did not.
(Employee copy of Win2k) + (Enmployee Overtime Bonus Office 2K Pro) = FREE
(Download of Mandrake) + (Open Office) = FREE
(Frustration and PAIN from MS) - ($ Earned at MS) = INSANITY
I finaly gave up on Mandrake and reinstalled Win2k w/OO, not that Win2k is better, it's just that I am a lazy BASTARD!... Oh wait, I already mentioned having worked for MS.
~Z
I wrote IDC. A Linux sysadmin at his/her high salary, can administer, System, Network and Security. Let's see a win2K sysadmin do THAT. And please don't mention MCSE admins, their whole security training is based on a secureless OS.
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Why do you say that? There is only one real flavor, and only Christ knows this.
Why the rub against Christians?
What do you have against them?
There are no perfect Christians or they would be in heaven and not born on this world.
But, you know, Christians are a favorite target. The worst flavor of Christianity is better than any of the other two Western Religions, sad to say. I know, it is painful for those lost in the other faiths to realize that they JUST DON"T GET IT. And neither do most Christians.
Oh, well.
Intollerance exists in every group. Those who go to Christian Church at least want to find the truth. Like Jews and Muslims do too. Too bad so many people are misguided and confused. Isn't that why Christ came here in the first place?
Look for the small thing wrong with your self before you look for the large problem with groups of faithful. They are wrong about a lot, but not about everything. Just like Jews and Muslims.
The Christians used to be at war with each other 400 years ago. We progressed. Why didn't the Jews and the Muslims? We all worship God, don't we?
We must oppose this to the problem of things not working in the closed world. When you change out there and things don't work, all the time in the world is useless. You get to reboot until someone else fixes your problem or does not. Amazing that the cost of the other 2k, which has yet to be changed out, were compared to costs of a desktop that has yet to be tried out in the last five years. Ha ha.
OK, after five years Red Hat recomends an upgrade. Not bad, considering it could have been changed out at no cost and without interuption for better performance four years ago.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There's expense, and then there's cost. They aren't the same. See, expense is typically unforseen - you can't really predict it. Cost, OTOH, is fully predictable.
So, I've found a way to make this study work.
Time spent by an admin fixing, etc, is an expense. Time spent idle (e.g. not performing CPR on a dead box) is cost - wasted money spent on something you don't need.
Clearly, the Win2K will have a much lower cost, because the admin is never idle. *nix, OTOH, will have a huge cost. Win2K clearly has a much higher advantage in the utilization of any SA staff. Clearly.
See? It works! Lol.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I think that rather than fighting the validity of the results, the Linux community should view this as a wake-up call. There's a huge demand for cheaper, easier Linux. So go build it!
First of all, I think its perfectly reasonable to believe that this study took data for one year, or two years, or three years, or however many years since Win2k's inception, and used it to extrapolate a 5-year period. That's done all the time, and its a perfectly valid method of data analysis.
So, that given, let's think about this for a moment. IDC obviously looked at Windows 2000 implementations, and Linux implementations, and calculated how much they'd cost five years down the line. I find it very unlikely (and somebody reply if they know for certain otherwise) that the TCO prediction included the retro cost of OS upgrades (ie, upgrading from NT 4.0 when Win2k came out, upgrading the Linux kernel, etc.). So instead, it assumes that a server purchased today will be in place in 5 years. While programmers, workstation users, and some sysadmins might disagree, as a network administrator, responsible for a certain level of TCO decisions, five years is not a short amount of time for a single server-cycle. If you think about it, there's a reason why so many new server applications still support NT 4: there are a lot of people out there still using NT 4. The cost of upgrading a mission-critical server, whether it be a Linux or a Windows box, is huge, both in dollar value and in terms of time. So mission-critical servers tend to stay the same, without upgrades, until either a mission-critical app comes along that requires better hardware, or until an enterprise grows to the point where they need higher capacity.
That being said, its not at all surprising that the TCO of a Windows box is lower than a Linux box. Where I work, where we use computers primarily for high-end content creation, we have Linux, 2000/NT, Sun, and OS X servers and workstations. Though we pay all of our sysadmins the same hourly wage -- the amount of which is more than competitive for sysadmins in our area -- we do have separate groups working on the Wintel boxes, Sun boxes, and Linux boxes. On a per seat and per server basis, the Linux boxes are by far the most expensive to administrate. Recently we upgraded both Apache (to 2.0) and PHP. Our web server runs Linux, our intranet server runs Wintel, and an http streaming media test server runs on a Sun. Linux was by far -- nearly double, in fact -- the most expensive of the servers to upgrade in terms of man-hours; the Sun box was 2nd, Wintel the cheapest. We had Apache 2.0, and the new (and compatable) version of PHP, up and running within an hour. For Sun, Apache was up in about two hours. Upgrading our Linux server took two days, and not only cost us the manpower but also cost an unmeasurable amount of money for the time we were off-line. In fact, after the first day, we spent twenty minutes setting up the Wintel box to handle web traffic. That's just one example, but the situation has repeated itself countless times.
I will add that one of our server set-ups has caused us no trouble at all, and in fact has been nearly maintanence-free since we set it up. We have a rack of 6 X-serve, OS X-based servers. Since all of our video editing workstations use the MacOS, it made sense to set up our in-house shared media server as an OS X rack. This server was so cheap to administer, in fact, that when we were laying off people last month we had no problem firing the only member of our sysadmin team with substantial OS X experience.
I love Linux and open-source software, and as a self-professed Geek I'm proud to run Linux and GPL software on one of my home computers. But at the enterprise level, Windows is still cheaper. Not that I don't want that to change...
I can't dispute this study, and I think that rather than fighting the validity of the results, the Linux community should view this as a wake-up call. There's a huge demand for cheaper, easier Linux. So go build it!
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
I'm not one of those who feels that software companies are evil for selling software and insisting that customers actually pay. I think they have the right to do so if they create the software.
Even so, from a user's perspective, there are risks to running software with "we'll sue you unless you follow our rules" licenses, such as all commercial software and, to a lesser extent, GPL'ed software.
I'd like to minimize (GPL) or eliminate (genuinely free "university style" licenses) the licensing risks and encumbrances, so I can do whatever I want with the software as I go along, especially as conditions change.
There are other risks to using sometimes amateurish "free" software, but those are diminishing over time in the major categories, while the licensing risks do not seem to be diminishing.
I already find OSS products to be the best overall solution in certain categories, and I anticipate that the number of such categories will continue to grow as the risks of OSS gradually fall below those of commercial products and the usefulness catches up.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Since there is no information on exactly how the study was carried out the results are meaningless. Assuming 100k for a sysadmin and 3.5k for a server you get a ratio of 10 servers per admin using the survey results of 62.2% of TCO for staff and 4.4% for hardware. Now while that seems about right for windows in my experience one good linux sysadmin can handle up to 100 machines, depending on the quality of the hardware. Certainly for linux servers once you have them setup well (with something like debian stable on them) they will run until the hardware breaks with little intervention.
The curve of load on the sysadmin as the number of machines managed increases is likely to be very different for windows and linux and while this IDC study is short on details it sounds like they are probably fixing everything, except the operating system, including the servers per admin and comparing the costs. This is likely to come out bad for linux as the a well qualified linux sysadmin will probably cost more but this ignores the fact that the linux sysadmin could potential manage a much large number of servers reducing the cost per server well below that of windows. Perhaps this is not the way the study was done but it is certainly a way someone could get the result they wanted with such a study.
How many of you are acutally over 15 yrs old and work for a large sized company? No we don't care about the small companies... We care about the mid to large size companies that own well over 98% of the worlds capital (scary isn't it) And I think the article was totally retarded because it was dealing with a stupid issue anyway. The simple fact is you use the system that most suits your needs. For your core system you will run a UNIX system (talkinga bout for a large/med firm ie more the 1000 people). not linux, not windows. For your desktops you'd probably run windows as oppose to linux. now I work for the third largest bank in the world and I can tell you exactly what the TCO considerations are and why we're moving to winXP server base on some of the workstation servers. All user/workstation servers ARE going to winxp no matter what. Why? because all the desktop workstations are going to be Windows XP. The TCO of running a WinXP server with WinXP workstation is INFINITELY better then running a WinXP desktop with a Linux backend or vice versus. Imagine a Nix guru trying to click his way through a windows server.... Shit ... I'd be scared to even imagine the down time when something breaks.. ("G'damn windows.. where's the stupid control panel..") That an why the hell would your user base need to use linux? Can you imagine an investment banker trying to make a powerpoint presentation on linux? Everyone is soo used to windows already if you had them learn linux .. my god would the costs jump immediately.
btw if windows were done for the backend core servers I'd still can see the TOC being lower then linux. Of course no sane company would run their trading systems on a windows box so that's a completely moot point. What all you ignorant 15 yr olds are talking about is the stupid shit... like installing linux from a boot cd or some stupid shit like that... Name one big company that willl spend a million dollars on a server and then worry about sticking in a boot disk to install an OS... (for a million dollars that damn thing better have an OS in there) so no the TOC doesn't include stupid stuff like that.... but when you talk about maintaining a system. Do you have even the foggiest idea how much sun charges for support?... it's like 10k$ / hour.... windows charges what? $400/ hour ? avg Nix admin (good one..) about 100k$ .. avg win admin about 80k$ ... and the thing is I'm never goign to bring linux into this. and that article was retarded for that. A large firm will never consider linux as it's core backend (except for like webservers) simply because they have the money to purchase the sun boxes with the sun high quality support. This thread always turns into a Win vs Linux bash and honestly commando Taco why do you bother posting these threads because people obviously don't give the informative responses like they used to.
It all seems to make sense. Linux support is more expensive than Microsoft support so your total cost of ownership will be higher. This report makes sense if you use the same support model for your Linux systems as you would for your Microsoft systems. The impication is that you need to directly replace your Windows support staff with Linux staff. This is simply not the case Linux is designed to be administered and built over the internet. Quiet large companies need no onsite Linux expert. A simple phone call and most poblems can be fixed remotly. This significantly changes the model. As for the "easy to use management tools" built in to the Windows 2000 Operating system. They are inflexible and often require you to "reboot" the system after changes are made. This does not sound like a problem untill you add up four or five server resets and work out how much downtime this adds up to. If you are using Linux the "server reboot" happens infrequently and then only if really big changes are made to the system. IDC mention file serving and print serving as a place where TCO is higher. On a standard Linux distribution I would probably agree. Setting up windows file sharng can be tedious and time consuming. But why would you choose a standrd distribution for this task. The Mitel SME 5 and Clarkconnect [to name but two] specilaise in this area. The setup of Windows file shares and virtual disk drives is absurdly easy. It needs no special IT training. [No not even a Windows expert] Printers are supported and appear on your network as though through a Windows server. For the sake of argument lets chuck a couple of Mac OS9 $ OSX systems for your graphics people and a legacy Solaris server running Oracle in to the mix. On the two distributions I mantioned both of these will connect and see the same file shares as the Windows workstaions No you won't need a MAC or Solaris expert. Never mind a Windows expert! So where is the argument now? You have no on site Linux staff . You have someone on-site who can deal with day to day administrative tasks [ no IT knowledge required ]and a Windows person who comes in to fix up the Windows Workstaions when they break. Upgrades are done incrementally for a couple of years and then you have to pay the Linux experts to come and spend the afternoon upgrading the system. How is you TCO looking?
You've gotta be kidding. There is a reason people are using linux in the server room. Did you happen to notice IBM SUPPORTS LINUX ON EVERY SERVER THEY SELL? Yeah, that's right, the world doesn't revolve around Sun. Last time I checked I wouldn't touch their stock with a ten foot pole. Check that out 15 year old. By the way, contrary to what you've been told, small to medium sized businesses make up the core of the world's economy and they aren't buying million dollar servers. MS didn't get rich catering to "the enterprise". They made their money on SMALL BUSINESS SERVER LICENSES. While I'm at it, where the fuck did you find a copy of WinXP server? THERE IS NO SUCH PRODUCT! If you are referring to .Net server, it isn't even out yet! You almost had something there talking about "use what your user base requires". Then you turned right around and assumed that everyone in the world requires Windows. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the growing trend of government agencies around the world turning to linux as a cheap yet more secure alternative to Windows. I guess you also didn't notice that linux happens to be fairly popular among the masses in countries whose people can't always afford a forced upgrade. And as far as TCO, the only reason you don't give a shit about rolling out 400,000 copies of WindowsXP on systems is because you have a volume license key that doesn't make you register your hardware on every machine you "Ghost". Yeah, people without that key have to REGISTER every last machine they install. By the way, what job market do you work in? I'll be damned if I can find a Linux Admin. job that pays 100K$...
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Your attitude is why Linux won't ever make it on the corporate desktop. You're a know-it-all young punk who has never been in the real world, and you think you have all the answers.
Ever try to buy a computer in a corporate environment? There are no "low end" machines available from normal supply chains. Going outside the supply chain ends up being more expensive from the bureaucratic overhead.
Download and install a Suse ISO, I dare ya. Oops, there's a proprietary installer, isn't there? And yes, you need a techie to install it. And no, you have no clue at all what a techie costs - figure 3x the wages, what with benefits, SSI, and fuck-off time. $100 is a very low estimate of the cost of the techie's time to install and configure a Linux desktop.
Show me an enterprise-class accounting package for Linux, I dare ya. Not the pre-beta kiddie-cobbled crap littering SourceForge, but a working, proven package.
Now go play with your Gimp, I have work to get done with Adobe. And it'll take me 1/10 the time it would on the Gimp.
If your company double its size, what is the cheaper solution to manage what has been added to your network?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Windows servers, inevitably fail within hours. Being down for most of the night accounts for an average 22% reduction in power usage and bandwidth costs, making Windows servers much cheaper to use.
American IT workers typically make 30% more than in other developed countries, ignoring altogether countries such as India. It is thereore possible that in the United States, the TCO of Linux may in some cases exceed that of Win2k. In many other countries the license for Win2K alone would exceed the TCO of a linux file/print server. In countries such as India, the cost of a Win2K license makes Linux very attractive, which may help explain the recent "Investment" by MS in that country (i.e. giving avay free Windows licences to deter defection).
Even assuming a Windows 2000 server might be cheaper to operate than a Linux server in some situations (which I have to seriously doubt), there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration, including:
1. Reliability. Linux is capable of uptimes of at least 1-2 years, where Windows servers often need to rebooted because they get trashed and almost always require one or more reboots for patches, service packs, etc.
2. Vendor lock-in. When they've got you by the balls, they can extort as much money as they want from you.
3. The time and trouble required to continually keep track of licenses to make sure you're in compliance
4. (Related to #3) Not having to worry about the jack-booted thugs from the BSA kicking in your door and doing a surprise audit, and the tremendous cost associated with the audit.
5. Having access to the source code to fix bugs, compile optimized binaries, customize applications, fix a security hole, etc.
6. Dependence on the vendor to fix bugs or security holes. You are completely at their mercy without source.
7. Cross-platform capability. You're only using x86 if you buy Microsoft.
8. Not giving money to a predatory, anti-competitive company that has been found by a court to have violated anti-trust law and also has an obscene profit margin for Windows licenses, a clear indication of blatant price gouging.
9. For foreign countries, especially governments, not being dependent on a single American corporation.
10. Continual licensing costs each time you upgrade all your servers every few years.
11. Costs of hardware upgrades that will almost certainly be needed when upgrading all your Windows servers.
Can anyone think of any more?
Linux people tend to only think of enterprise computing (and all computing for that matter) as web servers. I think the results of IDC's study. However, web computing is only a fraction of all computing. There are a lot of databases big and small. There are many file servers. There are many print servers. There are many APPLICATION servers. There are domain controllers. etc. Microsoft spends lots of R&D on making it all work together for the end user. They also spend a lot of time and effort giving admins tools to manage end users and their desktops. Novell is the only other company/OS in this arena. NDS and Active Directory ring a bell? Software deployment sound familar to anyone? Clue: Big shops don't send PC jockeys with CDs to install applications. They get pushed down with Zenworks or GPOs. Ask a Linux administrator to setup a plan to convert all the company's desktops with little to no downtime for the users. Now ask a Novell or Microsoft admin to do it. Guess who can't get it done fast. Ask a Linux admin to use his Linux servers to lock down the users' desktops to minimize support calls. You don't think of that one often, do you? Developing these kinds of enterprise tools isn't sexy, but it is critical. Without it, Linux will always be a niche in the server room. The next time your boss decides to go with a Microsoft solution indstead of Linux, don't bitch about marketing. Realize that there is this whole other role to be filled out in the enterprise. Now get coding and fill that role!
I wonder if IDC considered that "Software Assurance" will force an upgrade every 3 years.
Assigning any value at all to the licensing BS, downtime due to patches & upgrades would put Linux back up on top.
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
.. .? and know how Linux will develop over the course of the next 5 years as Linux is pretty much the same operating system it was 5 years ago, right...? Sure is Amazing they can predict the future so accurately.
It must be a really good report if windows 2000 offers a better TCO over 5 years. . pretty cool that they can see into the future like that, and know exactly what windows will cost tomorrow, cuz the cost has been constant for the last 5 years right
The point that Windows 2000 hasn't been out for 5 years doesn't have anything to do with the validity of the study. The same "version" of Linux hasn't been out 5 years ago either. What was the kernel at back then... 2.0? Or even older than that? What were the distros like? Were they are easy to use as they are now? Were they as bloated? Etc.
I'm not saying that the overall results of the study are right. But maybe the article is wrong, and the study really covered "Windows environments" over a 5 year period, rather than specifically Windows 2000. I think it's a given that Windows, in general, has changed alot less over the last 5 years than has Linux... which says alot in Linux's defense! Maybe the first 3 years of the study when Linux was in what I consider its commercial infancy skewed the results!
I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?
Yep:
3:14:07 GMT Jan 19 2038 (Tue)
That's when the Unix/Linux clock rolls over.
You might have a few extra hours if you're keeping your system clock on local rather than GMT.
Linux (and any time-sensitive apps that use the appropriate system calls and/or data structures) will need a Y2K-like upgrade some time before that. For some a recompile with different includes will fix it but others may be more problematic. And like the Y2K bug we won't know for sure if we got them all until weeks after the magic date.
Fortunately, all the Unix/Linux bugs are connected to a single point source-of-failure (the undersized clock variable and related kernel data structures and system call). They can thus be tracked down in a straightforward manner. That's quite different from the Y2K bug, where an artifact of the numbering system lured people into making the same classes of error, separately, thousands of times.
Note that SOME Unix implementations (i.e. Amdahl's UTS) already expanded the clock from 32 to 64 bits, and other data structures similarly. (Amdahl did that years before Y2K - they were thinking ahead).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sure, I am in agreement. I talked to a guy who wanted to migrate his LAN over to linux from nds enabled 4.11. I was a novell admin for three years, but my first love is linux. Even so I know where linux shines and novell shines. Novell's place is in LAN, it is so easy to deal with as a file and DB server that anything else is crazy. client32 is a little bit of a pain in the ass at the best of times, but is basically workable. The closest thing to novell in LAN is samba, but with MS and their shoot first , look last policies and the need for desktop migration in MS shops it's not a good bet.
Linux is easier to manage (says Microsoft) on a large number of machines. So how can Linux be more expensive than Windows? People who know Linux don't magically get paid 10 times the money Windows people do. They probably make about the same in most cases, given equal # of years experience and equal talent.
This study is a big Troll. The fact that it is "breaking news" ought to raise red flags for most people! tsk tsk
I totally agree. The X systems per admin mentaility is what stupid managers use to work out resource requirements. It depends not just on the OS and the hardware but more what it is used for. How many users rely on the applications that run on it, and how dynamic is the environment. There is a reason some systems cost $5,000 while others cost millions, why would they cost the same to manage?.
Who the fuck cares about the fucking stock market!? Investment is a losing proposition and a waste of time. Besides, some of us have more important things to think about than money. Like coding for instance... MUDRA FOOKA!!!
is lower than that of Linux. Every IT firm (and of them are really big firms) that I have worked with in India had 1 or 2 licenced copies of Win2K and the rest of the 99% installations were all illegal copies.
Must be another fine mathematician from Microsoft. Say something nice about Linux and they always go nuts!
I read Slashdot everyday and I see article after article showing a blow by blow event on different email leaks from MS and supposed articles detailing how MS admitted that Unix is better (woot!) and this continues with countless numbers of virii and holes in Outlook and IE. Slashdot is always first to post this and we are always first to laugh and rub it in the face of any Windows user.
So here we are. Facing a much larger delimma. (sp?) the costs of running Linux versus Windows as an Enterprise. Windows beat out dream of pure domination of the GPL, Opensource and Freesoftware.
First comments out of the gates. "Oh it is FUD by MS" or "It isn't scientificly done I know Linux is cheaper." Come on my brothers wake up. If this article holds water, which apparently it does then we haven't reached out goal yet. We haven't succeeded where we though MS failed. Linux is a superior platform but we still have work. We cannot give up the fight and when we lose a battle we have to take it like real men and women, not a buch of sissies who go immediately into denial.
We are better than that, or at least I think we are.
~Char Lander
Brothers and sisters I have none, but this mans father is my fathers son
Too damnded(sorry...) right! You get what you pay for. I tried it on my computer, threw it in the bin and installed RedHat 8.0 instead.
:-p
So there
John_Chalisque
A complete moron may buy this crock - lock-stock-&-barrel - but any functionally operating
systems analyst or information systems engineer would take this for nothing less than pure
drivel.
Biggest piece of horseshit I've ever read. I will never subscribe or read any IDC-related publication
ever again in my professional life.
If any professional "SA" ever spouts that type of shit to me ...... "don't let the door hit your arse on the way out!".
Now - before we leave - I prefessionally work with a team of systems analysts (Unix/NT/2k) that spans over
3000 "production" machines.
With more than 25 years in this field - I'd say that I could tell IDC one - or - 2 things.
#1 - Unix SA /machine ratio - 6 SAs - 440+ machines
#2 - NT/2k SA / machine ratio - 55 SAs - 220+ machines
REAL WORLD.
RIGHT NOW.
Our team has machines running with "zero" downtime measured in years.
Not 1 - one - of those machines is running a Microsoft operating system or a revenue generating system.
Microsoft can NOT deliver a 'mission-critical' version of their software.
We've tried everything that does not involve a "huge" investment
in hardware and then "their" software.
Finally - they have _NEVER_ lived up to their promises. PERIOD.
Interesting but not really relevant. While the study does examine longer term ownership issues, which is an improvement many we have seen. Over five years, 11-22 % really amounts to nothing other than a margin of error, statistically speaking. Yet another TCO study for the bottom of the bird cage!
It IS impossible for a price to fall more than 100 percent.
It IS impossible for one product to be more than 100 percent cheaper than another product.
Is this why YOU are such a fine mathemetician?
Trust me. Ask someone you trust, if you dare.
And who gave you a score of 1. Are you allowed to self-moderate?
-Please use a calculator????;) Pllease
Don't want to comment on the report but as I read some of your arguments, let me tell some points about business:
* Business has no initial preference for Windows or Linux, whatever is cheaper and does the job its ok. (cheaper mid/long term of course)
* Business doesn't care about your understanding of technology. They just want the job done and as cheap as possible.
* Business doesn't care about the job perfectly done. They just want something that does the job and satisfies the customer. The final result is to bill them.
* Business use technology for their purpose, but are not interested at all in technology. They just look for simple and fast solutions, not architecting a complex and feature full IT System.
and last, but more important,
* Business considers you just another resource. They don't want to invest in you, nor build a career for you, nor teach you to improve you knowledge. They just want you to do the job and if they invest in you its because economically its the best way to have things done.
* Business can go on with or without you, so don't be so proud of your deep understanding of how things work. Another one will get that knowledge given enough time. And if you are in a hurry you can pay for it.
Business=profit=no mercy... thats corporate life.
(I must have irked the mighty Bill Gate$ himself).
Take a good look at their 11% and 22% figures. Just what DID they do to arrive at these peculiar numbers? Did Microsoft factor new OS rollouts after 5 years expired and the OS becomes unsupported? Does MS include service patches? Did they include Support Agreements that shake down the industry to buy into the next OS next year? These costs factor into EACH AND EVERY CPU, EVEN WITH MULTIPROCESSOR SYSTEMS! Linux, on the other hand, once a drive is imaged can be mirrored across a network with little cost.
11% and 22% makes as much sense as 111% and 222% in this context. Just numbers floating in the ether to muddy the waters.
Its a slashdot article. What did you expect?
11 and 22 percent are mathematically correct
111 and 222 percent are not.
The importance of leaders cannot be stressed enough. Whether militarily, medically or just within the home a leader is first of all someone who understands their role and how they are important indeed but are not the most important factor. A leader without troops is nothing, but a trooper without a leader has the possibility to do great things that the single leader could never do. A good leader not only understands this but lives by it. They believe that they are a part of the team, a player of a particular role that they MUST perform well. Sadly many do not understand this as is evidenced by shocking number of "filler" managers around today. People are placed into management position simply because they are too incompetent to fit anywhere else... yet that measure of competents seem to stop there. So in the end you have the upper management or executives which will spout rhetoric on the importance of management yet it is obvious by their very actions and choices that they themselves do not believe this.
I work right now for an organization that is lead by a "snake oil salesmen" manager. He was once I believe a good leader. However he is apathetic (and pathetic) now yet will not admit that unto himself. Sadly he is more interested in illogical ramblings rather than sound business practices and in the end we have team leads that act like a bull in a china shop. Any talent is ground under the BS of incompetence. The result is low morale or at least a widespread adoption of apathy. The apathy seems to be a defensive mechanism in response to the lack of trust in upper management. That the management does not see it a problem that they are not seen as trustworthy or dependable is a sign that they do not understand leadership. Even tyrants understood this, although they usually resorted to propoganda tactics to trick the populace into believing the leaders are indeed trustworthy. (Much like a foolish child can be bought with candy, video games and other "eye candy") To be fair however, there is really only one manager in my organization who will tell it to you straight and not resort to platitudes and patronizing. So perhaps they attempt to propogandize but are just incompetent in that as well. What they ARE good at is the bullshit factor. They can shmooze among the best. They spend more of their time bullshiting than being facilitators for their organizations. Of course why this works is that our customer is the government. The government/contractor relationship is one of a system of welfare where actual results are ignored over backslapping and "golf buddy deals." Your tax dollars hard at bullshit... err, work.
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary
to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one
ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a
job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing
forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient
he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a
state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the
"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.
-- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work"
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