Linux TCO: Less Than Half The Cost of Windows 700
ggruschow writes "Linux Today reports 'The cost of running Linux is roughly 40% that of Microsoft Windows, and only 14% that of Sun Microsystem's Solaris, according to a new study which examined the actual costs of running various operating systems over three years.'"
The Cost of Downtime (Score:1, Interesting)
How about maintence costs? IE patches?
Re:first? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Windows technicians, however, only managed an average of 10 machines each, while Linux or Solaris admins can generally handle several times that.
Good enough for you?
Re:first? (Score:2, Interesting)
Follow the money! (Score:5, Interesting)
**begin sarcasm**
What a big suprise that would be if a study funded by IBM finds that their Linux solutions perform better than Windows and Sun!
**end sarcasm**
That said, it is nice to have some pro-Linux FUD out there!
Ben
Re:Microsoft says so, too! (Score:1, Interesting)
We are actually having to learn how to say, 'We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher,'" he said.
say what?
Shocking News...Linux licenses are cheaper (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm still waiting for the article to come out discussing TCO as it relates to desktops, which is where most of the money is lost in support dollars....
GUI bad, CLI good? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am assuming that the Linux and Solaris admins are using the CLI to manage the servers via SSH but I believe the slowest way to manage a server is through a keyboard and mouse -- pointing and clicking away. Most of the Windows servers I have managed in my career were through a GUI interface using a remote control program like PC Anywhere and Microsoft's Remote Admin software. With Linux, Solaris and now Mac OS X Server, I use SSH and a keyboard to do my work. With shell scripts and other tricks, I can blaze through server management that I would never be able to do in a GUI environment at the same speed. Even with Mac OS X Server's great GUI management tools, I prefer to fire up Terminal and remotely manage the system through a CLI -- or maybe I just long for the days of my Apple ][.
On the other hand, with the massive numbers of zombied Windows machines probing my networks, it could be that Windows-only Admins are just plain idiots with a MCSE which accounts for the productivity gains of Linux and Solaris admins.
Technician Costs (Score:2, Interesting)
what about recovery costs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Start a timer, tell each admin they need to perform some obscure task. Now see who gets it done first, assuming their skills are the same for their respective systems. A windows person might be lightening fast because they just have to click in a couple of places. Then again, they will probably have to reboot. A Linux person might need to check the info (or man) page and pray it is well written for their part then try to implement it. However they will most likely not have to restart anything except that particular service. Solaris? Well I suppose that depends on the version.
Re:Production download their distro from the web? (Score:2, Interesting)
In most cases, the bugs are worked out on the pilot, and when everything is running, they don't renew the support contract.
And then, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Upgrading packages (rpm's deb's, etc) tends to be
a no-brainer under linux. Most the time without a
reboot.
Consider the source (Score:2, Interesting)
Robert Francis Group (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been looking a bit into the group that did the study: The Robert Francis Group [rfgonline.com]. I'm having a hard time really finding much information about them. It looks like they are basically an analyst group like Gartner. I found some CNET articles, one [com.com] involving Sun and another [com.com] involving Microsoft. In both cases, it looks like the analyst was just there to bash the two of them.
I'm wondering if there is a history of bias against the two companies in favor of Linux/IBM. It does look like they are general pro-Linux and GPL in their recommendations. But their bias could be based on the various studies they have done in the past. Does anyone else know anything about this group?
This matches our experience at work (Score:5, Interesting)
We first moved to OpenOffice. Painful, when your clients all use MS Office, but it's possible.
Now we're moving to Mozilla-based browsers.
All our servers (except one) went to Linux in the last year or two.
Now we're killing the last Windows desktops, putting Lindows-OS in their place.
Apart from the license savings, everything just runs better.
There is a huge fear of change, and this works in Windows' favor.
But there is no doubt that open software is better built and cheaper to run.
Changing costs something. But there is no doubt about the TCO of Linux (and its applications) being lower.
Re:GUI bad, CLI good? (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering the tools are all there, why didn't you learn how to use the CLI admin tools for Windows?
Just kind of seems to me you shouldn't be calling people idiots when you don't know what you are doing yourself.
That's it, I'm moving to the US... (Score:3, Interesting)
So, let me get this straight... they actually expect us to believe that WinAdmins make almost 70K a year to handle 10 machines? I don't know what kind of fantasy world this study was done in, but I want in!!!
Of course, far be it from me to suggest that this portrayal of WinAdmins might be a bit off... but, for reference, I support close to 200 WinTel machines and 5 servers, and I don't make anywhere close to 70K US a year... I think I may print this article and see if I can get a raise out of it...
Lesse... 70K per 10 boxes, 200 boxes, equals... woohoo!
Re:If this is true. (Score:2, Interesting)
Diferent from day to day. In one spacific case our backup system was rolled over from MacOS to NT to Solaris and then to Linux (dont ask why, my brin still hurts). We ended up using Linux because the software we had purchased for Solaris only worked well on Linux dispite what the vendor claimed. The cost for the diferent boxes was almost the same, with Linux costing a bit more because we has to hunt down a supported RAID, SCSI and fiber channel card.
Not exactly fair comparisons (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:first? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:first? (Score:2, Interesting)
Head of analyst group... (Score:3, Interesting)
Calvin Braunstein is Chairman/CEO and Executive Director of Research of Robert Frances Group.
Mr. Braunstein has held a variety of management and non-management positions in IBM.
During more than 25 years with IBM, Mr. Braunstein dealt primarily with the marketing and development of enterprise systems, with a specialty in highly available, high-performance, mission-critical transaction processing systems for the finance and travel industries.
Re:first? (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, I wonder what I could do for my users if our workstations were running linux, in terms of making their computing experience more productive and more pleasant.
Half the price... (Score:3, Interesting)
God, poor karma.
Seriously though folks, there is a reason Windows is expensive as it is. It's part corporate greed, but it's also part quality of product.
I run Linux on quite a few web servers and a database server here and there and I love it for my servers. It's fast, stable and black and white. Just like I like em. I run Windows on my desktops. Recently I decided to install RedHat 7.3 just to see how things were coming on the desktop front. It was pretty smooth, until I decided I wanted to move my mouse, at which point the X installer locked up.
Seems the X mouse drivers can't figure out a plain ol' optical mouse running through a Linksys KVM. I searched and searched to no avail. The mouse just resets over and over, every second or so.
Screw it. Back to the server room with you! Where's my XP CD?
Re:first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you've obviously never adminned both (or you're just lousy at it).
I personally admin over two dozen Linux servers... If we needed to, I could easily double that.. or triple it (although I wouldn't have time to read
16 or so of the machines I admin are squid proxies.. spread out over several thousand square kilometers.. a month ago there was a vulnerability reported in squid (not too serious - only affected unsecured boxes), and it took me about 90 minutes to patch them all, including compiling the software and testing it on our dev machine to make sure that it worked in our config (which it didn't right off the bat - some of the directives in squid.conf had changed.)
Windows does take more to config. As Malor said in another reply, scripting is everything.
Load of crap (Score:3, Interesting)
Articles like this don't do Linux any good, when management see bogus numbers in them. This is not a an artice I would show to management to try and get Linux system integrated.
A couple of things to consider here (Score:2, Interesting)
2. They claim Linux is cheaper that Windows due to licensing costs. I think it's cheaper because of lack of downtime and less time spent on the phone with the vendor trying to fix a problem. Downtime alone is what makes me HATE MS Exchange as a product. The 2000 release may be better, but the 5.5 release was nothing but a headache.
Personally, I like Linux, but NOTHING beats a Novell server for a general purpose file server. There is no one OS that will serve your enterprise needs. It's as simple as that. Novell makes EXCELLENT file server. Linux make great web and database servers. If you want your e-mail to never crash, run Lotus Domino on an AS400 Server.
Remember, Microsoft wants us to believe one OS can do it all and do it all well. Well, Linux can do it all. But it can't do it all well. But no matter what it does, it still does it better than anything Microsoft has out there.
I'm not a Linux zealot (or even user) but... (Score:2, Interesting)
But I'd just like to say that these last few articles on Slashdot are just what the Linux doctor is asking for. Seeing stuff like this slowly works its way into my brain like one of those Wrath of Khan worms.
I swear I'm going to give in soon - go down to the store and pick up a major Linux distro to try out. Also at work I've got a webserver to set up - those Frontpage bugs really make me nervous and I'm thinking more and more that I need to bite the bullet and go Apache.
The only problem right now is how daunting it is to get started - (especially with the web project) - I have to get familiar with Linux and Apache (which I assume I can get with most major distros), but also with an Open Source database (sounds like MySQL is about right for my needs at this time). As opposed ot just installing FP Server extensions and living with it hehe.
What's the point of this story? I like stories. Seriously though just some encouragement to the Linux people out there - I think the message is slowly getting through (to me anyways).
Re:Windows XP for free...if you are a student (Score:5, Interesting)
The MS student rep would give out free copies of Windows, Visual Studio, Office, etc. on campus, and I'm sure that Microsoft is giving out free copies of WinXP, Visual Studio
The thing is that Microsoft did NOT do this sort of thing on such a wide scale until Linux grew in popularity on campus.
MS is obviously trying very hard to keep CS students from learning to seriously develop software outside of a Microsoft Environment.
By providing students with MS software for free, they hope to stop students from using open source development tools.
If Windows is all programmers know, that is all they'll develop for.
Experience at Excite@Home (Score:5, Interesting)
We had a rather unique situation. We started the project on Windows NT 4.0 and later migrated to Win2K. During that time, we were barely able to handle 1M page views per day on the windows boxes. In addition, the average page generation time was 2 seconds. The 20 windows boxes we had in production cost approximately 17K a piece (quad compaq proliant with 1 gig of ram) and were all experiencing 80% or more CPU usage.
The 20 boxes were managed by 1 sysadmin (6 years experience from MS consulting services) with a full time assistant. This does not count the high school students we had wandering the racks hard rebooting terminally ill boxes.
Most admin time was spent on upgrades, boxes that would just stop working (we called it spontaneous server rot) and trying to use a host of opaque, inadequate tools to detect and eliminate bottlenecks. Build, rollout and staging tools were also a big time synch. Finally, the installation of software onto a new machine in the right order with all configuration parameters took an extradinary amount of time.
In addition, I had one full time engineer writing noting but 'nanny' programs to monitor the program and restart the process when there were problems.
With all this work, the system still went down daily.
After much politicking we translated the program to JSP (straight page per page translation) and moved to solaris machines. The java middle tier ran as on solaris. The 20 compaq boxes were replaced with 16 solaris boxes. Oddly, we paid almost the same amount per box (20K versus 16K).
Immediately, we were able to more that 5M pageviews per day with no changes to the software. In addition
Our sysadmins were replaced with a part time (less than 5 hours per week) solaris admin. The roll out scritps were trivial to write and maintain. We had very few upgrades/security patches.
Most important, the host of tools provided to monitor system performance and tell exactly where bottle necks were and the truly deep understanding of the system internals by the sys admins allowed us to eliminate the remaining problems and scale to 20M pageviews per day.
That is right. two orders of magnitude better performance for precisely the same code. And and order of magnitude less admin time.
Those were measurable results. Here is my 'opinion' of why the differnces were so dramatic.
I taught Win32 programming and system internals for four years. I was also chief scientist for Redmond Communications who publish a technical journal on Microsoft Software/strategies. So I am not a linux bigot.
My observation has been, that no one truly understands the internals of a windows system. Just as I start to get a handle on the latest caching, memory management, threading issues, there is an 'upgrade' via some patch that changes many of the internals. In addition, as shown by the above threads, most windows sys admins seem to have vastly difference experience and understanding of how to configure and maintain systems.
Unlike most nerds, I will not blame the admin, but blame the system. In the scientific community, windows, in practice, has proven to be somewhat opaque.
Unix, on the other hand, is incredibly well documented and all source is available. Uncertain how inodes are locked and released? No problem, there are many books and references to help you. If worst comes to worst, crack open the damn code.
This has nothing to do with open source, but more to do with the which communities evolved the techonlogy and the underlying motivations of companies hawking their wares.
Note, this is not a good thing, or a bad thing it is only a thing.
There were many people out there criticizing the studies accuracy. I must say I do not have a single colleague that I have spoken with that doubts its varisity from personal experience on BOTH sides of the isle. I just knew that I had to share my own experience with you. My only doubt about the story is that I would say 'order of magnitude' for production servers.
Thank you for your time,
Carmine Mangione
Re:Obvious -- except for what you are forgetting (Score:2, Interesting)
Client Access Licenses.
The server licenses are _nothing_ compared to the cost of CALs to cover a medium sized business. And with Licensing 6.0, you are going to pay for those CALs every year.
I'll vouch for this. (Score:5, Interesting)
I used NT/IIS 4.0 for several years switching to 2000/IIS 5.0 when it was available. I have a small business and primarily use my websites for testing solutions that are implemented for my clients and for e-mail. That being said I had to check my servers daily for hacks and patches and got rooted several times. After switching (sorry Apple) to Linux I've been rooted 1 time (my fault for leaving a known bug open via ftp). Going from checking daily (sometimes 3 to 4 times a day) and still getting hacked, to checking weekly (unless I notice an article here a la openSSL, etc.). My TCO is dramatically less. It has also allowed me to confidently recommend Linux solutions at my full time job.
Time is $$$ and the less I spend trying to avoid script kiddies the more time I have to do real work and get paid.
Re:first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Windows XP for free...if you are a student (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't this the problem, though? You really are paying the "Microsoft Tax" in this sense - and that is just what they want. The cost of the software is likely built-into everyone's tuition in one way or another (as you've eluded to) - this is the worst possible scenario.
How long before you are born owing a debt to Microsoft (or any other corporation who thinks that you owe them for their existence)? In that regard, I'm glad we have zealots like RMS who recognize that _Freedom_ doesn't have a pricetag.
I'll vouch for this too. (Score:2, Interesting)
I rarely have to touch the unix boxes. Even security updates are automated. The NetBSD box is scripted to grab updates (it's a file server) for all machines (including itself) and notify affected machines to install updates and restart affected services.
The machines still do an MD5sum from their respective update repositories against the packages before installing them in case of corruption or the file server getting compromised, though... We just want to save the bandwidth on the package downloads.
Aside from kernel updates (which we want to handle ourselves) or hardware failure, I don't think I ever have to maintain those boxes.
This is a stark contrast to the NT domain controller, which gives me no end of trouble. If workstations have joined the domain, but are later renamed or even moved to another department's domain (using the proper procedures no less), they sometimes get stuck in the system. I've had this lead my domain and that of another department to cease trusting each other, much to the chagrin of the users.
Yes, one of the controllers actually revokes trust for the other.
I'm constantly maintaining that domain because it does a bad job of keeping track of workstations and servers on the domain. I don't dare run anything else on the box, like IIS. It gives me enough trouble as it is.
Disclaimer: These machines are not my only responsibility in my job.
However, if the unix boxes gave me the kind of hassle the NT box does, I don't think I'd be able to maintain them all alone even if administering them were my sole responsibility.
Wisdom my son. (Score:4, Interesting)
With linux the admin's education is never limited because everything is open to inspection. With windows the admin's education is limited to what M$ wants them to know. Thus severly handicapping their diagnostic abilities and their intuition.
This effectively reduces the effect of eXPerience for the windows admin. A 5 year windows vet will likely be no smarter than a 3 year vet. However, a 5 year linux vet has every opportunity to exceed his 3 year counterpart.
They didn't include the cost of the Sysadmins. (Score:2, Interesting)
Fuck the OS: it is an anachronism (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Execution environment (like a run-time engine)
2. Database
3. File System (use #2 instead?)
4. Networking protocols
5. Workspace managers (desktops)
6. Graphics and hardware interface
behind standard paradigm-neutrual protocols, then the God-Damned OS does NOT mean diddly squat.
I have too much existing Windows software to just chuck Windows. I don't want to depend on MS, but I don't want to start over. Thus, if you want to make MS irrelavent, then make the OS irrelavent using/making the above standards, then we don't have to marry neither Bill Gates NOR a smiling penguin.
F the OS wars. Think beyond it people. Think abstraction and standards. Windows will shrink when standards make it so that you don't need Windows, not because Linux crashes slightly less.
The Penguin can go fuck Clippey for all I care. You are all fighting the wrong war.
Re:Here is my followup as promised (Score:3, Interesting)
There's just one thing I have issues with:
MS products might be 20% more likely to be infected than Linux just based on the rollout numbers, but experience repeatedly shows that MS products in the real world are infected much more often than that.
Now, that 20% difference you speak of may be limited only to exploitation of bugs, but to limit your comparison only to that is the same sort of mistake you accuse the authors of the paper of. You can't just limit yourself to exploitation of bugs, you have to include exploitation of design flaws as well, and that is where Microsoft products typically fall on their face. Whether it's automatic execution of malicious code during a document preview in the explorer (or Outlook) or an install program that doesn't make you change the sa SQL server password, Microsoft has consistently shown that basic security is something of an afterthought to it. If they're changing that, then good for them! It's about time.
But until they start actually designing their products with as much consideration of security as of useability, Linux will maintain a significant advantage over Windows in resistance to attacks.