In a message dated: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 14:24:14 EDT
Greg Kettmann said:
>Hello all. Sorry for this marketing type question but I'm trying to
>compile a list of reasons for selecting Linux as the platform of choice,
>particularly in reference to Windows NT or 2000. I deal with large
>customers and they are interested in things like Total Cost of
>Ownership, Supportability, Stability, Scalability, Protection of
>Investment, etc.
The primary reasons most people choose Linux in the enterprise are just those
you pointed out above:
TCO
Support
Stability
Scalability
ROI
Add to that:
Flexibility
Access to source code
Robustness
Wide support of hardware
30 history of Unix behind it
and you've got all the makings of something that MS can't begin to touch.
TCO:
----
Total Cost of Ownership is one of those great marketing/sales buzz-phrases
that mid-level managers and CIOs seem to thrive on. IMO, there's no possible
way to measure TCO, there are just too many variables. For instance, in an
all unix shop, the TCO of Linux vs NT/2K will essentially be $0. Why?
There's almost no retraining to be done, since Linux is Unix, and we're
talking about an all unix shop.
But turn that around and take an all NT shop where the sysadmins don't know
anything about unix of any kind, the TCO vs. NT/2K will be significant due to
the re-training of personell.
However, that being said, looking at just the raw price of NT vs. Linux from a
hardware/software perspective and not taking into consideration the *possible*
costs of training, then Linux wins hands down:
NT Linux
HW New Same as Linux Same as NT
Old NT can't run on old HW Linux can fill many roles
on old obsolete equiment like an 80386
SW NT requires License Linux has no Licens fees at all.
fees on per-server Period.
and/or per-client basis
Support:
--------
MS has support. You will pay for it. How helpful they
are probably varies from user to user, and from call to call.
Linux has support. You can pay for it. You can get support for Linux
from a wide variety of companies who will be happy to provide you with a
commercial support contract (Mission Critical Linux, LinuxCare, RedHat, IBM).
Additionally, there are thousands of websites, newsgroups, and mailing lists
dedicated to supporting Linux...for free. The Linux community was voted #1 in
technical support by PC Magazine in 1997 (maye it was 1998, I don't remember).
Linux has the most comprehensive documentation of any operating system
available, commercial or free. The documentation is available on-line, and
with each Linux distribution. Most system administrators, when faced with a
problem, can get their answer by either posting a question to a newsgroup, a
mailing list, or looking in the comprehensive on-line docs. Answers are
usually very quick, within 24 hours is a more than reasonable expectation, and
often times within minutes or an hour or 2. Commercial support (from
commercial Unix vendors in general) in my (pre-linux days) experience,
ranges from hours and days to "That's not a supported configuration".
Often times I've been completely forgotten, only to go get the answer
myself on-line in a Unix related newsgroup or mailing list.
So, if your sysadmin team is exoerienced, competant, and knows how to
read and ask intelligent questions, they can almost always get great
support from the Linux community for no financial cost whatsoever.
Additionally, if your sysadmin team is young and in-experienced, new to Linux/
Unix, the problem is quite specialized in nature, or you just want that warm,
fuzzy feeling of commercial support, there are a lot of great companies out
there that excel in providing commercial, enterprise level support for the
Linux environment.
Stability
---------
When it comes to stability, I believe Linux to be unparralled in comparison to
NT/2K. NT is notorious for crashing or needing a reboot to fix something.
Linux on the other hand brings with it the stability of the Unix operating
system. The kernel can be fine-tuned to specific tasks from the server
perspective, user-space applications, like a GUI environment, can be
prevented from running, which is impossible in the MS world.
One of the things allows Linux such good stability is the ability to customize
systems for a specific task, whether it be a firewall, a desktop, a DHCP
server, a web server, etc. This is the same philosphy that makes Unix such a
stable environment. Decide upon the mission of the server, and tune it to do
that one thing very well. MS makes a generic, one-size-fits-all OS that can't
really be customized. You get the GUI whether you want it or not, etc.
Linux is also built based on 30 years of lessons learned from Unix. NT/W2K is
less than 10 years old, and they're trying to re-invent the wheel. Linux is
not re-inventing the wheel, they're just making a good thing better.
Scalability
-----------
Scalability is another place Linux excels, and again, far better than NT.
Linux can run on incredibly old and otherwise obsolete hardware like Intel
80386 systems, all the way up to IBM Mainframes. Linux is currently running
on the soon to be released Compaq iPAQ, a handheld computer from Compaq. This
system normally ships with WinCE on it, which is a small stripped down version
of Windows. The version of Linux running on this system is a full Linux
system complete with networking, GUI windowing environment and the same
applications that run on your exisiting Linux system. That means you
not don't have to "sync" different applications, you actually get to run the
very *same* applications on your handheld computer as you do on your desktop.
No changing the way you work, or getting used to a stripped down interface for
the handheld version of the application. It's the same application and the
same interface!
As far as multi-cpu scalability, Linux currently supports upto 16 CPUs in a
single system. MS claims that they support upto 32, but since they only run
on Intel hardware, and there currently is no Intel-based system with more than
8 CPUs in it, this is clearly marketing hype.
There are currently Linux systems running on 16-CPU Alpha systems. This is
reality, not marketing.
Recently someone at IBM claimed to be running ~47,000 instances of Linux on an
IBM Mainframe (See Linux Journal 6/2000). To my knowledge, Windows of any
sort is not yet running even 1 instance on an IBM mainframe :)
Portability
-----------
You didn't mention portability, but this is a major reason for wanting/needing
to run Linux. Linux currently runs on more different types of hardware than
any other operating system (other than possibly one of the free *BSD OSes)
Linux runs on: all Intel architectures 386 and above (and clones)
Compaq/Digital Alpha
Sun Sparc and UltraSparc
HP
IBM (Mainframes,AS400, S390)
Compaq iPaq
3Com Palm Pilot (see http://www.uclinux.org/)
StrongARM
PowerPC
ICE
Transmeta's Crusoe
MIPS
Motorola 68000 series (Atari, Amiga, etc.)
Ports to the PA-RISC and the IA-64 are in progress as well.
Return On Investment
--------------------
This is yet another marketing term I find quite hard to quantify in reality,
but at least you can gain some feel for it with Linux. Let's first look at it
from a MS point of view.
For a decent desktop now, running Win2K. According to Microsofts website,
(http://shop.microsoft.com/store/products/ProductOverview.asp?strGroup=Software&intCat=856249&intSubCat=856250&intProductIID=76026&strCategory=Operating+Systems+%26+Servers&strSubCat=Operating+Systems&strOvType=sysreq&strProductName=Windows+2000+Professional)
the minimum requirements for Windows 2000 Professional are:
Computer/Processor: 133 Mhz or higher Pentium-compatible Central
Processing Unit (CPU). Windows 2000
Professional supports single and dual CPU
systems.
Memory: 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum;
more memory improves performance (4 GB RAM
maximum).
Hard Disk: 2 GB hard disk with a minimum of 650 MB of
free space.*
CD-ROM or DVD drive: CD-ROM or DVD drive.
Display: VGA or higher-resolution monitor.
Peripheral: Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible
pointing device (optional).
* Additional free hard disk space is required if you are
installing over a network. For more information, please see
the Getting Started Guide.
So, you've gone out and bought this system for a server in your environment,
say, for the sake of argument, you needed a DHCP server. This configuration,
should you take the cheap way out, can probably be had for less than $300, but
you'll have to get it at a computer show. You won't get this from any
commercial system vendor, since this is an incredibly obsolete configuration.
A more realistic configuration from a commercial vendor (Dell, Gateway, etc.)
is something like the Dell Dimension L for $799:
Intel Celeron 500 Mhz
64MB PC100 SDRAM
128K L2 Cache
7.5GB hard drive
Intel 3D AGP Graphics Card
48x CD-Rom
Soundblaster PCI
Speakers
V.90/56K modem for Windows
3.5" floppy
Of course, this is a *home* system, not something you'd buy for a "server" so
to speak. But, back to ROI. For a W2K server in an enterprise, you're more
likely to spend in the $2000-$5000 range and have that system perform a
variety of functions. But what do you do with that system when it becomes
obsolete? There's usually a 3 year depreciation cycle on capital acquisitions
for computer related hardware. In 3 years, the system above will be ancient,
as is the system MS specifies as their minimum required configuration. Keeping
in mind MS's history, do you honestly believe that W2K will run adequately on
an P1333? Realistically, you probably won't get any reasonable performance
out of W2K with less than a PIII 500.
With Linux though, if you need a DHCP server, you can easily find an old 486
and use that. As a matter of fact, at my last company, the DHCP server was
exactly this, a spare 486 DX100 with 16M of RAM and a 200MB hard drive.
High-end desktops in the Linux world can easily be recycled into specialized
servers, and vice-versa in the Linux world. This just isn't the case in the
MS world. You don't really get your ROI from the HW side of the house with
their OSes. Each new release is bigger than the last and requires more and
more resources. Linux isn't like this. You can run it on old, otherwise
outdated systems, therefore saving time, effort, resources, and money.
Flexibility
-----------
Linux can and will do just about anything. It can serve traditional roles
such as firewalls, routers, file servers, mail servers, database servers,
web servers and desktops.
It can be used for software development, hardware development, desktop
publishing, high-performance compute clusters, scientific reasearch, launching
the Space Shuttle (see http://www.nasa.gov, a search of the NASA technology
page turned up 3733 documents for the string "linux" and 23 documents on the
search "Linux and Space Shuttle").
I'm stating that NT can't do all this, just that Linux *is* doing all this.
Additionally, if you need Linux to do something entirely new, that no one else
is doing yet, you can add the support in yourself for Linux. This is
something that is not possible with any commercial OS, NT, Solaris, Tru64, or
AIX. The source code for Linux is openly available, and you are free to make
any changes you like to it without paying licensing fees, or asking anyone's
permission. This is an unparalled level of flexibility available only in
Free/Open Source operatings systems like Linux or the *BSDs.
>I appreciate any feedback, particularly pointers to good articles and
>those with facts and figures. I will happily make anything I put
>together available to all.
I think I covered all the points you asked for input on here, and then some.
For pointers, I highly recommend looking at:
Linux Documentation Project Site http://metalab.unc.edu/linux
Linux International http://www.li.org
Linux Journal Sites http://www.linuxjournal.com
http://www.linuxjournal.com/enterpise
Linux Portal http://www.linux.com/
Vendors:
VA Linux http://www.valinux.com
Penguin Computing http://www.penguincomputing.com
Distributions:
Red Hat http://www.redhat.com
SuSE http://www.suse.com
Debian http://www.debian.org
Caldera http://www.caldera.com
That should lead you all over the place and provide you with more than you
need :)
I hope this is useful.
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
"I always explain our company via interpretive dance.
I meet lots of interesting people that way."
Niall Kavanagh, 10 April, 2000
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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