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Mindbridge Saves "Bunches of Money" In Switch To Linux
While Mindbridge didn't start out as an open source company, it has since managed to save what they can only describe as "bunches of money" by switching to Linux. "Today, Mindbridge has repurposed itself as an open-source-friendly company, and revamped its infrastructure to run completely on Linux and other open source software. 'Having deployed [Linux servers] to our customers, we turned around and said, we can do the same thing internally and save bunches of money. We began a systematic but slow flipping of servers from the Microsoft world over to predominantly Linux — although there are a few BSD boxes around as well,' Christian says. 'It's to the point that today I only have two production Windows servers left, out of 15 or so.'"
If they threatened to swich to Linux, then they'll get to use the same MS products at Linux price.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Software costs nothing.... Compared to the cost of supporting it.
No, you'll really hear the chairs moving and flinching when Linux gets to the point that it is so easy to operate that my IT-retarded mom can use it with the same ease that she is used to on her XP (forgetting the problems that I come over to her house to fix), and the video drivers work better across the board (*COatiUGH*, *COnvidiaUGH*). However, I must say the last fedora I saw was a good step in that direction...
Cue Linux Missionaries starting to mod me down as a troll in 3..2..1..
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
who the fuck is Mindbridge, and why do i care?
To make up the difference, M$ would have to give them the software, pay the electric bill and donate engineering time for custom applications. If you read the article, you will see that the company dropped from at least 60 servers to 15. I say at least, because the only count they give of how much hardware they were using is the 50 or 60 that "were giving them trouble." It's clear that time spent nursing that mess was better spent moving to software that works better and allows easier customization. Their continued good results with other software proves their competence as well as the poor quality of what they were using before. Quality that poor is a bad deal unless it's heavily subsidized, so your imagined extortion can only work for a few prominent customers. When that does work, the rest of the customers will pay that much more to keep M$'s profit to revenue ratio at 35%.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on your operational cost.
Dropping the number of computers needed to do a job by an order of magnitude will save you more than 15%. The time spent nursing sick servers is better spent making new product for more revenue.
When you are big enough, 15% is a big deal. Walmart, for example, has more revenue than any company besides Exxon, but is only able to keep 3% of it. If they were able to drop their costs by 15%, they would have proffits five times M$'s.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
'However, I must say the last fedora I saw was a good step in that direction...'
You need to see Ubuntu, using fedora is akin to jamming icicles in your eyes using only a toothpick for grip in comparison. As for video drivers, nvidia are easy enough, in ubuntu it takes two clicks to install the commercial drivers. ATI drivers still suck but yesterday or the day before there was an announcement that AMD is going to completely open the specs on the ATI drivers that means there will be fully optimized and functional 3D accelerated drivers that load out of the box. That beats windows where you have to go to the website and hunt out the drivers for any modern card.
Seriously, Ubuntu is ready for USE by your average user already. It isn't ready for administration by your average user but your average user doesn't know enough about the system to competently complete administration tasks even if they are made easy enough to click through.
This story has no credibility with me. The article is ridiculously light on details and seems to be an attempt at self-serving cross-promotion. There is no discussion of how they saved money or what those servers are actually doing. They talk about how much is costs them to "support" a Microsoft box, but they're such a small company, it's hard to imagine what their "support" even consists of.
They're a Linux company. They're telling us how great Linux is. They're not giving any details.
Personally, I have quite a bit of experience operating, maintaining, and supporting both Linux and Microsoft servers. I have found that both work well for the vast majority of applications. I've found other people's Linux servers to be easier to support than other people's Microsoft servers, but this might just be because the average Linux server contact is more knowledgeable than the average Microsoft server contact.
One huge difference is that it is *much* easier to figure out what a Linux server is doing and to start analyzing why it's not doing what it's supposed to do.
Is this "Mindbridge" a real company? I know geeks with 15 servers in their basement...
I don't know what business they are in (Safari crashes on TFA), but then: I have a very real company, two of them even, and I have only one server. It's doing what I need. But then I'm not in the business of selling web access, or server space, or so. Most companies have only one or two servers, because most companies are not in the business of selling server space. Besides, modern servers can handle a huge lot of work, one server now can easily handle what 10 servers did a decade or so ago.
Emphasis mine by the way; the two words in bold appear to be contradictory...or are they?
No, if it were metric, it would have said so. It's clearly bunches, as in Libraries of Congress per fortnight. As a shortcut, this is roughly equal to one VW Beetle*.
*Old model, not new model. As everyone knows, substantially fewer circus clowns fit into the newer models, due to reduced trunk space and assorted government regulations regarding imports from Mexico.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Depends on what they do. In a windows environment that's nothing because each windows server application seems to demand it's own server - note that the article states the 15 or so mixed is down from 60 pure windows. Assuming no other software aside from windows server (not advanced server or anything) that's around $48k saved right there - before extra software. The big buzzword of the day is consolidation. Instead of having a billion servers and trying to manage security and updates on them all, keep it to a low number so it's easier to keep your eye on.
Windows gives you ACLs, Linux gives you standard unix permissions *AND* ACLs...
ACLs are complex, to the point that many windows admins dont bother with them. Unix permissions are simple enough to master but lack some of the flexibility. However, for most purposes permissions are more than adequate, and you also have ACLs if you need more.
But wtf is this about network security? Linux has iptables by default, ssh for communications between machines, NFSv4 for file sharing...
Compare that to windows file sharing, which is vulnerable to reflection attacks (see metasploit) and will automatically send your authentication details when you connect to a remove server!
Not to mention all the stuff windows has open by default (rpc, netbios, netbios-ns, and more), and which is difficult to turn off. Linux boxes, unless horribly misconfigured, will only listen on the services which are required, with unnecessary services turned off rather than kludgily filtered.
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It's so easy even a cavewoman can do it!
Balderdash!
You have GOT to be a troll. Or are you just naive?
Calling people "Linux Missionaries" is what makes you a troll. There's nothing wrong with intelligent criticism, but insulting anyone who disagrees with you (before they've even had a chance to respond!) makes you look like a fanatic yourself.
Yea I guess Cisco is a phony made-up company.
A computer costs $300, and the license for the OS is like $200. Plus licenses for Exchange and the file servers, domain controllers, etc you need to support all those desktops. Plus the software and add-ons for Windows cost money while the equivalent ones for linux/bsd/solaris are free.
Some companies do a cost analysis, and occasionally find out it's cheaper to run Linux for their specific situation. Shooting from the hip and saying it's always cheaper or that it's never cheaper is basically the stupidest thing I've heard.
(another AC troll bites the dust)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It would seem that Mindbridge is being run by the fanboys and not the accountants or shareholders.
Let's not bother to actually QUANTIFY "bunches of money" or do any kind of cost/benefits analysis and just make a headline out of it to get some free publicity.
Obviously nobody has done any kind of credible study on the TOTAL cost of ownership. YA, just train a few admins and we're good to go. No extra costs there. Sure, customers want Microsoft, and we'll give it to them if they want to pay extra. We don't need no steenkin' TCO analysis -- we just KNOW we are saving BUNCHES of money.
This kind of drivel makes both the Linux fanboys and Californians look bad.
Mindbridge most likely had problems managing their Windows servers because they were unskilled in Active Directory, Group Policy and the dozens of other management, maintenance and administration tools provided out of the box. Check the latest reports on what the majority of Fortune 1000 companies run on both their public AND internal servers.
Maybe if they had taken some of those "bunches of money" and invested them in real training, they'd be singing a different tune now.
You gotta wonder when you hear stuff like this...