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IBM Reports Indicate Linux TCO Is Lower
Tontoman writes "Information Week reports that
two research reports sponsored by IBM argue that Linux is less expensive to buy and operate than Windows or Unix. The first, a Robert Frances Group study, concluded: 'Linux is 40% less expensive than a comparable x86-based Windows server and 54% less than a comparable Sparc-based Solaris server. The Linux server's costs were $40,149, compared with $67,559 for Windows and $86,478 for Solaris.' The second, a Pund-IT report, titled 'Beyond TCO--The Unanticipated Second Stage Benefits Of Linux,' indicates that 'Linux is enormously popular among IT staff members, many of whom are at the beginning of their careers, as well as with IT educators in universities and technical institutions worldwide.' This has resulted in Linux playing a significant role in the recruitment and retention of IT staff and managers."
But Linux's licensing-cost edge is likely to wane as Microsoft and some Unix vendors, notably Sun Microsystems, lower their prices.
Competition drives prices down...who'd of thought...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Per-OS TCO does not exist in a vacuum. Organizational direction, sunk costs from previous IT investments, interoperability with business partners / clients / vendors... each of these is a factor that will be different for EVERY business making the Linux/Windows/etc. choice.
IMO a well-run organization will have a hybrid environment.
That being said, it is useful for planning purposes to know in which situations Linux TCO beats Windows and vice versa.
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
remember that IBM has a substantial interest in Linux. If it was the other way around we'd be crying foul about how studies will always find in favour of whoever's funding them. Anyone know if there's ever been a truly independent comparison
I am trolling
Here's one for the conspiracy theorists. IBM sells consulting services - it may just be that the cost of linux is higher, much higher once you throw in the cost of IBM's specialists. May be it's more unstable, needs more attention, is harder to maintain than the BSDs, OS X, or even Windows. Oh wait a minute, no it's Slashdot, Linux is perfect...
I don't need to RTFA to know that IBM is making pretty good money of Linux. No wonder the "research" says Linux is cheaper.
It's the same as Microsoft "research"; 100% pure marketing drivel.
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that an IBM-funded report favoring Linux won't get treated with the same healthy scepticism that a Microsoft-funded report favoring Window.
Folks : if you treat any of these studies as anything other than another form of advertising, you're a fool.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
My first thought at why it would be more expensive for Solaris would be that an experienced Solaris Admin can command a much higher salary. Although we would like to believe that a good Linux Admin can work with all kinds of Unix/Linux varients, there are enough differences between them that an admin with home or small business Linux experience might have a little difficulty on a larger Unix system.
It could also be that because Unix is perceived to be a "big busness" operating system, companies are willing to pay more for someone who has actual Unix experience rather than Linux training.
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
This study will be very useful as a counterbalance to the MS-funded studies, andgiven that it's backed by IBM, it can't be as easily ignored by management as some of the other, recent refutations of MS's results.
News, no. Good PR, most definately.
I am not surprised at linux's lower cost, I am surprised Solaris was so high. Other than Sun's high licensing costs I'm at a loss on why Solaris would be so much higher.
No surprise. This study is done by a company that is a competitor of Solaris and Windows, and a proponent of Linux. It's no better than a study done by MS or any other company with a vested interest.
Looking at some of the posts here I'm surprised at all Slashdotters dropping the "biased study" critique as soon as they like some of the findings.
That statement is so true. Back in college, we all developed on Linux environment because: 1. Our professors were old school and know Unix and C. 2. More importantly, we can get down into the nuts and bolts of the OS. It really helps when you're taking a class on OS. My friend and I wrote a 2 line Perl script to create and kill process one after another just to see how Linux will handle process IDs wrapping around and basing our design decision on that (part of it is also the Geek factor to see what happens). 3. Linux and open source tools are freely available.
Now at work, most of the younger developers and IT staffers are also Linux users. MS haven't done so well in winning the hearts and minds of the next generation.
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And it's not even the up-front hardware costs that can kill you (Solaris 10 on an opteron is actually pretty damned price-competitive), it is the relative rarity of the applicable skillsets (and there can be a world of difference between a high-end Solaris, AIX, etc. machine and your common linux server on Dell hardware or whatever) which leads to increased salaries for the in-house administrative staff and the cost of vendor maintenance contracts which tend to be much higher than you might expect coming from the windows/x86/etc. world. (On the other hand, with proprietary Unix you do sometimes get what you pay for. High-end support from a single vendor who provided both the hardware and software in a system can be pretty reassuring if you have a business-critical system, and proprietary Unix runs on hardware that in some cases can do things that your common x86 stuff just does not scale to, both in terms of reliability and in terms of capability. As with all things, tools have jobs they are better suited to than others.)
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We also buy support plans for them, so when parts fail, we can call the vendor and have them delivered to us anytime, day or night. Not having to wait to run to the CompUSA first thing in the morning to buy a replacement for that failed hard disk.
These annual support fees are figured into these TCO studies, as they should be.
every week we see a report claiming one or the other is "Lower TCO!!11one"... I'm pretty much numb to it now and don't pay attention to them anymore. I/we use what we need to get our job done efficiently and move on. Besides, I haven't seen a "study" yet that comes close to what we need to do here so they are largely irrelevant to us anyway.
All these "studies" are just hot air now.
Every time MS puts out a report that Windows TCO is lower, everyone here dismisses it as propaganda. What about this time? IBM has a substantial investment in Linux and I noticed that their own AIX wasn't used as an example. It's just another case of manipulating the facts to fit one particular view. To call it anything else is intellectually dishonest.
..Microsoft releasing a report that Linux has lower TCO or IBM saying Linux is more expensive to run. I mean, just because it's a "research report" makes it no less an advertisment by the company that sponsered it. All this shows is these reports are kinda pointless because you can "prove" whatever you want to believe.
Isn't that the same argument Microsoft has against Linux?
Windows Software +299 for Windows OS
Plus Several Thousand for Apps.
Games are equal cost on both systems. More Games on Linux for same price.
Linux Software = $5 month Cedega + $50 UT2K4
Most Everything else is apt-got.
My Admin time is the same on both, I just enjoy the linux stuff alot more.
This study was funded by me. I am biased because it was my money, I'm biased toward the cheaper solution. Solution is the Key, Has to work.
I choose Linux cause it works first and is cheaper second. I switched from Windows because it didn't work first and was expensive second.
IBM has a very long memory Bill. And pretty Deep Pockets. They are releasing anti Windows Pro Linux papers by the truckloads.(Check http://www.linuxdevices.com/) And I thank them.
My Son asked why I dislike MS so much. My answer was that Microsoft is responsible for quite a few things I like about computing and IT. However, they are also responsible for EVERYTHING that turns my stomache about our chosen field.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
TCO studies are frequently misleading.
They can also be molded to fit *any* conclusion since the creator of the study controls and defines the conditions from which he basis his conclusions. These initial conditions are very subjective.
TCO studies looking at Windows vs. Linux vs. Mac vs. Unix are especially bad because of the zealotry involved. Besides this, their results only apply to scenarios (like every TCO study), "If I have setup A, these people working for me, and I want to accomplish B, C and D then X is the best OS for me". The conclusion you extracted from this might be right, however it is right only for this particular scenario. Its impossible to generalize it over a range of scenarios.
Truth is, sometimes Windows TCO is lower, and sometimes Linux TCO is lower.
Q: What's better C++, Java, Perl, C, PHP or C#?
A: What do you want to do?
Perhaps, but the argument is now opposed by the second study that says how many eager new IT people have Linux skills. Young = cheap.
This is brining the admin cost of Linux down to the point where Windows admins were a few years ago when everyone got their MCSE.
You know, I'm seeing a lot of posts saying things along the lines of "If this were a Microsoft study, everyone would be calling foul, but since it's IBM and it's pro-Linux, everyone's going to accept it unquestioningly!"
I have not actually seen any posts accepting it unquestioningly. At least none getting significantly modded up.
So, you know. Calm down. Talk about the actual article, don't just complain about Slashdot.
(Yes, I know this post is hypocritcal)
These TCO stories are baffling to me. With the cost of hardware remaining the same, Linux is the clear winner:
Linux: $0
Windows: $129
My guess would be:
1. Nobody knows how to use it, everybody coming out of school these days is used to using Linux and/or BSD, from this perspective Solaris does a lot of weird things for no reason.
2. Much as Sun's pushing Solaris/x86, if you're using Solaris, you're still pretty much going to be using expensive, locked-in Sun hardware. (Of course that hardware is probably more reliable, but sometimes lower TCO means you get what you pay for).
3. Sun is a competitor to IBM who commissioned the study, maybe the study misrepresents Sun TCO in some way.
Sparcstations are just too reliable. We have machines from 1991 running NIS+ and some other stuff. No manager making a purchase decision is ever going to believe that a server will run for 15 years without a glitch, and he is not going to spread the TCO over 15 years. Nobody in the organization is qualified to touch the machines, and many of the windows system admins who have taken over don't even know they exist.
The windows admins occasionally screw up the network (like when they made the NIS+ servers unreachable by changing the IP numbers of the only two sparcstations allowed to access them), and then we immediately hire an expensive external admin to solve the problem.
Lessons:
- Sun hardware is too reliable: the machines will be technologically obsolete before they fail. Sun can save costs there, because nobody appreciates it anyway unless they are building a spacecraft or nuclear power plant.
- Comparing an x86 machine against a sparcstation based on a lifespan of 5 years is completely unfair. We spend an expensive two weeks configuring a new sparcstation, and then let it run for 15 years. The Windows machines are tinkered with all the time by cheap Windows idiots. The sparcstation gets cheaper as time progresses (if Windows administrators cannot interfere with its operation).
- What about the costs of letting Windows idiots tinker with your infrastructure all the time? THEY are the ones that create the problems for the sparcstations in our organization because they don't know what they are doing.
Or one could look at this as a problem:
"Nobody in the organization is qualified to touch the machines, and many of the windows system admins who have taken over don't even know they exist.
The windows admins occasionally screw up the network...and then we immediately hire an expensive external admin to solve the problem."
In other words, you have obsolete machines running critical processes that no one knows how to maintain, so you have to hire external people to solve it.
This is what will happen to Windows or Linux or any other OS if you let "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule for too long. (Of course, Windows won't last that long anyway, but that's another issue.)
Just because something works doesn't mean it's not obsolescent. I don't care what it's doing, a fifteen-year-old machine is obsolete NOW.
In other words, it's incompetent management that is the problem, not the OS.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
And use whichever one you feel most comfortable with, because in the long run, the cost of having the box sitting there is going to be about the same. I'd bet that most of the cost difference just depends on the IT staff. I'm sure that there are experienced Windows and Linux IT guys that can keep their respective boxes running well for little cost. It's when you get bumbletards running around trying to be IT that causes the TCO to rise.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
On Linux you can look at a config file that *gasp* gives you the same information that those checkboxes are - the settings that the system is running under.
Once Linux / Unix / Windows / Any OS has a massive failure - it is complicated to troubleshoot and you need knowledge of how the server and applications work. It's a conceptual nightmare.
In other words - if you talk to a good Windows admin they'll think that the Linux system is a conceptual nightmare because they're used to Windows. If you talk to a *nix admin they'll tell you Windows is a conceptual nightmare because they're used to *nix.
Basically if you don't know the underlying architecture in either system and try and just fake things by guessing - you're not going to get far in a real problem situation. I don't see that as a benefit or drawback of Linux/Windows - just a fact of life. Good administrators have a lot of knowledge about their systems and environment.
I'm going to buy the right tool for the job. This isn't a popularity contest.
Part of being the right tool is being one that the IT staff knows how to use, or that you can easily hire staff to use. So in a way it is a popularity contest. And while it may be cool among CTOs to have comtempt for the opinions of your IT staff, it might be that they actually have a good reason for liking what they do.
That makes the best description of windows vs unix usiability I think I've ever heard.
Summed up as:
Windows makes easy things easier and hard things harder. Where as Unix makes hard thigns easier but easy things harder.
Windows low cost of entry expensave maintance, unix high cost of entry, lower maintance.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
It's funny how Microsoft funds a TCO study that shows Windows to be lower in cost, and the Slashbots rise up and flood the comments with "well of COURSE that's what a MICROSOFT funded study will show." Yet when IBM does the same thing, there is a distinct lack of comments of the same sort. Newsflash: corporation funds a study and the results miraculously serve its interests!
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
"I don't care what it's doing, a fifteen-year-old machine is obsolete NOW."
The hardware may be obselete, but if it is still doing the job you replace it when it fails (or ideally just before). Not having a replacement plan could be an issue, and I suspect these people don't.
The idea there is some perpetual upgrade path we all must walk is a myth created by the IT industry to keep sales figures high, and sustained in part by bad software engineering.
It isn't even obvious they have a management issue, just because they get outside help to sort problems on the boxes, if they only have an issue every few years it is cheaper not to employ the expertise.
I've had 10 year old systems fail whilst still under vendor support contracts, fixed and returned to service inside 24 hours, why should we have replaced them if the economics didn't justify it?
A system is more than the bolts and bytes that goes into it, it's the service it provides to those that use it. The real obsolesence is the deterioration of the knowledge of what service that machine provides, how that machine does it and who is qualified to admin that machine. IT management show regularly review all those factors and determine if any of those categories are lacking in the systems^H^H^H^H services they provide.
In short, if I have a 20 year old system that still runs and I can still get parts for and I still have staff who can diagnose and correct problems. It's not obsolete.
This is a boring sig
Excuse me, but a fifteen year old machine that is still overpowered for what it is being asked to do is not obsolete. There are tons of 'obsolete' machines running the PSTN and the internet backbone, but you do not see anybody rushing to replace them because they do a great job doing what they do.
Replacement for the sake of replacement is not an efficient use of capital. Basic NIS services have not changed in a long time, so why does that require new hardware? So you can have new hardware running services that no one knows about? What have you gained? The grandparent was right, a lot of old reliable workhorse hardware is out there cranking away in very under appreciated roles.
Our Dell NIS/SSH servers last about two years, then they get all flakey, requiring a reboot every three months... no every month... every other week... every weekend..... Oh, yeah, thats why we replace hardware, because it is shit and stops working.
We have a small stack of Sunblades that have been setting in a corner churning away for the last four years untouched. Headless desktop machines. The only time they reboot is when the power fails. (They are not on UPS)
Oh yeah, they are also obsolete.
And another thing, they are not going anywhere.
I absoulty love it when companies do 'research' and 'papers' that 'prove' they are better than their competitors.
This just in. APPLE has produced a ground breaking paper that proves without a doubt that their TCO is 6 times cheaper than that of LINIX or WINDOWS.
This information was release just weeks after discovering that their Mac G5 is the fastest desktop computer on the planet (I actually really saw that paper compaired it to current AMD and Intel products, was a complete and utter farce, and by farce, I mean a big fat lie)
Now dn't get me wrong I am not bshing APPLE or Mac's or anything like that, in fact they hold a special place in my heart.
However I AM trying to point out that these sort of 'break throughs' and 'scientific' discoveries are so much bullshit, hype, marketing, spin, and advertising...
Let me know when a TRUE independant (not a study bought and paid for as Microsoft is wont to do), study is done, perhaps by a respected university or group that does not have a vested interest in the outcome.
When that time comes, I will then read it and maybe give it some creadance. Until then, whatever...
As for Plan 9, once more people are using Linux, the much-less-obvious flaws in it's design will become much more obvious and insightful projects like Plan 9 will gain much mindshare =]. Someday it will be replaced by something that sucks less. It's like Winston Churchill said, IIRC, "Linux is the worst OS except for all those others that have been tried."
*markedly does not discuss the alleged superiority of BeOS, entirely for a lack of knowledge thereof*
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