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Linux Adoption Stories Not What They Seem | |
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| Time: 14:54 EST/19:54 GMT | News Source: WinInformant | Posted By: Adrian Latinak | ||
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Some high-profile Linux adoption stories have circulated lately that feature companies such as Amazon and Intel espousing the wonders of the open-source solution. One crucial fact these stories don't reveal, however, is that these Linux adoptions are replacing proprietary and expensive versions of UNIX, not Windows. And as both Amazon and Intel are quick to point out, neither company has even considered replacing Windows boxes with Linux. | ||
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| #1 By 1989 (32.102.75.22) at 11/2/2001 3:52:23 PM |
| They also fail to mention that the majority of the cost savings is in the reuse of old equipment that can still run linux. This would only be a one time cost savings and not year after year. I realize it is still a savings though. |
| #2 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 11/2/2001 5:19:08 PM |
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Heh. That reuse of old equipment is something of a considerable myth. You gain no performance advantage from migrating to Linux on older hardware... you still just have a slow machine.
You can certainly reuse old equipment for running any system. I have a Pentium Pro 200 in my home office running Win2k server, and it performs very well. In fact such a machine would make for a great AD domain controller for a small company. But... and this is the key But... Production machines typically fall under maintenance agreements. If the server goes down, the support contract details that Sun/Compaq/HP/whoever will be at your site with spare parts within a 4 hour time frame, as an example. On older equipment that maintenance contract becomes signifigantly more expensive as time goes on because of the low availability of spare parts, and the greater likelihood that something will break on that machine. Which means at some point, perhaps 3-4 years, it's cheaper to go out and buy a new computer than to continue the maintenance agreement on the older server. Still, you might move the older server into a non-critical role... although you still have the reality of a slow performing server cuts into your efficiency in certain cases. Such is the case of Amazon. They didn't reuse old equipment, they sold off their Sun hardware and purchased new equipment from HP. A large part of the cost savings was most likely that HP equipment was cheaper to procure than Sun servers, but also had a much cheaper maintenance agreement available than from Sun. On top of that they were probably able to handle signifigantly greater volumes on a fewer number of machines by upgrading to faster systems. This can save considerable dollars in terms of data center space. At any rate, Linux doesn't save you any money by reusing old machines. It's kind of funny when you see people suggest that and you tend to realize right away they are just college students. Especially #3's comment about old workstations being turned into servers... hehe |
| #3 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 11/2/2001 5:36:47 PM |
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The big thing nobody seems to be pointing out is that the whole Amazon upgrade story seems to PROVE that the cost of the OS is basically meaningless compared with the total cost of ownership.
Linux zealots love to scream that Linux is free, and therefore cheaper than Windows. Seems obvious, right? Wrong. There are very few cases where the TCO of Linux is lower than a Windows based setup. (On a side note, Macs have the lowest TCO for many situations, which, if anything, shows that you can't use just cost to determine the best upgrade path.) In the original article (which, by the way, they have CHANGED to remove the obvious implications of my next point) they mentioned that the cost of moving from Unix to Linux is about the same for moving from Unix to Windows, aside from any software migration. Clearly, the cost of porting an application from Unix to Linux is far less than porting that same app to Windows. Think about that statement. If the cost of moving from Unix to Linux is ABOUT THE SAME as moving from Unix to Windows, that means the costs of the operating system is insignificant in the TCO. Linux is free. Windows is not. If the costs are the same, the costs of the OS don't really matter. Funny how nobody on Slashdot, or in the article for that matter, pointed that out? Linux zealots scream about how free Linux is, and as it turns out, it's far from free. Now, as far as the TCO comparisons, they seem to be BS. It's well known that starting from scratch, the TCO for a Windows infrastructure is far less than most commercial Unix distributions - especially Solaris. Solaris has a huge TCO. So the comparison they made, saying that Unix and Windows have about the same TCO, must have been made including the costs of porting all those existing Unix applications to Windows. This is a MASSIVE cost, and it isn't really a fair comparison. If Amazon had been running Windows from the start, I'm willing to bet they would have saved considerably more money over Solaris to begin with. If you then factor the cost of porting apps from Windows to Linux, it would have made that move cost prohibitive. So, the idea that the Amazon story shows Linux as a better alternative to Windows, just as Paul said, is baloney. This post was edited by RMD on Friday, November 02, 2001 at 17:41. |
| #4 By 1989 (32.102.75.157) at 11/2/2001 5:57:23 PM |
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#7 I didn't mean they turned workstations into servers. I was just speculating that they were able to use some equipment for another cycle using linux whereas it would have needed an upgrade to use Windows. I agree with what you said. Everyone just sees an instant savings when not paying for the operating system and neglecting all the other costs. This post was edited by Lord British on Friday, November 02, 2001 at 17:58. |
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