Reducing the TCO of IT with Linux? 361
Bil Simser asks: "I've been asked by upper management to look at the feasibility of replacing our current Windows IT infrastructure with Linux. Basically someone has said that Linux is free so now we're off to see how free that really means. A full replacement is probably impossible, but I can see some benefits coming from selective replacement of specific technologies (e.g. application servers, web servers) that might be feasible. This is both from a cost reduction standpoint and increasing productivity when it comes to system management. I've already looked at a few studies done on TCO reduction on this and they look good so now I'm turning to the Slashdot community to see if anyone has either practical experience or informative insight into a problem like this? The objective is to determine the TCO of deploying Linux as a core part of our operational environment so what does that mean in the sense of hardware, software, middleware and management impact?"
Probably best to do your own math. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably best to do your own math. (Score:5, Insightful)
This cannot be stressed enough. TCO reductions are completely subjective. TCO reports are worse than cross-architecture benchmarks for objectivitiy. Every IT environment is different, with different needs and wants. I've seen situations where a Linux migration drastically decreased the TCO of the shop and I've seen situations where it did not.
The most important element in reducing TCO is your human resources. If you have a shop full of Windows admins, who are either unable or unwilling to learn Linux, then you are doomed to failure. It isn't just a matter of can they learn it, but will they. I've seen many migrations spoiled because the admins lead a quiet insurrection to derail the migration. I'm not talking just Windows guys either, most of the time its been the UNIX guys. Also, retraining your staff, can be expensive, but in the long run, you'll save twice that by reducing downtime, cutting down on consultants, and the less tangible, but very real, benefit of higher morale because your admins are not frustrated that they don't know enough about an issue to fix a problem.
The cost savings in hardware, if you're a Windows shop, is insignificant. Sure, many people will say that you can get by with less of a machine using Linux, but that is only a half truth. A linux server can run on lighter hardware mainly because servers do not need a gui to run. This frees up a significant amount of memory, but it will be more difficult for many Windows admins to manage, at least in the beginning. Many of the migrated environments I have worked with have run in to this problem; their admins, simply were not ready for a CLI only server. Eventually, they got to that point, but in the beginning there was longer downtimes and lower morale.
As fot the cost, Linux is not free, at least not for the unitiated. A linux migration with nothing more than downloaded iso's and a reformat of the servers is in for some seriously rocky roads. If your people are not Linux savvy, then spend the money for a professional or server edition of the distribution and get the support. You're still paying a fraction of the cost for Windows software and getting support from the vendor.
Oh, and one more very important thing. Make certain your management knows this may not be easy. Some managers think migrations are simple and painless. Even the best laid plans get blown completely out of the water now and then.
Good Luck and take our advice with a grain of salt. Your mileage WILL vary.
Re:Probably best to do your own math. (Score:3, Insightful)
I get sortof annoyed with Linux people trying to 'show off their cli stuff' when teaching Windows admins how to run Linux. It's counterproductive and unnecessary. Linux is eminently administratable via gui, and the cli stuff will come in its own time. While it's faster and more efficient and scriptable, it's also not necessary for most tasks. Any admin worth his wage will learn it when he becomes familiar with the system.
TCO (Score:4, Informative)
This means that it is easy for people upstairs to asssume that there will be correspingly less budget for training/ migration, dooming it to failure.
OSS may not be free as in beer, but at least its not like secondhand beer.
Timeframe for savings? (Score:5, Informative)
Setting up multiple alternatives might also be a possibility. Set up a matrix, and figure out how much effort goes into the various boxes that could be migrated - and at what risks.
If you have a simple IIS web server serving static, migrating to Linux will most likely be rather painless. Replacing a file server likewise (unless it is running XP - I'm not soo sure about that one).
It is extremely hard to give any more specific advice than this - since you aren't very specific yourself. How much business logic is tied up in Microsoft products - and how much can easily be replaced by open or java-based alternatives?
Re:Timeframe for savings? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good advice to consider the overall timeframe for costs and when savings will be realized.
There are some costs that are harder to measure. Costs of unreliability, people futzing with unfamiliar or non-intuitive software, etc.
I think probably the single largest impediment to Linux adoption currently is not that the applications aren't there, it's training costs to get users up to speed with the alternatives, and it's investment in legacy "standards" - someone's got a pile of old Excel spreadsheets with important information in them.
A lot of people get overly excited at the outset: "Linux is free, reliable, open source and Microsoft charges me every which way to Sunday for stuff with bugs and security holes - no brainer dude!"
Well, training costs and investment in existing systems are real.
If I were you, I'd suggest a small prototype deployment to give you a better handle on how much the training costs will be, since they depend on your users and your mix of applications. Some users and apps will take to Linux like a duck to water, but others will bump up against stumbling blocks that might not have foreseen.
You can win with Linux (my organization is), but it's not a brainless transition.
Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, before all the fanboys out there start screaming "Linux is better", consider this: the reason Windows server software is present at most companies is not because of IIS nor because it offers a secure server environment. It is because of Exchange. Although it has MANY shortcomings, it works, and even though it is perfectly feasible to use open protocols to accomplish most of what Exchange does, you will not have a clear upgrade path (something that is important to upper management, however irrelevant it might be in real life) and you will have to go through hell to do the transition.
Basically, my opinion is the following: move your file servers, proxy servers and print servers to Linux. It should be fairly straightforward if you plan it well, or have a decent project manager. Leave Exchange for last and research the subject very well.
Or post another Ask Slashdot :-D
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:3, Informative)
Hold it! if you have any NT4.0 boxes in your building samba print servers WILL NOT WORK. there is a nasty bug in NT4.0 that keeps samba from sucessfully letting NT4.0 use the printers. This bug is not there in 3.11,95,98,me,2000 or XP.
Also any NT4.0 boxes will require the user to have a login on that linux server due to another nasty bug in the NT4.0 SMB software that requires a username and password and a "it's ok" acknolegement from the server to even view a share that is public.
I have fought NT4.0 in my enterprise for over 3 years because of this... and it is the fault of shoddy code in NT4.0 not samba... W2K was actually a breath of fresh air for me, solving almost all the SMB problems in the company.
windows NT = really really crappy networkable operating system.... and it will seriousally hamper any of your migration efforts.
BUT,Linyux + samba can easily replace all your PDC's and BDC's... its implimentation of the microsoft domain model is better than microsofts. that alone can cut TCO by a large amount... no more having 2 to 3 licenses for every workstation because of the PDC and BDC. (yes to be legal, when you log onto your machine it uses the PDC and BDC, and therefore requires another serveruser license... otherwise you are illegally using the server software.... Gotta love Microsoft Gotchas.)
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2)
in a large enterprise you need to have SMb printing... to allow users to map to printers "willy-nilly" instead of having to go to each machine and map printters by hand.
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2, Insightful)
BUT, I still need the ability for users to map printers and shares at will. Basic printer useage requires that the user can pick what printer they want (important when you have 60 printers in your office with another 10 special use printers) most users do not need access to the dye sublimation printer or the 36 inch wide inkjet printer but those that do can easily map it themselves.
it's all giving the users what they need..
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:4, Informative)
Check into winbind - it even allows you to chown and chgrp files to domain users. I have a web server set up that way right now. There are no local user accounts on that system besides root, who cannot log in remotely (the system is in the next room, so access is not an issue.) On the NT side, you can take ownership and change permissions to an extent as well.
For printing, just use lpr (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:4, Informative)
Where do you get this idea?
You can use Per-Seat licencing to reduce the number of CAL's you require - in Per-Seat licencing mode, you only require one CAL per workstation, not one CAL per workstation per server.
Also, a connection is only made to one authentication server at logon, unless that connection fails. An NT/2K Client will only establish a connection to a secondary authentication server if the primary server is offline.
However, I agree wholeheartedly that SAMBA offers a much more stable implementation of the SMB Protocol than NT. I have been actively using SAMBA on a number of servers in the office for File / Print services for a couple of years, and have had very few problems.
From our point of view, the big difference between NT/2K and SAMBA is the hardware requirement. Linux / SAMBA runs very happily, with less than 5% average CPU Load, on a P233MMX with 64MB of RAM. Serving the same content, NT4 was grinding to a halt on a P-III-300 with 256MB!!
We also use Linux for Firewall and Proxy services, however there are a number of systems that we cannot replace, in particular, we require MSSQL, so we need to retain a couple of NT/2K servers. Also, our virus scanning solution (Trend Officescan) requires an IIS server for it's automatic pattern file rollout (though this is behind our firewall, and is only permitted outside access to collect the updated pattern files for internal distribution).
Linux is also not suitable for certain VPN tasks - FreeBSD is a much better all-round solution, as its IPSec implementation is a better match to the official standard.
Linux has it's place in the server room, but so does MS, and other OS'es such as Free/OpenBSD.
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:4, Interesting)
TCO for windows NT has been well over $500.00 per workstation here for JUST the OS and network licenses... and truth to be told, if we were audited I would bet that they would say that we needed to re-purchase the server licenses when we upgraded to W2K.
so I got that idea from microsoft directly.... in our corperate wide license agreement.
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2)
I have not experienced this.
We have NT 4.0 machines on our network, and they print to our Samba print servers just fine.
Perhaps it's your configuration?
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:4, Informative)
All windows NT systems will refuse to connect to a server without first asking the user for a login or password IF the current user/password used for the local login did not work on the remote machine/server... This is the first part making it a pain in the arse to print to a SMB server, and causing the requirement for a login on the machine (smblogin with a smbpasswd) to access the shares.. even if it is a public share.
granted I havent done NT4.0+samba for almost 2 years now... so my experience is based on what was happening before our switch to Windows 2000.
has samba added code to get around the bugs in NT4.0?
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:5, Informative)
I've logged onto Samba-controlled domains and printed to their printers from both NT4 workstation and NT4 server.
Not sure what bug you're referring to, but I'd love to see a reference.
The central point of this, though: that Linux can easily replace windows for many functions, is definitely still valid.
*Is* he changing from Windows? (Score:2)
I've overseen a transition from SCO to Linux, and other than the porting of one crufty old internal app with a bunch of platform-specific dependancies, it went quite smoothly.
Re:*Is* he changing from Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2)
So if they have an exchange server then keep that, and use linux for the rest. Evolution can talk to exchange so there is no need for windows on the clients.
Ok, I don't know what/if there are linux alternatives to exchange that offer the same functionality, but he didn't really expect a full replacement, so he obviously could accept keeping the exchange server (if there is one)
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2)
Also, in order for Exchange to work, you have to have a Windows domain controller. Which basically means a Windows network.
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:2)
Part of the whole point of Samba is replacing Windows Domain controllers.
I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet, but Samsung has taken over HP's OpenMail, though it might be called something different. It is a drop in replacement for Exchange. And SuSE is coming out with something similiar.
What do you mean `it works'? (Score:2)
If you want to do that, just use the latest version of LookOut and point it at your LDAP server. It'll send no end of insane LDAP queries and keep the poor server shuddering and smoking up the tyres almost as if it were running Exchange.
If by `it works' you mean `it reliably delivers email', I'd have to violently disagree. I've just received a bounce from an Exchange server... a week after I sent it the original email. Sometimes it delivers OK, sometimes it mangles attachments, sometimes it just toys with a message for a few hours for no reason that I can detect.
PostFix does all of the _useful_ email things that Exchange does and requires only a fraction of the horsepower. Do we need to discuss security? The few obscure/bizarre things the SendMail will do that PostFix won't are rarely worth the bother of a crash-dump configuration file.
The only nearly-unique feature of Exchange is the collaboration aspect, and even that is much better done with SamsungContact nee hp-OpenMail.
And as another poster asked, why meet so often? And do people need to tinker with each others' calendars to achieve this? You may be looking at a procedural bug here.
Re:What do you mean `it works'? (Score:2)
Whether it is hell to maintain might me relevant to the sysadm but not to the users. And it will be hell to change 1000 desktops to IMAP, let alone solve server problems.
The guy is asking about total cost of ownership, let's limit ourselves to that, not the usual and justified "Exchange is crap".
Re:Changing from Windows to Linux... (Score:3, Informative)
Unless I'm missing the boat here, nobody loves Exchange. What people like is Outlook for mail and scheduling, which I find incredibly primitive and unproductive, but there it is--people do seem to like it.
The problems with Outlook on Exchange are obvious--Outlook is better described as a sophisticated virus-distribution platform than it is an MUA or a scheduling client. But if people love Outlook, they can use it with a variety of other scheduling platforms, including Lotus Notes Domino servers (with an outlook plug-in thingy) or even the Byrani stuff (see www.byrani.com).
Am I missing something or is it really feasible to replace the Exchange server side with minimal client reconfiguration and still get what people want?
Free audit (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know about the quality of the audit, but you can always try it?
Re:Free audit (Score:3, Informative)
I.e. fill in how many Windows machines you're running now and we'll multiply it with the yearly license cost for you. Will not tell you what migrating to Linux will cost you.
Use baby steps. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you replace things as they are too old/broken you dont get the problems that arise when you rip/replace everything. A slow steady pace of replacing should keep the TCO down.
That is unless you want to rip everything out and install an iron_butt of an IBM server. In that case it can save a lot of money but the investment is pretty hefty the first year.
Re:Use baby steps. (Score:4, Insightful)
Very true, but also try to figure out how much it would cost you to start using desktop Linux (and if that would be wise in yur situation) in situations where a group of desktop computers would be replaced and you would become subject to heavy new licencing
It may not be profittable, since switching half might increase your support costs for supporting two systems and interoperability costs may arrise, but it will strenghten your case if you look into non-viable options as well and show that you are nt just advocating change, but only usefull change.
Good Luck
Re:Use baby steps. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think this guy has any intention of replacing desktop computers and frankly Linux is not ready for the desktop yet. For two reasons: 1. average users HATE to learn how to use a computer and they already invested too much time into learning Windows and 2. Not all desktop applications that are standard in American bussiness are there yet for Linux.
Linux still needs about five years to really get going in the desktop world.
The server market is totally different. Bussinesses should look to Linux now as a server machine because it is widely TESTED and accepted system in that role with a lot of highly functional free and commercial products to work with it.
Re:Use baby steps. (Score:4, Informative)
Back in 2000 i was given the opportunity to go to London, UK to help a growing swedish IT consultant business. My main task was to act as a Linux mentor , to help and introduce Linux to the MCSE sysadmin there. During my 6 weeks, I replaced their current "firewall" (nt4sp3 with winproxy) with a Slackware/ipchains based firewall. This allowed them to
1: Remove the proxy software on all the clients
2: Provide some level of security for the DMZ
The firewall was up'n'running for over a year after I left, and then replaced by a Solaris firewall with Checkpoint.
My point is that I managed to introduce the power of Unix into the NT environment and easilly replaced the NT "firewall", and everyone was happy, including the business guys in suits who pays the MS licence bills.
Begin with attacking simple services, such as web, ftp, fw services. This makes a basic understanding, even for the "civilians". When they feel comfortable with the Linux fileservers and firewalls, "Hey, that fileserver never goes down ?", you will have a lot easier to migrate the rest.
similar problem adressed (Score:3, Informative)
Audio demos available on this (Score:5, Informative)
The New York Linux Scene [nylxs.com] has held business demos [nylxs.com] regarding Linux for business [nylxs.com], TCO, desktop applications, Databases and more. There are audios [nylxs.com] available for download at the web site that include presentations made at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, and more recently at CUNY/LaGuardia [nylxs.com] in Queens, NYC.
Who/What/How (Score:3, Interesting)
Without that information it is impossible to even try to guess the TCO. You should describe your environment, human resources and everything else in quite much detail to have beneficial input. As you might have read from some TCO reports, replacing things with Linux might have anything between a negative and very postive TCO impact. Anyway, I would suggest first trying with a dedicated group of individuals - then if it works, enlarge to one division (if your company has divisions). Take smaller steps. Or... do you already have results from tries like this?
Transition of services (Score:4, Interesting)
Say, you have email. There is Exchange equivalent for Linux (Samsung Contact), but if one can survive with moving meeting scheduling functionality to something else (or abandoning it -- people should not spend so much time at meetings that they need to mess with each other calendars to schedule it), Cyrus + sendmail with IMAP will outperform everything else UNLESS people like to send multi-megabyte attachments to giant lists instead of placing files on some HTTP server.
Meeting scheduler and web server management programs can be installed separately (and nothing wrong will happen even if large attachment will get copied to 100 people, as long as it fits on the server's hard drive), but people should be aware that they are there. On the other hand, performance, security and flexibility of Internet connection will improve dramatically compared to Exchange.
Same kind of "similat to what you had on Windows" vs. "what performs this function the best" dilemma exists for pretty much every other service.
Insufficient information to go on... (Score:3, Interesting)
The general network infrastructure bits, file servers, mail servers (note: MAIL not the overblown nightmare known as Exchange), firewalls, dhcp servers, gateways, some router boxes then Linux will be of benifit.
The one cost factor that is hard to calculate is the cost of retraining the IT support team - do you know how many already use linux at home or have used it in the past?
Oh boy. Ask a better question. (Score:5, Insightful)
What does your company do? What kind of software do you run, on servers, on desktops? What hardware setups do you have? What software are your employees used to? How IT-competent are your employees - will they freak out when the "start" button looks different on their desktop, will they call support when Clippy is missing? Is retraining an issue or do you use custom-made software that can be ported to the new environment? Can you estimate the cost of porting your custom-made software?
Etc. etc. etc.
Despite what the marketing people tell us, TCO is always a subjective calculcation, there is _no_ objective way of measuring it. Ask two people in the same company for a TCO calculation and you'll get massively different numbers.
Speaking from my own experience, I can say that using Linux instead of Windows has massively reduced my frustration with server setups and networked clients. A non-frustrated, happy IT manager is good for the company, so that alone should be something to consider.
well start off with the basics (Score:5, Insightful)
look at what the admins have to deal with everyday. it's most likely 3 things
1) mail
2) web services
3) password issues
mail services can be replaced without much fuss, as long as you are not very deep in using exchange. saving right there could be from a few thousand to many thousands.
web services :
blend the platforms, where you can use unix based servers, do it. where you need IIS then go that way. that's another set of savings.
password issues
well that's another entirely different story of the poor admin consistantly having to reset clients password.
database issues
this is where it can get fun, MSSQL is very good. MYSQL can not compete at certain aspects of it. but the objective here is, are you using those aspects that require you to be using MSSQL or could you go to another platform.
the above issues are the quick and easy items, these are mostly admin dependant and most of your staff would know both the windows side and the linux side.
Now if your firm is willing.
a simple class about how to use unix word processor, spreadsheet programs, and e-mail clients might go a long way in making the end user happy. Also don't forget the games the end user still wants to have.
the payment for the basic 1 week after work class should pay for itself in about 1 year, I would think that the teacher would charge about 100 per student and if I recall right windows pro cost about 125 in bulk.
but don't forget the order that you do this in. stuff the admins know first. then the end users. Also this would be a good time to revamp your inventory of items and utilize those other resources you have.
People are the key (Score:4, Interesting)
This comes up time and again and I think often the key point is missed - the technical staff are the key.
In my experience, really good technical staff will naturally want to use Open Source technologies, and will be able to do extremely cost effective things with them.
People who aren't such good technies, and don't have such an affinity with computers but do it just because it is a job, generally won't like OSS and will prefer to use Microsoft products.
Bad techies using OSS software will hack things together that might cost more unravelling in the long run, and might come up with solutions that the end-users won't like.
Good technies forced to use Microsoft will feel frustrated and underused, and will leave or not do a good job.
So, in other words:
Good techies + OSS = highly effective, low TCO
Re:People are the key (Score:3, Insightful)
People who aren't such good technies, and don't have such an affinity with computers but do it just because it is a job, generally won't like OSS and will prefer to use Microsoft products.
Really good technical staff will choose the best tool for the job no matter where it came from and will be able to deploy an effective and reliable solution with it. People who aren't such good techies will switch their minds off and cry "Linux uber alles!" and make blind emotionally-led decisions based on some irrational hatred of anything that isn't Linux.
You speak as if the only two choices are OSS and Microsoft, whereas in fact there are many more options available. That probably means you are in the latter category.
Re:People are the key (Score:2)
Of course. I was generalising. But, as a generalisation, good technical people like OSS because it means that they can get under the hood and fix problems, which they can't do with closed source. This is not my personal opinion, but what I have observed.
People who aren't such good techies will switch their minds off and cry "Linux uber alles!" and make blind emotionally-led decisions based on some irrational hatred of anything that isn't Linux.
You speak as if the only two choices are OSS and Microsoft, whereas in fact there are many more options available. That probably means you are in the latter category.
Hmm. So you're accusing me of being a Linux zealot and having an irrational hated of anything that isn't Linux, just because I have observed that really good techies tend to prefer OSS. I think this says more about you than it does me.
Re:People are the key (Score:2)
Consider the Linux kernel. The developers don't use free CVS, they use commercial BitKeeper.
Hmm. So you're accusing me of being a Linux zealot and having an irrational hated of anything that isn't Linux, just because I have observed that really good techies tend to prefer OSS. I think this says more about you than it does me.
The only people you can trust to make technological decisions are the ones with no strong feelings either way about open source or commercial software.
Re:People are the key (Score:2)
OSS doesn't necessarily mean no cost or non-commerical. The BitKeeper source code is freely available, and in that sense it is Open Source. It just has a more restrictive licence than most other OSS projects, which is why some OSS zealots don't like it.
Now, if the Linux kernal people had chosen a closed source solution, then I would be a bit suprised.
Re:People are the key (Score:2)
I'm a bit confused because I didn't actually mention Linux at all in my post, and yet two responses have implied that I am a Linux zealot. I'm not.
The question was not "do you have an ill-considered opinion on the quality of Microsoft-based technical staff".
Look, it was an observation, OK? I was not saying that all techies that use Microsoft products are bad. It is just in my experience the best technies I have met have prefered to use OSS solutions.
It reminded me that being good at computing (HELL, you OBVIOUSLY ARE, you OSS techo-wizard-low-TCO-boi you...) has nothing to do with being able to provide the right solution to a problem (or even a useful opinion).
Actually, no, I'm not a great techy, I work more at the project management level, at which TCO questions are directed. But I work with techies and employ them, and from my experience:
Good techies + OSS = low TCO
and the best techies tend to prefer OSS.
Sorry if you don't like it, but there it is.
Replacing Desktop Machines (Score:3, Interesting)
A non-technical person who uses his/her PC for Office and Exchange will more-than-likely be intimidated by Linux, Even though Applications like open-office and Evolution are exactly the same (Well in the case of Evolution, better!).
However I'll never go back to Windows for the simple fact that Linux won't hang on a 1.5GHz machine when I want to browse Slashdot with Mozilla, Where Windows is very prone to crashing when I use I.E.
Re:Replacing Desktop Machines (Score:2)
Interesting. Not trying to go offtopic/flame, but I always get Linux to hang when browsing Slashdot with Mozilla, and Windows XP never crashes.
Re:Replacing Desktop Machines (Score:2)
Mozilla is a pretty good browser but is an intense resource hog. Konqueror is dependant upon KDE to run. Galeon is dependant upon Gnome as well as Mozilla (since it uses the same rendering engine). When I use Linux I use Fluxbox, which is small and isn't a drain on the system like KDE or Gnome is. So Mozilla runs ok most of the time, but hangs a lot when I've got other stuff going. I haven't had much experience with Opera so I can't pass judgement on it.
Heterogenic probably wont be cheaper (Score:3, Informative)
The heterogenic fuss of administrating an NT/Linux mix of 500+ PCs is a pure pain in the but. And knowing how crappy NT 'networks' are, I suggest you ditch it entirely.
I guess you are considering a network wide update anyway, so total Linux could very much be the way to go. Alltough you'd probaly have to start with "let's just change the servers and one or two Desktops" to get the people used to the Idea.
And finally, to answer your question:
A Linux only enviroment for Standard PC work will allways be cheaper than WinNT. Provided you know your way about Linux admining and there's no special software that only runs on NT. Which would only be something like special Video NLE software or something simular.
Here are some links (Score:5, Informative)
Consulting Times [consultingtimes.com]
Open Source - ready for business [newsforge.com]
Open Source on the Business Desktop [trustcommerce.com]
Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers! [dwheeler.com]
A Hard Look at Linux's Claimed Strengths [linuxguru.net]
A few more (Score:3, Interesting)
Open Source Initiative [opensource.org]
Why Free Software's Long Run TCO must be lower [linuxandmain.com]
Open Source is good for America - US military advised [theregister.co.uk] (This is about the military, but parts can also apply to business. Read the report linked at the end of that article.)
linux TCO (Score:4, Interesting)
lack of info (Score:2)
OK, you have not actually told us what groupware your company runs (Lotus should be okay as IBM has worked upon it, for Exchange, you may take a look to Xandros).
Also, What typical activities are you performing ?
Programming ?
For which target ?
If this "just" consists of deploying yet-another-billing system, I guess it is still possible if you know how to interface the telecom switches using the GCC...
Now, for DTP purposes, you'll have a problem as Gimp doesn't support CYMK (well, it didn't the last time as checked) and Gyve or Killustrator are just too far from Adobe's products.
For web programming, this could do, except that I am not sure there is a GNU package aimed at replacing FlashMX... OK, still get Java, though.
No, please, be more explicit regarding what is to be done using Linux.
LTSP.org has many case studies which would help (Score:2)
It would apply since your hardware can be used diskless even if it has a disk, but the various types of apps had to be changed and a server (under bigger load in an terminal server conviguration) had to handle things.
But as far as wholesale windows replacement, this would be a good resource.
That depends (Score:2)
Ciryon
start small (Score:5, Insightful)
the training for that will be relatively little. go one office at a time; first IT, then accounting, etc.
Use that as a yardstick. gauge the companies relative stupidity/oblivious user.
Mozilla will be easy. it might be as simple as sending a tech traininer to each dept's next meeting and saying "we're upgrading IE, it will look a little different, but it's almost the same.(use the modern skin- people tend to think of it as more of an 'upgraded' look)
next try openoffice. this will be your key. it will require retraining stupid people. This means you taking the time to document it and create a FAQ and a 'how do i...' list.
if they can make it this far with relatively little pain, then try converting a few company servers to linux(webservers are a good start.) then try the IT dept. measure how difficult it is for each person. figure out the basics of exactly how long it takes the fairly tech-saavy people to get it. then take it one office at a time.
start small. baby steps.
Re:start small (Score:2)
I'd consider desktops part of the infrastructure.
servers won't be a problem. desktops will.
desktops will also be the most difficult to change, and save them the most in the long run.
Awfully broad (Score:4, Interesting)
All that I CAN say based on recent experience is that a Linux server solution tends to be more stable, thereby saving costs in comparison to Windows servers with respect to reliability. Base installation costs for our shop has been equal to Windows, by the way, because it took our people more time to get things running in the first place. But that's only *our* experience.
Again: without knowing the facts you cannot get meaningful conclusions for your specific situation.
Be Sure to Consider +- of Licenses/Paperwork (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, ... (Score:2, Interesting)
At my current job they made the same decision time ago; we now run all remote customers stations, all local developing stations, all network management machines and nearly all servers under Linux. The only server we're still forced to run under Windows is the IIS/SQLServer one, but the port towards Apache/MySQL (or PostgreSQL - our network is rapidly growing) is already scheduled to start next year.
The amount of money saved by using free software is enormous. No license fees per machine (A Windows + Office license saved for each machine does matter a lot when there are hundreds->thousands installs!), fast bug corrections, free and easy remote administration (desktop included), no time and bandwidth costs due to viruses or trojans (or windows
As other posters wrote, it may take some time and money to retrain the personnel to use Linux; that's true, but is definitely worth the effort. A mid-skilled sysadmin could also easily configure a basic window/desktop manager to be easier and safer to the user than Windows.
YMMV of course, but in our case Linux was the best choice ever.
My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
At the beginning of 2001, we changed all development servers (with our testing Oracle 8i databases), and everything went sweet. So in april 2001 we changed our production server from a Sun Enterprise 5000 (4 Ultra Sparc processors) to a Quad Xeon. No more server crashes, no more high maintenance costs.
Some interesting facts:
Comming Soon To 'Ask Slashdot' (Score:2, Insightful)
(With apologies to PTerry)
Seriously - lets not retread the same old stuff on Slashdot that most of us could write code to generate the resulting opinions and flamewares (Linux vs M$ / P2P vs RIAA / SCSI vs IDE / MAC vs PC)
The best discusions I've seen here are where we get a good spread of opion, those are interesting and challenging.
Oh wait, I forgot where I was...
Linux substitutes for OfficeXP (Score:2)
Lots of annoying popups there, sorry about that.
Stay away from Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
In my opinion in the long run, the TCO of Linux fall higher than Microsoft. But this is just my opinion. I have no hard numbers and no, I'm not a Microsoft plant.
Yuioup
Re:Stay away from Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Give you an example of a real problem I know first hand. It's a bit dated, but it is still a valid example. ISP A a medium sized ISP in San Diego county with approximately 100K subscribers runs 80 linux boxes for the user homepages. ISP A is primarily a Solaris and linux shop. Their total sys admin staff for supporting 200 or so servers is a team of 5 guys. ISP B also in San diego has about 10K subscribers, but is primarily a windows shop. ISP B runs two dedicated exchange servers, but is unable to provide reliable service. In fact their email is down daily and they have a staff of 3 sysadmins. Not only that, their DNS server is also windows, it continually hiccups and results in "domain not found." In fact, every windows based ISP that I have ever worked with has a much larger staff to support the equal number of subscribers. In many cases, the staff was 2X the linux/solaris shops. Let's say an experienced junior sys admin goes for 55-65K and a equivalent microsoft junior admin goes for 35-45K. Keep in mind these are old numbers and aren't accurate for the current market. if it take 5 unix admins to support 100K subscribers and it takes 3 MS sysadmins to support 10K subscribers, it could take from 10-30 MIS sysadmin to support 100K subscribers.
Therefore the TCO for 1 yr of unix staff for 100K subscribers would be about 450K including benefits and other costs. The equivalent for a microsoft shop could be as low as 500K and as high as 1.5million per year. Again, these are based on several years of experience with small, medium and large ISP's. In the end, every single ISP that starts out as a windows shop puts most of their critical components on a unix box. Things like email, firewall, dns, nntp and accounting are all on unix. Even ISP's that provide IIS hosting aren't pure windows. All of the big IIS hosting companies I know have unix for the critical functions.
Re:Stay away from Linux (Score:2)
You don't necessarily need a Linux admin, just like most people who advertise for software engineers who know VB don't actually need people who know VB - just a good software engineer since learning VB is trivial.
What you need is a good sysadmin who has a capibility to learn. You need that whether you're running Windows or Linux. A good sysadmin will be able to learn virtually all he needs to know in a very short period of time. To a good sysadmin, learning Linux is reasonably trivial.
Now if you just want cheap reboot monkeys instead of sysadmins, I'd agree with you.
Linux SysAdmins (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, I am one.
The rider is that you have to find roughly 3-4x as many Windows admins, and that in itself demands more managing than 1/3-1/4 as many Linux admins.
Let's put it this way: shop with 25 assorted servers has a choice of six Windows admins at (say) AUD$80,000 PA apiece or two Linux admins at (say) AUD$120,000 PA apiece. Quick! AUD$480,000 or AUD$240,000 PA for the same services, you choose!
Now let's turn to databases and email. Say that this shop has 5 of each and fifty seats on each, that's 250 licences for each, at a combined total of roughly AUD$300 a seat for MS-SQL plus Exchange, or AUD$750,000 (or a free Linux admin for six years riding PostgreSQL plus PostFix). It's enough to make an accountant go, er, postal.
Maybe you're not a Microsoft plant, maybe you're a Microsoft animal? (-:
Re:Linux SysAdmins (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. It may be "politically correct" to say this on Slashdot, but it's true. The Windows shops I've known (and worked in) have many more servers than correspondingly powerful Unix installations, and each Unix admin was able to ride herd on more servers than a similarly situated Windows admin.
The whole Unix mindset and toolset is incredibly admin-friendly, once you grasp the simple principles.
moving to linux too... (Score:5, Informative)
We are in a Win2000 Active Directory environment, and we are slowly replacing the file servers with samba server (which are really easy to join to a win2k AD domain, and use the AD authentication if you RTFM), moving the web servers to Apache, the firewall is now a linux box with iptables, snort/acid and 2 network cards, and so on.
The whole linux section is running webmin over SSL, so changes in configuration are easy to administer and make can be done even by the microserfs in our company.
The only struggling point is Exchange (as another post mentions), there we go into the realm of broken LDAP implementations in AD and X400 connectors, so we have decided to leave that alone for now (to be honest, exchange 2000 performs quite adequately) (hiss! boo!)
We did not do the 'sudden switch', we just made sure there was a *nix alternative the moment another winbox went belly-up. The users don't even realise something is different, and the new structure performs well.
I find TCO a vague concept; there are so many intangible factors involved. I do know that
a)we are rid of MS's expensive server licenses
b)we spend less time troubleshooting
c)the hardware requirements are significantly lower
Plus, I get to play with *nix boxes all day long! yay!
Addendum to the question (Score:5, Informative)
True, a system where users are only engaging email against an Exchange server means pretty much nothing in terms of swapping out Windows with Linux and serving up POP3, but even in that simple environment there are costs associated with support, maintenenace, upgrades, etc. If it costs $40 million dollars to replace a Microsoft technology with a Linux technology over 10 number of years, I'd rather stick with Microsquishy where the support is there and pay the $3 million/yr for it (or whatever those numbers are).
I think one of the key points that we're seeing from looking at this problem is the fact that we're seemingly tied to certain products, not necessarily the technologies. So depending on the product rather than the service is causing a lot of grief in any kind of cost reduction. One comment that stood out was that large corporations were tied to Windows not because of IIS but because of Exchange. This is only partially true as most large corporations are tied to a series of products rather than technologies. It's not as simple as Exchange vs POP3 but more like BizTalk vs ???, portal technologies, SAP, etc. There is no one single solution in a corporate environment for all services.
Thanks!
winface.com (Score:3, Informative)
There are some annoying errors in this book, but it is worth the $35 - I got a copy and it is quite thought provoking.
don't forget hardware compatibility (Score:2, Informative)
We use some BSD to squeeze a little more life out of a few aging x86 boxes for mail, etc. but to the best of my knowledge, nothing really touches linux when it comes to a.) hardware compatibility coupled with b.) application support and c.) a snowball's chance in hell of getting a support contract that will keep your TCO south of the prison rape that is MS licensing. But then, I'm the small fish...
In any event, if you have a mixed platform environment and a few older systems the capacity to leverage that hardware's remaining capabilities given a homogenous OS environemnt, open standards and fine-grained configurability creates the potential (in my mind) for a very excellent short term return on investment.
Furthermore, its a relatively low risk scenario for you and other management members to get good, hard fact data about what the realities of the differences in TCO is using linux in _Your Environment_ .
Slashdot is the best TCO reduction device! (Score:2, Funny)
Cheers
Whatever the results, publish them (Score:2)
How about an FAQ ? (Score:2)
How often is it "news" when Slashdot runs a post OVER AND OVER wherein everyone trumpets the lower TCO of Linux, or the myriad issues you need to consider, etc ?
Linux TCO and migration issues (Score:4, Informative)
The comments below are offered in the hope that they will be of some use to the original poster and are not intended to offend anyone.
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the author's employer or any organization(s) the author may be affiliated with.
The TCO of replacing Windows with Linux will depend on the following factors:
1. size of your organization
2. complexity of your organization
3. your budget
4. your hardware (including your network hardware)
5. your software
6. your human resources (minus your IT people)
7. your IT people
If you have a small or medium sized organization with a good IT dept., Linux compatible hardware, flexible management, employees willing to accept something that looks and works a little differently and you are not running any strange / proprietary software which does not have an open source or Linux equivalent then you could migrate your whole organization with the assistance of 1 Linux/Hardware geek.
If that is the case you could migrate everything for the cost of 1 full time geek (30-120K/yr).
If you have a very large+complex organization, in order to achieve the best possible TCO you would need:
1. at least 1 Linux Guru/Master Geek (60-200K)
2. at least 1 Hardware Master Geek (60-200K)
3. at least 1 Linux Slave / Hardcore Geek (30-80K)
4. at least 1 Hardware Slave / hardcore geek (30-80K)
5. a budget sufficiently large enough to pay for the migration costs (an incremental rollout would cost more)
6. a small development team to code new apps and or drivers if you cannot find suitable replacements for what you currently have (1 to 5 people at 30-80K a piece)
If you migrate everything overnight that will have the lowest possible TCO.
If you migrate gradually you will end up paying more over time but that would allow your people more time to adjust thus reducing the human resources problems/issues.
If you have a small budget and you are not authorized to kill the patient in order to save it then your only option might be to migrate a small number of machines at a time and retrain your people as you go whenever necessary.
The best time to upgrade your OS would be if you are about to purchase new machines anyway you could then replace the old machine with the new machines incrementally fixing problems as you go.
In general Linux is awesome when used as a:
1. file and print server
2. public web server
3. intranet/private web server
3. firewall
4. router
5. mail server
6. database server
7. DNS server
8. network management workstation / server
9. authentication server
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
I can say no more without knowing more about your organization.
If you can provide more details about your organization without divulging the identity of that organization please do so. I am sure there are many slashdot.org members out there that could provide you with a lot more information if they knew more about your systems and your internal structures.
You might want to consider contracting an independent third party with good Linux and Windows knowledge to come in and inspect your organization and give you a guesstimate of what it will take to migrate.
Live long and prosper iII II
Unix_Geek_65535
Don't limit yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
If your network is fairly homogenous, the most expensive part will be getting the first couple of machines installed and configured. If you're clever about how you do the first few instances, setting up the rest will be (nearly) trivial. There aren't many cases where you'll find reasons to limit yourself to server-only replacements. Linux is capable as a desktop OS, and is much easier to administer than Windows.
IME, getting servers installed and configured is easy. Getting desktops configured is harder, because the focus software tends to be less robust. Getting Wine and various Windows apps installed; making sure the plugins for the browser(s) are installed and working; setting up the default organization desktop with app icons and such; getting the login authentication mechanism configured properly; making sure network printing works... this is the labor-intensive stuff. Again, once you get everything configured properly for the first machine, you can usually clone the configurations to new installs, so all of the work is up-front.
After that, maintenance is fairly easy if you choose the right distribution. Some are better than others in that respect. Actual sysadmin effort tends to grow logarithmically -- rather than linearly -- with the number of machines being supported (again, if they're homogeneous). Help desk support needs are about the same as for any other OS.
Where you'll find the most savings is in licensing and sysadmin costs. If you have heterogeneous hardware, sysadmin costs can go up, although (again) it is the initial installation and configuration that will hurt the most.
We just finished this converstion... (Score:4, Informative)
We found that with our business(high volume, low margin) that the new licensing from MS would cost us several thousand dollars every few years, not counting the initial cost to get everything we already had in house "current".
Also, the cost of the hardware to run Server 2000 supporting all of our functions was also cost prohibitive as we would have needed to replace our aging HP Netserver LH3.
In the end we wound up replacing the Netserver LH3 with a pair of Linux servers. One running SAMBA, the other sendmail/POP3.
Overall, the cost of our server hardware was roughly 1/2 of what we would have paid otherwise. Cost of OS, $0. Cost of time and training to come up to speed and trouble shoot all of the ins and outs: 12 weeks @ 20hrs a week of my life (insert appropriate salary here).
Miscellaneous savings: No more weekly reboots (though we still do a monthly to insure everything is still peachy), we have confidence in the stability of our server OS.
Nothing is obfuscated, we can look at anything under the hood that we want to and modify it for our business needs.
Wealth of knowledge: Every error that I encountered along the way was solvable by doing a simple search on the Web.
Expertise: In order to accomplish this task, especially performed by only one or two individuals in your IT department, you will need to cultivate in house expertise. It will not be such that all questions will be answered as if by an Oracle, or even a Guru, but it certainly will but them on par with many of the people running around with their MS certifications.
Downfall: This was not an easy task to just "do". All of our IT folks in shop (myself included) are UNIX systems administrators, at least in the basic sense, and it still took a fair amount of time to untangle all the bugs.
I could not have imagined being told "We need that new server up in 2 weeks." and just doing it. Now I could bring said server up in 4-8 hours from scratch, but in the beginning it was a lot of trial and error.
Business case process (Score:3, Insightful)
What some of the above posters haven't grasped is that you're being asked for a business case, not a 'Is Linux technically better than MS?' paper.
If you're being judged by business people, you need to speak their language, which all boils down to $CURRENCY_UNITS.
While you may have a template to work off if the upgrade to Win2k or NT was properly planned (and if you don't have it, it might be worth retrospectively doing this), here are the steps you'll need to go through in your business case:
The money bit
Now it gets really interesting. Assuming that you'll be calculating the costs/benefits over a number of years to produce a programme budget and calculating a break-even point some time in the future, you'll need to take into account that you're using money which would otherwise produce a return doing something else, and also that there will be inflation in the mean time.
Talk to your beancounters, and ask them what DCF rate is standard usage in the company - this is the rate by which the company assumes that money will lose its value. If you don't get one, use 10% as a fallback (but make it clear that that's your assumption). With a 10% DCF rate, a dollar will be worth a dollar today, 90 cents next year, 81 the year after, 73 in year 4 and so on - discount factors of 1, 0.9, 0.81, 0.73, 0.66 etc.
For each year, take the net operating savings (ie leaving out the initial project investment) that Linux will bring and multiply that by that year's discount factor. This will be the savings at Net Present Value (NPV - a term all beancounters consider as the real value). Keep a cumulative total.
Divide the cumulative NPV value by the programme cost of the change. This is your Return on Investment (RoI), expressed as a ratio or a percentage. When/if it reaches 1:1, you've hit breakeven. Be very clear about when you expect to hit this point - when it comes will largely determine whether you get the go-ahead.
Crashing servers?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Make gradual changes (Score:4, Informative)
Most IT costs are written off over time, so a Win2k server costing £4000 may have £1000 taken off its value in company accounts each year. Therefore two years down the line your server is valued as an asset worth £2000 in the company accounts. After four years have passed the server will not show up on company accounts. The amount of time purchases are written off over varies from company to company, so check how your organisation operates. In my experience few finance directors are willing to replace assets that still have value to the company, so don't plan on replacing that new Exchange server just yet.
When you try to convince your management to go with free software try to honestly compare different products/technologies. I have successfully implemented several Debian GNU/Linux servers running Sendmail at a company simply by comparing the product costs in front of company directors. The comparison can be quite simple, for instance the one I used for proving email simply put the costs of Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Debian GNU/Linux Sendmail side by side like so:
License costs
Microsoft Exchange £50,000
Lotus Notes £15,000
Debiam GNU/Linux £0
This will of course provoke an argument popular with company management that the free option must be cheep and nasty. So you will need to be able to show that *NIX has been perfected over thirty years, or that the server sofware you are choosing is the best in its class for your purposes.
Once they are used to the idea you can introduce added extras such as increased reliability, improved staff motivation and management benefits like cost/performance improvement and less management overhead.
For some more hopefully helpful information look at http://www.siriusit.co.uk
Comment caveats:
1 I am not impartial, I spend most of my time implementing free software solutions so I may have a slight bias
2 The company I work for http://www.siriusit.co.uk specializes in free software implementation so they may have a slight bias too
Steve Peters
Cost of time... (Score:3, Informative)
Here are a number of studies - see my paper. (Score:3, Informative)
The biggest issue is, in my mind, use common sense. Make sure you have a better understanding of your current situation (systems and how people use them). In most cases, don't make all the changes at once - plan to do things in stages, test things out before you depend on them, then deploy - and examine how that stage went so you can adjust your plan for the next stage. Maybe you start by replacing a few servers, for example. If you're replacing desktops, maybe you start with just a few systems, or you replace Microsoft Office while keeping Microsoft Windows on a few systems.There's much to be said for incremental changes.
We move workgroups to Linux all the time.... (Score:5, Informative)
We've found that, when asked, virtually every Developer will claim that their application will not run if Linux is the file server. In all but one case they were dead wrong. (The one case was an application that ran on FoxPro on the server.) Most applications have no clue what OS the files are stored under and couldn't care less.
The downside to switching clients to Linux has generally been a reduction in our income from that client. One client even uses the "mail" feature of Outlook (mailing contacts and appointments to other members of the group) which generally sucked until we installed a nice Dell server which we loaded with SuSE Linux. Just like Exchange but without the costs. Also, unfortunately, without the headaches because they now call us for help only about twice a year!
From almost any standpoint you can mention (original cost, administration costs, utilization of platform, etc.) Linux comes out ahead. There's even damn little training!
Try it on a few workgroups at a time and see for yourself.
Re:blunt (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:blunt (Score:5, Interesting)
Changing a whole IT infrastructure from Windows to Linux is not simple, as any other migration, but ther can be a TCO reduction I think. Though it won't be fast, it's a long term saving and the visible money saving may come up only after a few years I think. When you realize that there isn't anymore licence upgrading.
Another important thing that I would like to add, is that you will need a lot human resources and knowledge, at least for the start.
Hope I could help and keep me up to date about the evolution, 'cause I'm also planning a similar migration.
Best Regards
NeoEinstein
Re:blunt (Score:5, Insightful)
No most people are plain ignorant.
Stupid people don't know linux.
Using Linux doesn't make you intelligent, smart and sexy either
Teaching Stupid people == Money
It also takes patience and knowledge on your part.
I don't know why people consider themselves to above the rest when they start using linux. Let me tell you its just an OS, get over it. Every person is good at what he/she does. For eg my mom, even after working on a pc for 8 yrs now thinks its her fault when something goes wrong or system hangs. She just plainly hits the reboot button. But at the same time she is very calm and composed on a surgery table even in an emergency. I have seen her being at her best. But not once have I seen her calling others stupid, even if that person has no sense of medicine.
Personally its been over 30 years since people working on computers were considered god. Even my 7 yr old nephew can install a dual boot. And guess what he cannot spell most of the words properly.
Re:blunt (Score:3, Funny)
Oh man, are you saying I have to get a better pick up line at a bar then, "Hey baby, I use Red Hat, what's your distro?"
Re:blunt (Score:4, Funny)
Re:blunt (Score:2)
I think I've read some of his posts on Slashdot
somewhat off topic (Score:3, Insightful)
>on a surgery table even in an emergency. I have
>seen her being at her best. But not once have I
>seen her calling others stupid, even if that person
>has no sense of medicine.
Oh I dunno
Medical people can see a lot of luserish behaviour in a typical day. It depends on where you work, geriatrics probably isn't so bad, but ER folks see every kind of stupidity you could imagine, and several you couldn't.
There are mailing lists etc. where EMTs and ER people trade stories about the outrageous stupidity of their patients, these lists have the same tone as tech people telling "CDROMs as cupholders" stories.
Ever notice that people who injure themselves because of drugs/alcohol receive a slightly different standard of care at hospitals? You've just used up all your sympathy points, dude!
Re:blunt (Score:2)
I am always telling this to people - if it breaks, how is it your fault? If the wheels fall off your car, do you assume it's the way you hold the wheel?
Re:What does TCO stand for? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What does TCO stand for? (Score:4, Informative)
Purchasing prices + the costs of system management.
Re:What does TCO stand for? (Score:2, Funny)
The lower the TCO the less cool something is. When Microsoft says that Windows has a higher TCO then Linux they mean that Windows is cooler.
Re:Impossible to reduce (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, and Bill Gates and co. comes in as guests making complete asses of themselves every show.
=D
Re:Impossible to reduce (Score:4, Funny)
"Free and open? Cheap Total Cost of Ownership? Do thousands of geeks look at the internals every day?"
No that was my x girlfriend.
This one is all mine and the TCO is pretty nice, she works with computers. As of looking at her she is a geek, nuff said.
Re:Experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Roar experience (Score:2)
Re:Icecream (Score:2)
But people wont demand something, unless they know that it will really effect them. Most of the managerial staff will not realize that the core infrastucture beneath the win boxes is OSS.
Unless they are educated of course. But you have to realize that intial costs of migration will be high. There will be glitches, crashes and what not. People will be realy put off and you will be called a bad sys-admin. It may take about 4-5 months of low productivity, can you sustain that. After that things will be stable and good, and soon people will realize that the ice-cream tastes better than the cake, which was stale anyways