Linux From A CIO's Perspective

An anonymous reader writes "CIO.com has a story on Linux and OSS in the enterprise from the perspective of the CIO of Cendant Travel Distribution Services, Mickey Lutz. 'In the summer of 2003, Mickey Lutz did something that most CIOs, even today, would consider unthinkable: He moved a critical part of his IT infrastructure from the mainframe and Unix to Linux. For Lutz, the objections to Linux, regarding its technical robustness and lack of vendor support, had melted enough to justify the gamble.' His organization saved 90% in costs in so doing. Read on if you want to see how the top brass views OSS."

Comments

Linux beats Unix on cost

[bedroll]

The only thing that makes this news is that a CIO actually recognized it.

Why didn't he choose Windows?

[team99parody]

Clearly (from the get the facts site) it costs even less than Linux (just kidding) -- so I'm guessing Linux won not because of cost but because of technical superiority.

Any other ideas?

hey Mickey...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

some guy name "bill" called from redmond. he wants to explain you why linux is more expensive...

aww

[Pyrrus]

I was hoping to see a "Windows has lower TCO than Linux" ad that slashdot runs for Microsoft when I clicked the article.

Re:Difficult, but big payoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a tweak which gains a 1% performance gain, multiply that against 4000 machines, and it's quite an advantage.

Let's see . . . that's . . . [pencil scratching] . . . 1%! Amazing!

Re:Not good from my experience

[dfiguero]

same thing as yesterday!

Here's the rebuttal:

Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Funny)
by NoMoreNicksLeft (516230) Alter Relationship on Thursday June 30, @03:01PM (#12952440)
(http://24.125.88.66/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 04, @12:50PM)
I tried switching the family over to JSF attack jets over the summer
vacation and the wails of terror, utter anxiety, and lack of any flight training whatsoever was enough to crash the jets straight into the ground.
So why all the troubles?
Afterall JSF pilots love to tell stories of how the JSF is so
much better than a donkey cart with a broken wheel and they would never try to fly across the ocean in one.
My conclusion after seeing real people in a real average Jane setting
crash and burn after being dropped in the pilot's seat midair is that the JSF advocates are just plain lying
because the JSF is really a step backwards for people used to using
technology several centuries behind what it should be.

To make this short and simple, virtually NOTHING worked properly in the JSF.
Telling the JSF to turn left and swatting it with your hand did nothing, it would not listen.
Stuffing oats and barley into the fuel tank did not refuel it. In fact, the jet technician said I caused 100s of 1000s of $$$ worth of damage!
I tried to nail a proper shoe onto the jet turbine, but the jet-grade aluminum just gouged.
I applied salve to where we attached the harness, but the weird metallic lesions would not heal.
We then took the JSF to a vetrinarian, but he said he did not treat JSFs.
I was unable to tie the reins up to the hitching post.
And it goes on and on for pages,but the bottom line is that the JSF lasted about 3 days in my house before I ditched it and went back to
my donkey cart with a broken wheel.

Conclusion is that the JSF is a birds nest of confusion. The JSF seems
like it might be good until you actually try and fly it and then it
shows it's ugliness, slowness and instability.

Why on earth ANYONE would use the JSF for personal transportation is beyond me.
--
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars) More like 86 chars.

No, Linux saved that guy's a$$.

[khasim]

Like most critics, I'm not good at leading large companies. But I know good leadership when I see it. This guy Lutz has his head bolted on right.

I'll have to disagree with that. He made a good choice in going to Linux from Unix, but he did so is such a fucked up way that it was only Linux's technological goodness that saved him from being a poster boy for Microsoft's "Linux sucks" campaign.

Here, from TFA:

The decision not to focus more on testing came back to haunt them.

The CIO decided not to TEST the system correctly?

Frantic calls began coming in from some of the 44,000 travel agency locations in 116 countries that were unable to access Fares.

Their customers cannot access their new Linux system!

Lutz would not comment on the financial losses incurred by United or Galileo during the downtimes.

They were LOSING money with their new Linux system.

"In hindsight," says Lutz, "we shouldn't have tried to cut over to a new infrastructure at the same time we were deploying a new software application. It was too much at once."

This guy made novice-level mistakes and it was only because Linux is so good that this became a huge success rather than a terrible failure.

Rather than falling back to the old platform at the first signs of trouble and reworking the new one, the engineers always thought the answer was around the corner.

You always have a back-out plan. Always.

This guy took a huge risk ... screwed it up royally ... and was saved by IBM, Red Hat and Linux.

And the Linux system STILL saves him $$$MILLIONS$$$ every year and OUTPERFORMS his old system.

It's one thing when you're a genius CIO who plans and test for every contingency and deploys a working Linux system.

It's a completely different thing when you don't BUT YOU STILL SUCCEED BECAUSE OF LINUX.

This story is important because it shows the average CIO that, even if you aren't a genius and you DO make mistakes, Linux can STILL save you barrels of money and make you LOOK like a genius.

Re:Difficult, but big payoff

[ArsonSmith]

You forgot to carry the 1, it's actually 42%