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A New Look at Linux vs. Windows TCO
An anonymous reader writes "Laura DiDio, research fellow at the Yankee Group, published a column this morning in which she discusses key findings from a new survey on the total cost of ownership of Windows vs. Linux. DiDio often is written off by the Linux camp as being pro-Microsoft, but she offers excellent, neutral advice for any IT department considering a fundamental systems switch: 'If you do not know what is on your network, if you cannot at least estimate the hourly, monthly or yearly cost of downtime, if you do not know how long it takes to recover from a security outage, if you cannot answer questions about the extent of your company's license compliance, then you cannot truly evaluate whether Linux, Windows or Unix is right for your business. Chances are, if you cannot answer most or all of those questions, it does not matter what operating system you have because ignorance of the core TCO tenets means that your business is not getting the most out of its networks.' "
I wouldn't say that any of the two are that cheap. In reality, Windows has a very user-friendly interface and a broad variety of applications. Linux on the other hand, requires individuals with a knowledge about a software which is not quite as common as Windows is.
At work, we have approximately 120 Linux servers and zero running Windows. We did, however, run Windows in the past. What we have come up with is, Windows is more of a first time cost for your company and then it goes on quite okay if you're running up to date software and decent firewalls. Linux, on the other hand, costs a shitload of maintenance and therefore a lot of expenses as well.
I believe that - in the long term - a lot of different types of businesses can benefit from running Windows. Some may not because they don't have the money to fund Windows from the start.
And then we have the security issues.. Man, I wish I was rich and then I'd not have to give a crap.
Full Tilt
Oh please. 1.) Where I work the UNIX admins don't last more than 2 months before burning out. Too much stuff to fix all the time, specially on the Solaris side of the house. We are still running with our original Windows crew, minus two who left to join other companies. We pay VERY well for IT so it's not about Unix guys getting paid more. 2.) We have about 780 Windows servers, and 35 Unix servers. We have 5 Windows admins (soon to be 6) and 3 Unix admins. Do the math. 3.) The Windows admins here think for themselves, yes they have bosses, but those boss types know to let them do their own thing, their own way. The unix guys? They are lazy, be it like a fox or not, they are lazy. 4.) The windows side of the house here has a better up time than the Unix side of the house. Again, just because YOU work with dumb admins on the Windows side does not mean they all are. For example, I not only manage our Windows server team, I also manage all the sendmail gateways and the Solaris boxes they run on, the DMZ firewalls, our few Macs (OS 10.3 unfortunately), and our small Linux deployment.
And then there's the karma whore who points all this out in a vain attempt to be funny... but let's just ignore him for the moment.
Seconded. In addition, although it's not quite as overt as the other hatchet-jobs she's written, there were still a couple of things in it that made me wonder. For example:
"Microsoft's Latest News about Microsoft Windows commands 65 to 70 percent of the server operating system market, while the Linux Latest News about Linux share stands at 15 to 20 percent."
Is this true? It's very, very different to the figures I normally se quoted - does it take into account the fact that you can generally run many more "servers" on a linux box than a windows box? (Translates into artificially inflated numbers of Windows boxes sold, to run the same number of actual "server" programs).
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself