> The reason I like harping on the Largo, FL, example so much is because
> it's almost in my own backyard - about a 4-hour drive north actually.
> What Largo found was that compared to a similar Microsoft solution,
> the TCO is lower with Redhat Linux to the tune of $1.5 MILLION.
> For a city network of 400 workstations and 800 users, that's still not
> chicken feed - and the number of IT personnel to support those 800
> people? 10. Yes.. you read that right - ten.
That actually sounds a little high. I guess application support pushes
it up a bit, or does that include Comms/Networking as well?
The minimum size of support staff is about 6, largely because of the
need to be available for early starters & late finishers, as well as
holidays and sick days.
Doubling the number of end users should only add around another 2
support staff, BTW
Quote:> That's why the case studies by IDC which went into a whitepaper for
> Redhat are showing that the TCO for Linux is surprisingly even more
> significantly lower than expected.
Nah, the IDC report was comparing smaller Linux setups on commodity
desktop PCs to larger-scale and more complex Unix setups on server-class
hardware. Costs aren't linear as the hardware scales or as complexity
increases. That's the same sleight-of-hand the Microsoft used in their
"NT vs Linux" (actually NT vs Solaris) TCO "study". The things that
really push costs up are complex requirements and reducing downtime.
It doesn't matter much if a webserver in a farm keels over, but just
watch the fur fly when a big OLTP system fails ;-)
I'd be interested to see an "apples to apples" comparison of Linux
vs Sun's Netra X1 running the same services.
(I've only skimmed the report so far. I may modify my opinion later)
Quote:> It's also why Amazon is telling the world they are saving MILLIONS
> of dollars going with Linux, instead of a Microsoft solution.
The White Paper compares Linux and RISC-based Unix, though. I was
deliberately avoiding The Evil Empire [TM]
I was responding to Charlie's point that Linux is completely free of cost.
The OS and utilities may not cost money, but administration does, and
Linux admin effort is very similar to that for any other *n?x
> Anyone notice cracks in the Intel/Microsoft duopoly? Why is Microsoft
> making nice with AMD all of the sudden (witness the arrival of the
> AMD XP 1700+)? Could it be because Intel is not towing the line and
> decided to save MILLIONS of dollars going with a Linux solution over
> a comparable Microsoft solution?
> >> > Any words of wisdom about TCO from MS, Erik? Shawn?
> >> > Flathead?
> >> The main reason why you won't hear much from them is they simply can't
> >> argue the TCO of point when your dealing with an OS which is completely
> >> free of cost.
> >> > What am I saying - wisdom from these MS shills? I must be joking.
> >> > Yep. The humor light is blinking.
> >> > Darren
> >> > --No job is too small for dynamite
> > [ snip ]
> > THe upfront cost of software is only a small part of the Total Cost of
> > Ownership. The main cost in most TCO reports is the administration cost.
> > Depending on the size of the site and the degree of robustness an
> > "appropriately" designed report can find almost anything to have a lower
> > TCO. I would expect admin costs for Linux to be similar to other *n?x
> > versions, so at that point the hardware and software costs become a more
> > important factor. Decent server hardware costs a similar amount whether
> > it's x86, PPC, SPARC, PA-RISC or whatever, so that leaves the software
> > costs as teh main discriminant.
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