That really isn't true. The average pitbull owner is just like you or me. It's just that 500,000 pitbulls didn't attack anyone today, but instead greeted their "owners" with love and affection doesn't sell. When all you hear about is the shady motherfuckers it is easy to get the impression that they are in the majority.
No, it's the fact that number of Chihuahuas that killed anybody is zero, yet most major dog attacks are (strange I know) the fighting style dogs.
I remember in the 80s, rottweilers were the "dangerous dog" to avoid. my neighbor had one and it was a big ol teddy bear.
its all about the owner
That's exactly what that guy said about his Pitbull before it ate his kids.
No-one ever got killed by a Chihuahua or Pug, so maybe the breed of dog also plays a part...
One of them used to run hotmail back when it was bigger than any MS Exchange farm...
This is pretty much the problem with the FOSS zealots, you seem think messaging is just SMTP and IMAP. It's not 1996 any more, the world has moved on...
If you can't name do X you know shit about Y and I doubt you've even done anything with Z. I doubt you've even ABC...
No, but I wear a seatbelt and I bet you do too. Why do you wear a seatbelt? Accidents never happen. Never.
So why not wear a helmet? They are proven to reduce injury rates in the event of accident.
I wear a seatbelt because I'm required to by law (the penalty here can be loss of license for the driver and one other passenger not buckled up).
I sure fucking hope so.
So no helmet, but you have a gun. That my friend, is the difference between a rational approach to risk management, and fear.
I don't recommend Outlook or Exchange because they are (a) security nightmares, and (b) costly and (c) bloated tools that divert resources away from solving the business's problems.
Good for you. Meanwhile the rest of the world doesn't care for your personal crusade...
For instance, with Microsoft you have (a) the cost of the hardware, (b) the cost of...
Again you don't seem to get it. I've heard this argument numerous times, but as an example place I work rents a 40 storey building in the middle of a large city. They could probably do it for cheaper buy rent out in the suburbs, or get an old factory in an industrial area, but maybe there's more to running a business than being a cheapskate?
If you are mom and pop shop, you care about loose change. when you have a large operating budget, you care about getting stuff that works, and has features, and can be widely supported. Most of the Fortune 500 use Exchange for a reason.
But the reality is that you can get the support contracts for open source solutions and get better solutions than what Microsoft offers, at cheaper rates.
Just like you can build your own car, yet for some strange reason most people choose to buy one off the shelf...
When I had the misfortune to look after some MS Exchange machines..
This is the usual story. Your anecdote sounds great, just like I once bought a BMW that blew an engine. Does that mean all BMW cars are crap?
Don't take my word for it, the fact is, most of the Fortune 500 use Exchange, maybe they know something you don't?
Also worth noting, you didn't get someone from MS in to go over it, MS don't do that. They send a partner in, and like with your average mechanic, lawyer or doctor, it depends who you get as to how good your advice is.
More interestingly, you are still yet to provide an alternate product that you think does the job better.
And yes, if you feel better by drinking alcohol, go for it, but don't start bitching when society points out...
Just to clarify, this isn't 'society' pointing anything out, it's some people somewhere who have an opinion. And like most opinions, they can be safely ignored.
The most basic installation of dovecot+postfix or exim supports 10,000 users and no SQL server is needed. In fact, even at 100,000 users I'm not sure a SQL server is necessary...even in a cluster of them.
Where did you get the idea that you need SQL for Exchange?
Yes you should have a competent admin, but then you should for 50 or 100 users too. There's nothing miraculous about 1000 users or 10,000 users. As I noted, other solutions have no issue with it and scale far easier on hardware with lower hardware specs.
The point is that once you get to 1000 users, your company is of a size that it doesn't quibble over spending a few dollars to make things run properly.
If you run a shop with over a 1000 users, the words "lower hardware specs" shouldn't really be in your vocabulary.
Example: Outlook and even Exchange can only support 100 email filter rules by default because that's all the memory allows for. If you users need more, you have to increase their profile memory limits to allow for more (server-side for Exchange; Outlook has no such options).
Is this a real problem? I'm sure someone out there must have come across it, but over 100 rules? Who needs more than 100 rules?
Really? I run a free solution that could easily outdo that. License is $0; and it can run on any $1200 server without issue.
This is the problem with the FOSS logic. Enterprises will quite happily pay for stuff that works, and is backed by reputable support contract. When you flesh that out, you can't satisfy that requirement with your home brew solution.
Support? Near $0 because it Just Works and doesn't need hand-holding.
So you work for free? Who adds new users? Removes users? Maintains the backups? Does DR testing? When your $1200 shitbox blows a PSU, at 2am who is called in to fix that?
That shit might fly at Mom and Pop shop or in your basement, but any business that makes money isn't going to run the risk of free stuff breaking and there being only one guy who knows how it all hangs together.
Yeah so which one do you think is a better overall experience. I tried Zimbra it was shit, and at that time it was considered the best Exchange alternative.
and allow you to use whatever part you find best (dovecot+postfix vs exim vs etc, postgressql vs mysql vs oracle vs etc, etc) underneath (at least, Kolab and Zimbra).
FrankenMail! Just what every organisation loves, a custom built cobbled together solution that no-one knows how to support.
I *never* recommend MS Exchange or Outlook as a solution.
No because you care more about your religion than your customers requirements. Exchange isn't for everyone, but it does do the job most of the time, which is why most businesses use it.
Like fires, injuries, earthquakes, and assault. Those things happen, regardless of what you claim.
Not to me they don't, or you by the sounds of it. Tell me do you also wear a helmet when you drive? Helmets reduce head trauma in the case of an accident, and you are more likely to be in a car crash than a shoot out.
So a *nix MTA doesn't have a Batt Wombleator or whatever weird checkbox feature MS Exchange has that few use, but who cares, it's still effective in use in the largest companies on the planet.
Which one is that then? You still haven't said which one...
I'm trying to second guess you because you are so vague with your points. If you actually stated your case clearly we wouldn't have these issues
Clearly I'm referring to parts of the MS Exchange suite as unstable
Which parts exactly? I've run a few Exchange servers in my time and never found any unstable. Maybe you were doing something wrong?
and the frequent practice of rebooting VM instances when it gets out of hand
I never had it get out of hand, see above.
, instead of a better designed system where problems are dealt with on a process level. If you knew as much as you pretended you'd be aware of that reason for MS Exchange to be run in a VM instead of the server only needing one OS as with all other MTA, groupware, calendar etc systems.
I won't try and guess what you mean this time. It makes no sense.
Need to run two on the same box - then jails, zones, containers etc do the job for anything apart from MS Exchange.
Still makes no sense.
Need to migrate - then have the config files and data on other box as well instead of wrapping a steaming obficated heap in a VM just so you can move it. The thing is shit and needs a pile of third party things in addition to the suite.
Based on the above I think the problem exists between chair and keyboard. Exchange is the #1 Enterprise Messaging Server for a reason. I appreciate you don't like this fact, but that doesn't make it untrue.
I'll also point out that you are yet to point out a better product in this class. The silence is deafening.
Because it's not running unstable shit so an abstraction that is there is order to stop and start unstable shit (for that purpose of VM) is not required.
What the hell are you talking about, VMTools? I've never known VMtools to affect system stability. You might want to report that to VMware if you have supporting data.
Do you really know so little of email, calenders etc that you cannot think of many yourself?
No but clearly you are struggling. I know the competition, they all suck by comparison, but I'm open to a fresh opinion, so fire away...
We must come form different worlds. I seriously haven't locked my front door since I moved here 10 years ago, I don't feel the need to because crime is relatively low, and burglers aren't usually deterred by locks when your house is covered in easily bypassed things called windows.
I also don't own a fire extinguiser, nor do I have a first aid kit in my car. I'm nearly 50 and despite the television telling me I should be scared of stuff, my opinion is that the world (or at least my neighbourhood) is nothing to be feared.
As I said originally, I try not to make decisions based on fear. The difference between fear and reality is probablity. Driving with my eyes closed will result in a crash. Not turning up to work will result in me being fired. But leaving my door unlocked probably won't result in me being burgled, and there's next to zero chance of me ever needing a gun.
And I was making the point that Western scientific convention likes Latin names. The IAU is a scientific body that assigns names for scientific purposes. You are free to continue to use english names for every day communications. But in science, people need to know if you're using a colloquial term or an actual term. Stop turning this into a culture war.
Not a culture war, geniune curiousity. Tranquility is a place name, just like Berlin or Moscow. Why does it have to have a scientific name, when no other geographic location has one?
It wasn't a legitimate question, just like none of the other whines about "how come we don't get to keep the english name" loaded questions were.
I think these are geniune questions. When someone named Chicago, did someone else decide it wasn't good enough and gave the latin verison instead? Seriously, why does a place name have to be latinized? If everyone knows what the words 'Tranquility Base' mean, why make up a completely foreign verison of the name?
I think this is a valid question,a nd I'm yet to hear a satisfactory answer.
"I understand you've made a huge error of judgement with my UID, so I anything else you say can't really be taken on face value."
You are full of shit. Off you go now...
You could've chosen to respond with your choice of enterprise class messaging and collaboration software and we could've had an mature debate about the pros and cons of each. But instead you choose to resort to childish insults. Good luck with that.
I'm no Exchange fan, but landed here because I have tried a few alternatives and they all suck. Whenever you here someone knock Exchange ask them for a better alternative, you'll never get one.
The major competitors are Lotus Notes, of the worst apps ever written (yeah it does DB ok, but messaging and UI is pathetic), Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail etc which I find terrible for business. It's fine for basic individual email, but Enterprise it isn't. And the likes of Zimbra, which has similar cost to Exchange, so why bother (I tried it and it lacked a lot of what Exchange does out of the box).
So sure you might hate MS, Bill Gates or whatever, but Exchange is a best of breed product, and depending on your situation, Office 365 does a pretty good job too.
With respect, go ask your "people" and you'll hear something like the above complaints.
Go ask any support person about the stuff they support and they'll bitch about it. That is how the support universe works.
It was about how success is difficult, vast resources required (extra machines for failover plus just getting enough performance) -
Dude, this is the same issue as every system ever. Have you ever supported any large or critical piece of infrastructure. It all needs to be large and redundant.
hence your "several hundred Exchange servers" under the adult supervision of whatever is running the easily rebootable virtual machines instead of a small number of big boxes running on bare metal with less overhead because they don't need to be rebooted all the time.
I don't even know what this means? Why does a physical machine need to be rebooted less often than a VM?
"Easy" takes 6 months? You've made my point about how much of a mess it is with just that,
Well give us your solution and we'll compare. I won't hold my breath, I've had dozens of these discussion and they always end the same way. FOSS nerds picks Exchange to bits, but refuses to offer an alternate for comparison. Your lack of a suggested alternative speaks louder than anything else...
If you're only running a very small business (50 employees, even then probably smaller than that), then sure - Exchange can be that simple to administer. Any real Exchange installation is going to consist of a cluster of Exchange Servers backed up by a cluster of MS SQL Servers, all connected to the AD , and none of which are going to be that simple to install or keep running.
The most basic install of Exchange can easily support 1000 users using the default next, next install on a single box. Maintenance consists of ensuring it has regular backups. It really is that simple (I was an Exchange Admin in a previous life and don't recall ever needing SQL for anything)
If you have more than 1000 users then you should also have an admin that knows how to deal with greater scale
And after you have all that setup, then you have to craft in all the little extras for your users to ensure they get the functionality they want.
What are you talking about exactly? The only thing we usually did was show people how to set up their signature. Everything works out of the box.
None of those servers are going to be cheap either as the requirements to run it put you towards the more beefy end of servers.
Low end solution is a standard Dell/HP server for $5k, Exchange license for about $4k (depending on user licenses). I guarantee you that any free solution will cost you more than that in labour, support, lost productivity and outages.
Yes, and you fail. We all make decisions based on fear (as well as many other things). That's how humans work.
Oh, this is going to be gold...
I bet you made the decision to go into work today because you feared being fired if you didn't show up.
Nope, because I'm on holidays at the moment, no work me, more time to argue on the Internet!
I bet you made the decision not to drive with your eyes closed because you feared getting in an accident if you did.
I haven't driven today either...
By the way, why don't you just drop your health insurance?
Don't have any! (Thanks evil socialised Healthcare)
Do you fear you might get sick and need medical care?
I don't actually. I know I'll get sick or injured from time to time, but this is a fact of life I deal with. Having excellent and free medical services makes this easier to deal with.
And take those locks off your front door. When was the last time you actually needed them? Do burglars try to open your front door on a daily basis? Nah, you just fear they do.
Actually I've never locked my front door (or the back one either). And I actually use this same argument when asking others about this. Not many burglars out there troll around looking for unlocked doors, then leave if they can't find one. If they are already at your front door, they are coming in locks or not.
So you're zero from five, but I get the point you are trying make.
The difference is that I do not make decisions based on fear (such as driving with my eyes open), I do this because it makes sense. It can be demonstrated without emotion that driving with your eyes closed has a probability of crashing approaching 1.
If you've had a gun for 30 years and never needed to use it, there is a high probability that you don't need it. You merely want it as some comfort blanket because of some irrational fear that doesn't actually exist.
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That really isn't true. The average pitbull owner is just like you or me. It's just that 500,000 pitbulls didn't attack anyone today, but instead greeted their "owners" with love and affection doesn't sell. When all you hear about is the shady motherfuckers it is easy to get the impression that they are in the majority.
No, it's the fact that number of Chihuahuas that killed anybody is zero, yet most major dog attacks are (strange I know) the fighting style dogs.
I remember in the 80s, rottweilers were the "dangerous dog" to avoid. my neighbor had one and it was a big ol teddy bear. its all about the owner
That's exactly what that guy said about his Pitbull before it ate his kids.
No-one ever got killed by a Chihuahua or Pug, so maybe the breed of dog also plays a part...
You really are clueless...
No you are. Awesome argument...
One of them used to run hotmail back when it was bigger than any MS Exchange farm...
This is pretty much the problem with the FOSS zealots, you seem think messaging is just SMTP and IMAP. It's not 1996 any more, the world has moved on...
If you can't name do X you know shit about Y and I doubt you've even done anything with Z. I doubt you've even ABC...
This is your argument? Seriously?
It's easy to be number one when you define a catagory
IBM and Novell were doing it well before MS came along. But nice try...
No, but I wear a seatbelt and I bet you do too. Why do you wear a seatbelt? Accidents never happen. Never.
So why not wear a helmet? They are proven to reduce injury rates in the event of accident. I wear a seatbelt because I'm required to by law (the penalty here can be loss of license for the driver and one other passenger not buckled up).
I sure fucking hope so.
So no helmet, but you have a gun. That my friend, is the difference between a rational approach to risk management, and fear.
I don't recommend Outlook or Exchange because they are (a) security nightmares, and (b) costly and (c) bloated tools that divert resources away from solving the business's problems.
Good for you. Meanwhile the rest of the world doesn't care for your personal crusade...
For instance, with Microsoft you have (a) the cost of the hardware, (b) the cost of...
Again you don't seem to get it. I've heard this argument numerous times, but as an example place I work rents a 40 storey building in the middle of a large city. They could probably do it for cheaper buy rent out in the suburbs, or get an old factory in an industrial area, but maybe there's more to running a business than being a cheapskate? If you are mom and pop shop, you care about loose change. when you have a large operating budget, you care about getting stuff that works, and has features, and can be widely supported. Most of the Fortune 500 use Exchange for a reason.
But the reality is that you can get the support contracts for open source solutions and get better solutions than what Microsoft offers, at cheaper rates.
Just like you can build your own car, yet for some strange reason most people choose to buy one off the shelf...
When I had the misfortune to look after some MS Exchange machines ..
This is the usual story. Your anecdote sounds great, just like I once bought a BMW that blew an engine. Does that mean all BMW cars are crap?
Don't take my word for it, the fact is, most of the Fortune 500 use Exchange, maybe they know something you don't?
Also worth noting, you didn't get someone from MS in to go over it, MS don't do that. They send a partner in, and like with your average mechanic, lawyer or doctor, it depends who you get as to how good your advice is.
More interestingly, you are still yet to provide an alternate product that you think does the job better.
And yes, if you feel better by drinking alcohol, go for it, but don't start bitching when society points out...
Just to clarify, this isn't 'society' pointing anything out, it's some people somewhere who have an opinion. And like most opinions, they can be safely ignored.
The most basic installation of dovecot+postfix or exim supports 10,000 users and no SQL server is needed. In fact, even at 100,000 users I'm not sure a SQL server is necessary...even in a cluster of them.
Where did you get the idea that you need SQL for Exchange?
Yes you should have a competent admin, but then you should for 50 or 100 users too. There's nothing miraculous about 1000 users or 10,000 users. As I noted, other solutions have no issue with it and scale far easier on hardware with lower hardware specs.
The point is that once you get to 1000 users, your company is of a size that it doesn't quibble over spending a few dollars to make things run properly.
If you run a shop with over a 1000 users, the words "lower hardware specs" shouldn't really be in your vocabulary.
Example: Outlook and even Exchange can only support 100 email filter rules by default because that's all the memory allows for. If you users need more, you have to increase their profile memory limits to allow for more (server-side for Exchange; Outlook has no such options).
Is this a real problem? I'm sure someone out there must have come across it, but over 100 rules? Who needs more than 100 rules?
Really? I run a free solution that could easily outdo that. License is $0; and it can run on any $1200 server without issue.
This is the problem with the FOSS logic. Enterprises will quite happily pay for stuff that works, and is backed by reputable support contract. When you flesh that out, you can't satisfy that requirement with your home brew solution.
Support? Near $0 because it Just Works and doesn't need hand-holding.
So you work for free? Who adds new users? Removes users? Maintains the backups? Does DR testing? When your $1200 shitbox blows a PSU, at 2am who is called in to fix that?
That shit might fly at Mom and Pop shop or in your basement, but any business that makes money isn't going to run the risk of free stuff breaking and there being only one guy who knows how it all hangs together.
What? Like Kolab, or Zimbra, or OpenExchange,
Yeah so which one do you think is a better overall experience. I tried Zimbra it was shit, and at that time it was considered the best Exchange alternative.
and allow you to use whatever part you find best (dovecot+postfix vs exim vs etc, postgressql vs mysql vs oracle vs etc, etc) underneath (at least, Kolab and Zimbra).
FrankenMail! Just what every organisation loves, a custom built cobbled together solution that no-one knows how to support.
I *never* recommend MS Exchange or Outlook as a solution.
No because you care more about your religion than your customers requirements. Exchange isn't for everyone, but it does do the job most of the time, which is why most businesses use it.
Like fires, injuries, earthquakes, and assault. Those things happen, regardless of what you claim.
Not to me they don't, or you by the sounds of it. Tell me do you also wear a helmet when you drive? Helmets reduce head trauma in the case of an accident, and you are more likely to be in a car crash than a shoot out.
Anthropologists would disagree...
So a *nix MTA doesn't have a Batt Wombleator or whatever weird checkbox feature MS Exchange has that few use, but who cares, it's still effective in use in the largest companies on the planet.
Which one is that then? You still haven't said which one...
VMTools? You really have no clue!
I'm trying to second guess you because you are so vague with your points. If you actually stated your case clearly we wouldn't have these issues
Clearly I'm referring to parts of the MS Exchange suite as unstable
Which parts exactly? I've run a few Exchange servers in my time and never found any unstable. Maybe you were doing something wrong?
and the frequent practice of rebooting VM instances when it gets out of hand
I never had it get out of hand, see above.
, instead of a better designed system where problems are dealt with on a process level. If you knew as much as you pretended you'd be aware of that reason for MS Exchange to be run in a VM instead of the server only needing one OS as with all other MTA, groupware, calendar etc systems.
I won't try and guess what you mean this time. It makes no sense.
Need to run two on the same box - then jails, zones, containers etc do the job for anything apart from MS Exchange.
Still makes no sense.
Need to migrate - then have the config files and data on other box as well instead of wrapping a steaming obficated heap in a VM just so you can move it. The thing is shit and needs a pile of third party things in addition to the suite.
Based on the above I think the problem exists between chair and keyboard. Exchange is the #1 Enterprise Messaging Server for a reason. I appreciate you don't like this fact, but that doesn't make it untrue.
I'll also point out that you are yet to point out a better product in this class. The silence is deafening.
Because it's not running unstable shit so an abstraction that is there is order to stop and start unstable shit (for that purpose of VM) is not required.
What the hell are you talking about, VMTools? I've never known VMtools to affect system stability. You might want to report that to VMware if you have supporting data.
Do you really know so little of email, calenders etc that you cannot think of many yourself?
No but clearly you are struggling. I know the competition, they all suck by comparison, but I'm open to a fresh opinion, so fire away...
We must come form different worlds. I seriously haven't locked my front door since I moved here 10 years ago, I don't feel the need to because crime is relatively low, and burglers aren't usually deterred by locks when your house is covered in easily bypassed things called windows.
I also don't own a fire extinguiser, nor do I have a first aid kit in my car. I'm nearly 50 and despite the television telling me I should be scared of stuff, my opinion is that the world (or at least my neighbourhood) is nothing to be feared.
As I said originally, I try not to make decisions based on fear. The difference between fear and reality is probablity. Driving with my eyes closed will result in a crash. Not turning up to work will result in me being fired. But leaving my door unlocked probably won't result in me being burgled, and there's next to zero chance of me ever needing a gun.
And I was making the point that Western scientific convention likes Latin names. The IAU is a scientific body that assigns names for scientific purposes. You are free to continue to use english names for every day communications. But in science, people need to know if you're using a colloquial term or an actual term. Stop turning this into a culture war.
Not a culture war, geniune curiousity. Tranquility is a place name, just like Berlin or Moscow. Why does it have to have a scientific name, when no other geographic location has one?
It wasn't a legitimate question, just like none of the other whines about "how come we don't get to keep the english name" loaded questions were.
I think these are geniune questions. When someone named Chicago, did someone else decide it wasn't good enough and gave the latin verison instead? Seriously, why does a place name have to be latinized? If everyone knows what the words 'Tranquility Base' mean, why make up a completely foreign verison of the name?
I think this is a valid question,a nd I'm yet to hear a satisfactory answer.
So do you have an opinion, or are you so empty of ideas that petty insults is all you have?
You are full of shit. Off you go now ...
You could've chosen to respond with your choice of enterprise class messaging and collaboration software and we could've had an mature debate about the pros and cons of each. But instead you choose to resort to childish insults. Good luck with that.
I'm no Exchange fan, but landed here because I have tried a few alternatives and they all suck. Whenever you here someone knock Exchange ask them for a better alternative, you'll never get one.
The major competitors are Lotus Notes, of the worst apps ever written (yeah it does DB ok, but messaging and UI is pathetic), Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail etc which I find terrible for business. It's fine for basic individual email, but Enterprise it isn't. And the likes of Zimbra, which has similar cost to Exchange, so why bother (I tried it and it lacked a lot of what Exchange does out of the box).
So sure you might hate MS, Bill Gates or whatever, but Exchange is a best of breed product, and depending on your situation, Office 365 does a pretty good job too.
With respect, go ask your "people" and you'll hear something like the above complaints.
Go ask any support person about the stuff they support and they'll bitch about it. That is how the support universe works.
It was about how success is difficult, vast resources required (extra machines for failover plus just getting enough performance) -
Dude, this is the same issue as every system ever. Have you ever supported any large or critical piece of infrastructure. It all needs to be large and redundant.
hence your "several hundred Exchange servers" under the adult supervision of whatever is running the easily rebootable virtual machines instead of a small number of big boxes running on bare metal with less overhead because they don't need to be rebooted all the time.
I don't even know what this means? Why does a physical machine need to be rebooted less often than a VM?
"Easy" takes 6 months? You've made my point about how much of a mess it is with just that,
Well give us your solution and we'll compare. I won't hold my breath, I've had dozens of these discussion and they always end the same way. FOSS nerds picks Exchange to bits, but refuses to offer an alternate for comparison. Your lack of a suggested alternative speaks louder than anything else...
If you're only running a very small business (50 employees, even then probably smaller than that), then sure - Exchange can be that simple to administer. Any real Exchange installation is going to consist of a cluster of Exchange Servers backed up by a cluster of MS SQL Servers, all connected to the AD , and none of which are going to be that simple to install or keep running.
The most basic install of Exchange can easily support 1000 users using the default next, next install on a single box. Maintenance consists of ensuring it has regular backups. It really is that simple (I was an Exchange Admin in a previous life and don't recall ever needing SQL for anything)
If you have more than 1000 users then you should also have an admin that knows how to deal with greater scale
And after you have all that setup, then you have to craft in all the little extras for your users to ensure they get the functionality they want.
What are you talking about exactly? The only thing we usually did was show people how to set up their signature. Everything works out of the box.
None of those servers are going to be cheap either as the requirements to run it put you towards the more beefy end of servers.
Low end solution is a standard Dell/HP server for $5k, Exchange license for about $4k (depending on user licenses). I guarantee you that any free solution will cost you more than that in labour, support, lost productivity and outages.
Yes, and you fail. We all make decisions based on fear (as well as many other things). That's how humans work.
Oh, this is going to be gold...
I bet you made the decision to go into work today because you feared being fired if you didn't show up.
Nope, because I'm on holidays at the moment, no work me, more time to argue on the Internet!
I bet you made the decision not to drive with your eyes closed because you feared getting in an accident if you did.
I haven't driven today either...
By the way, why don't you just drop your health insurance?
Don't have any! (Thanks evil socialised Healthcare)
Do you fear you might get sick and need medical care?
I don't actually. I know I'll get sick or injured from time to time, but this is a fact of life I deal with. Having excellent and free medical services makes this easier to deal with.
And take those locks off your front door. When was the last time you actually needed them? Do burglars try to open your front door on a daily basis? Nah, you just fear they do.
Actually I've never locked my front door (or the back one either). And I actually use this same argument when asking others about this. Not many burglars out there troll around looking for unlocked doors, then leave if they can't find one. If they are already at your front door, they are coming in locks or not.
So you're zero from five, but I get the point you are trying make.
The difference is that I do not make decisions based on fear (such as driving with my eyes open), I do this because it makes sense. It can be demonstrated without emotion that driving with your eyes closed has a probability of crashing approaching 1. If you've had a gun for 30 years and never needed to use it, there is a high probability that you don't need it. You merely want it as some comfort blanket because of some irrational fear that doesn't actually exist.