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Australian TCO Study: Linux Wins Again
An anonymous reader writes "An updated Linux vs Windows TCO study has found that a 250-seat company can end up saving 36 percent if it were to equip its users with the open source operating system and applications that run on it."
http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/linux_vs_windo ws_tco_comparison.pdf
Linked to in the article.
I've found partial transition over 3-5 years worked well when it came to large organisations that are tied to MS platform. You dont change everything at once, you look long term and start where you can and move towards linux.
If you get the CEO's backing it can be done as long as it is not rushed and your prepared to make it a long term goal. Middle management will always make things difficult, they have grown up on excel, vb etc. But as long as you have support from the top and dont stand on there toes to much it can be done.
* Start with web server, dns and dhcp migration to linux.
* Migrate the file servers to samba.
* Follow that by email.
* Replace browsers with firefox.
* Replace outlook with evolution or thunderbird.
* Start slow process of migrating desktop machines to linux. Start with upper management and people who only user email + open office. Single out a department for this if you can. X terminals can be a useful tool here.
* Look at replacing key database applications with open source alternatives. Most SQL database have unix and linux versions, expect for MS SQL.
Over a long time you can afford to look at replacing key infustructure.
* Replace ms office with open office.
* The small time custom apps that the organisation has collected over the last 20 years or any apps that are going to be too expensitve to port, place them on a w2k terminal server and access them from linux rdesktop. Over next 20 years they can be phased out.
* Complete migration to linux desktop.
* If there is an art department that use windows, use Mac OS X as your target platform.
* Leave the middle managers there windows laptops, just firewall them off. When they die or get to slow replace them with linux or powerbook laptops.
At the end try and aim for a couple dozen windows terminal servers to run whatever the organisation is still dependent on for windows, firewall these off to protect against virus and disable internet access on them. After 5 years these windows servers will slowly be decommissioned and the organisation would have made the complete switch.
Only if you haven't used Unix extensively. Compared to Windows managing multiple computers in Unix/Linux is trivial. You scripts don't care how many computers they connect to after all.
And managing things like AV/Firewall/WindowsUpdate is still not as streamlined as it can be on a Unix system.
Yes, I always make sure I schedule hard drive and power supply failures well in advance so that everyone can save their work beforehand.
TWW
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