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."

Comments

a couple of surprises in article

[yagu]

From the article:

it found that 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.

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. I've read other studies and I tend to find them credible that one of the biggest cost-savings in TCO is the manageability of a unix-like system vs the Windows GUI approach. I've seen narratives where good unix administrators can sometimes manage at least twice as many systems as good Windows administrators, sometimes more. This is largely because of the simplicity embedded in the unix complexity (one of the biggest complaints I see about unix is its "too-hard" nature, but when mastered my experience has been you can script and automate so many unexpected scenarios easily, something not so readily available in Windows).

The second surprise for me, also from the article:

"second-stage" benefits that some companies are experiencing by implementing Linux. Second-stage benefits expand upon initial benefits such as lower hardware and licensing costs to include the ability to consolidate server workloads, reduce IT hardware upgrade costs, and attract new IT workers interested in open source. The 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."

It's encouraging to note linux is enormously popular among IT staff. Maybe unix and linux have more purchase on the IT world than we thought. I'd resigned my professional life to watching the MS juggernaut conquer the technology world but maybe the unix paradigm has legs! (There are other equally interesting "better" architectures, (Be, Plan 9) but probably are in the wrong place at the wrong time to gain much mindshare.)

(As an aside, have you ever noticed, the admin energies for Windows' environments goes to keeping the system running in as stable a manner as possible, while admin energies for unix's go to extending and enhancing the systems' performance, sometimes in elegantly exotic ways? Just my $.02)

Re:a couple of surprises in article

[Kjella]

It's encouraging to note linux is enormously popular among IT staff.

Well, how strange is that. It's a collaborative effort, you can tell how it works (instead of guessing at wtf windows is doing), it's free as in beer and in speech and it has some ideals (or at the very least, ideals assigned to it).

Windows is only an ideal in the "I want to be just as rich as Bill Gates" kind of way. It's when idealism meets reality and it is about putting food on the table that IT staff go with Windows.

It's like asking a doctor's student whether working for third world children or their local boob job clinic would be most popular. As an ideal it's great, when push comes to shove most would rather have the money.

Re:a couple of surprises in article

[aztracker1]

If you want to avoid the VS for UI requirement, build your codebehind as a DLL/Class Library project, and have your UI built by hand, or in dreamweaver inheriting from the codebehind classes.

Then you can get better separation of the UI from the codebehind (instead of reintegration that VS.Net does for you) ... beyond this, you can more readily build a dll project without VS.Net (either via command line compiler, msbuild, nant etc.) just a few suggestions.. for a F/OSS IDE (doesn't do webforms) check out SharpDevelop MonoDevelop (*nix .Net environment) is based on it.

Re:a couple of surprises in article

[Master of Transhuman]

"The advantages of having inline help, syntax coloring, auto-completion, project organization, etc. in the native home of ASP.NET editing are just too many to think that another environment like a pure text editor would be a good idea."

I don't know too many text editors that DON'T have most of those features, albeit some of them may not as fully support ASP.Net.

The issue then becomes which IDE allows getting under the hood while still providing sufficient automation to enable productivity.

Meanwhile, the main point of the OP's comment was that a GUI (and by extension, closed source) conceals one's lack of direct knowledge of what is going on - knowledge that becomes critical when something goes wrong.

It's constantly true on Windows - something doesn't react the way you expected. On Linux, you can look at a config file. On Windows, you can't look at anything but some checkboxes scattered over half a dozen different dialogues and menu options. The only way to figure anything out is to step up to the next level and reconsider the entire process you're trying to do - essentially relearning the Windows interface for the process every time. Why? Because in fact it's terribly complicated. The GUI just makes it SEEM simple.

I keep telling people this, but they don't listen: Windows is totally NON-intuitive. It's operation is incredibly complicated and deliberately so - first, because it's Microsoft's way to use "featuritus" to lock in its customers, and second, because Microsoft has no clue how to make anything simple.

People think Windows is easy to use because you can point and click to copy a file or something. That's trivial. Try running one of their servers. Try even understanding Active Directory, or Group Policy interactions between the several different types of groups allowed. It's a conceptual nightmare.

Interesting Way to Jab at Both Sun and MS

[Metzli]

The article says that the study shows Linux to be cheaper than either Microsoft or Sun. Gee, I wonder why AIX wasn't included as a Unix variant?

A review with numbers!

[rob_squared]

Reviews having actual dollar amounts I tend to trust more. Yes, IBM can be considered biased because, well, they use Linux, and also deal with Microsoft.

What I really want to see, though, is an item-by-item document included for download which shows what they included in their TCO estimate. Statistics and numbers are fine, if you can read the whole dataset for yourself.

How do you calculate ?

[karvind]

How are these cost calculations done ?

(a) Maintenance costs

(b) Support and systems administration costs

(c) Application-server support and system administration costs.

Are these really fixed costs ?

What about

[Tmack]

X-86 based solaris and Sparc based Linux? While I dont work with any of ther former, I work with many of the latter. While the hardware for sparc costs more than similar X86 hardware, does the TCO for running Linux as opposed to Solaris make up for that extra hardware expense? Does running Solaris on X86 increase the TCO?

Tm

My guess is

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than Sun's high licensing costs I'm at a loss on why Solaris would be so much higher.

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.

Scripting in windows.

[Poromenos1]

I agree that Windows' scriptability is nowhere near Linux's, but I've found that if you combine Python, a few ported Linux command line tools and the windows task scheduler, you can do quite a few things. For example, I've written a script to check my DSL connection and reconnect if it's unresponsive. Now if only I could find a way to close that "server did not respond" window :(

That deserves an +5,Insightful

[Lonewolf666]

The good news about the GUI-based environment is that it's typically fairly easy to pick up a new Windows tool and figure it out. For the semi-casual administrator/developer, that can be immensely useful.

The problem is that after a certain point, it becomes difficult to figure out complex issues. When bugs pop up, it's hard to know whether it's the software's fault or your own, with no good way to peek under the hood.

Exactly my experience, and I'd like to add that Microsoft online help tends to be similar:
Basic tasks are well explained, but once you need help with complex issues, the approach of "open this window and click that button" breaks down. At this point you need information about how the application works, and that is usually absent in the help files. If you are lucky, you can find it online in the MSDN, but even that tends towards pre-formulated solutions.

Funny, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

in the real world, people need to make decisions that will make or break their businesses/bank accounts.
People should use whatever will work best for their particular situation.
Having said this, I firmly believe that you (as a business owner/leader) should decide what OS, etc. should be used with your geek staff, not based on what some overpriced consultant with a sales agenda says you should use.

Re:WTF?

[twiddlingbits]

I have consulted with folks who do it each way and each has reasons for the way they do it. Have you ever looked at the price of a 4-hr turn support contract times 300 nodes? Sure you can get a discount but it's still a lot of $$$. Building and fixing things yourself can be cheaper if your staff has the skills. But it can be more expensive if you can't handle downtime (but that begs the question why you don't have redundancy if it is business critical?). You can invest the money in YOUR people and control your own destiny or give it to Dell/IBM/Sun and they may/may not respond in 4 hours. I have seen parts for servers that were on a 4hr fix take days to get in, I could have gone to Frys/BestBuy/MailOrder and got them quicker. It all comes down to what your business philosophy is, there really isn't a right/wrong answer. If you tracked your TOTAL costs of doing things one way and then tried the other way as an attempt to lower the costs then you might be able to make a solid argument for doing it yourself or buying support.

Re:How does this change anything?

[fafne]

It's a universal truth that whenever you set out to find something in a complex environment with enough variables, you will find the evidence to support your thesis (deliberately or not overlooking the evidence that does not). The debate, though is very rewarding.