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Linux Training 1825 Monetary Lane Suite #104 Carrollton, TX Do a presentation at NTLUG. What is the Linux Installation Project? Real companies using Linux! Not just for business anymore. Providing ready to run platforms on Linux |
Created by Chris Cox on June 21, 2009, at 12:02 AM According to Microsoft, everything you have heard about Linux is lie.... well, actually what Microsoft says is that you perceive incorrectly. Of course, when Microsoft says "Linux", they are actually referring to a Linux distribution and in particular (because Microsoft would like to isolate things as much as possible), Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There is only one problem. The entity delivering the message has a tendency to twist information or at the very least, present information in incomplete forms in order to deceive people. If you will, much like some salesmen (no offense to you sales guys... but truth is not something to fear). Just for ease and Microsoft terminology, "Linux" will refer to the whole of a distribution of software with Linux at its core. Let us break things down using Microsoft's own (mis)Perception check list. Remember, these section represent things where you are WRONG (you perceive INCORRECTLY): Low Software Acquisition CostWell... this one is weird. The cost of "Linux" is ZERO. Yes. Nothing. Well, one could certainly argue that it has almost priceless intrinsic value, but YOUR COST = $0 This one is difficult to understand without understanding the twisted mindset of Microsoft and their motives. You MUST understand that to Microsoft software can NEVER be truly free. With that said, I'm not talking about your dollar cost, but more than that. What I'm saying is that software must have a physical price tag, and if you make it "free" (dollar wise) you are taking a LOSS on your software. "Linux" in general is free... and often times, truly free. By truly free, I mean you have full access to the source code and you can manipulate it and redistribute it freely. The idea of free is NOT understood by Microsoft at all. In fact, Microsoft considers that to be a myth, a falsehood, something that cannot exist. Remember the (mis)perception is that YOU think "Linux" costs nothing. But you should know that downloading even a distribution like Red Hat Enterprise Linux is free. No cost. FREE (again, Microsoft ONLY sees dollars, so I'm talking dollars). So, where's the confusion? Well, remember, Microsoft views "Linux" as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With either Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, you can download the CD/DVD ISO images for free (no monetary cost), BUT you do have to register on their respective web sites. While I do not like the registration requirement, at least you CAN obtain their images for free. So, if we want to be fair, we need to compare the acquisition cost of "Linux" to Microsoft's comparable product. Microsoft has several product offerings. Since Microsoft business started on the desktop and NOT in the server arena, most people are only familiar with their desktop product lines: XP, Vista and soon, Windows 7. All of which have various offerings at a variety of price levels. But, to be compared with "Linux" (not talking about SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop for now), we must look at the Windows Server 2008 product line. Windows Server 2008 Standard (as of 2009/06/20)Starting Cost: $ 1,029.00 USD for Windows Server 2008 Standard I think we can safely say that "Linux" is less expensive to acquire. Perhaps Microsoft assumed that people are going to illegally obtain their software? I do not advocate software piracy, but if Microsoft is not implying that, I do not understand how they can make the claim that the cost of "Linux" is MORE than their OS. I'm confused? Maybe they are liars? What do you think? I think Microsoft considers their 60 day evaluation to be equivalent to a "Linux" trial subscription. They are VERY different. With Microsoft, the product ceases to operate after 60 days, not true with "Linux". You do NOT have to purchase a support subscription or pay to run and, yes, even SUPPORT and patch your system. It's free... have I made that point yet? Let's examine features. I'm going to start with a table comparing Windows Server 2008 Standard against Red hat. Unfortunately, Red Hat does have different SUBSCRIPTION lines (that has to do with support) and it is VERY likely that Microsoft WANTS us to compare Windows Server 2008 Standard against Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which has the lowest cost support subscription.
I was surprised by the results. Certainly does not look like the "run away" that Microsoft would have us to believe, but Red Hat's data does NOT stack up as well against Windows Server 2008 as I would have hoped. In fact, there is a general lack of information at Red Hat's site with regard to REAL TCO and feature information when compared to Microsoft (leaving me asking Red Hat, "Why?"). With that said, Novell like to publish data with every release about their features and TCO vs. Microsoft. So, since they seem to be a bit more interested in this challenge, I'm going to switch enterprise horses for the big red "N". Let's stack up Windows Server 2008 Standard against Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES):
Need more proof that Novell and NOT Red Hat isn't afraid to take on Microsoft? Novell has OFTEN produced white papers publicly comparing their products to Microsoft. Here's the latest: Red Hat aside for the moment, we can see that SLES provides a much more feature rich environment for the enterprise than Microsoft. BUT, it's somewhat apples to oranges. Whereas Red Hat markets and sells a very restricted version of their product, Novell does not. So let's compare SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise... a more equal match up. But before we do, I need to update the Microsoft Acquisition price: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (as of 2009/06/20)Starting Cost: $ 3,999.00 USD for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Now, that gets you a total of 25 CALs instead of the 10 CALs that Standard has by default. SLES is not restricted to "clients", and even the word "client" has little meaning in "Linux" since "Linux" can be either or both at anytime. What is a CAL? A CAL is REQUIRED for a client to use a Microsoft Server. That is, if you print through or manipulate files through a Microsoft Server (for example), you need a CAL. Each client on the network needs a CAL. So, if we keep things easy and assume 100 desktops (for example), you would need 100 CALs. There is NOTHING similar to this with SLES. SLES does NOT restrict the number of clients that can use its services. Which, btw, means that you probably want SLES serving your network file shares and printers instead of Microsoft Windows Server 2008. A normal CAL is about $40/client. However, Microsoft also has specialized CALs for things like Terminal Server (basically allows Windows Server to become a multi-user OS, SLES is multi-user by design), a TS CAL costs about $150/user (where user means unique simultaneous user). Let's stack up Windows Server 2008 Enterprise against Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES):
While it is nice to see the "Unlimited" values in the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise columns, the bad part is that is just talking about physical limits. You will still need a requisite number of CALs in order to actually use. ConclusionSo for about $4000.00 USD, Microsoft has a product that might work for you, at least up to 25 client machines. For larger installations, the price can increase dramatically. Also, Windows Server 2008 does NOT come with the large array of software products available with "Linux", so all in all, you are probably looking at $10,000.00 - $30,000.00 for many SMB situations. Large corporations will spend well over $100,000.00+ just to ACQUIRE the Microsoft platform. Just a reminder... cost of acquiring "Linux" with full back office, productivity, multimedia editing, web services, identity management, encryption, clustering, and EVERYTHING else (the list is huge)..... your cost: $0. Low Total Cost of OwnershipWhen considering TCO, Microsoft takes that to mean support pricing that is equivalent in their eyes to their support offerings. Thus, Microsoft insists that TCO means Red Hat support subscription. So, what else is there? The vast majority of "Linux" support, INCLUDING support that Red Hat would provide via any kind of subscription is support that comes from the overall "Linux" community (which does include Red Hat themselves). It's a different animal. Again, to Microsoft, such an animal cannot exist, so it is impossible for Microsoft to consider anything like free community based support. Given the number of CentOS users (a non-Red Hat trademarked copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux) in PRODUCTION use, the idea of total community support is a REAL life possibility that simply does NOT exist in the Microsoft world since there is no practical way of accessing their source code, making fixes and redistributing it (all allowed with "Linux"). Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, Premium Support 1 year: $ 2,499.00 Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Priority Supp. 1 year: $ 1,499.00 Microsoft Premiere Ultimate Support: $ Unknown Exploit Costs It would be difficult to consider TCO without figuring in the cost of repair and corporate virus protection that is required to run a Windows infrastructure. Depending on the size of an organization, annual anti-virus, containment and clean-up costs could range from thousands to millions of dollars annually. Conficker Cost Estimate: $9 billion Granted, you do not see major problems like those everyday. And certainly those values are spread across all corporations. But still.... is there anything even remotely close cost wise? Perhaps the cost of Microsoft infrastructure products? Microsoft's phone in direct support plans vary greatly. They have per incident pricing on their lower line of products (desktop) for $99/incident. I can only guess how much Microsoft's top of the line support costs Update 20091007, 1. But since, I do not actually know the figure, it will have to stay "unknown". For those of you that actually pay for Microsoft unlimited phone-in support, you KNOW what the figure is. So, basing TCO on support cost is not going to work. Microsoft claims that the cost of support is trivial compared to the cost of personnel needed to support "Linux". In all fairness, even Microsoft had trouble backing this up. In fact, Microsoft has removed ALL of their own TCO researched and replaced it with stories from customers, NONE of which have any real data about TCO (?). Weird. ConclusionNaturally, I CANNOT draw a conclusion on this one. I'll have to let you make up your own mind as to why Microsoft no longer gives TCO specifics in comparison to "Linux". "Linux" folks do NOT speak in terms of TCO anyhow. "Linux" is about value in the enterprise. TCO is doublespeak used by large corporations to hide something they do not want anyone to know about. I would have loved to have done more on this one. Microsoft is preventing this one from going farther. If this was a sport, "Linux" would win by default. So I will declare "Linux" the victory here. Microsoft may feel to challenge this... but I can assure you they won't. Better Price/PerformanceThis one is difficult. If price means acquisition price, then $0/anything = ZERO. So I would say that $0 beats even the greatest of Microsoft deals on price/performance. So, I can only talk from experience. I administrate a small Unix/Linux network of a little over 200 hosts. Most of those, Microsoft would probably classify as "servers", but that's only in title. As an ISV, we do a lot of software building and testing with many different configurations. So, while the number of platforms I support might seem "large" (we are really not that large of course), it's because of the multitude of configurations we build and test against. Infrastructure wise, that is, the thing that Microsoft REALLY would want to consider, consists of a single multi-purpose server, two additional file sharing servers which also server up the network authentication, two DNS/DHCP servers, a backup server and a mail server. That infrastructure, without adding hardware should scale well into the thousands of users (clients). Our Primary ServerOur primary server is housed on a VMware ESX platform as a client. It has 1 virtual CPU and 2G ram. It is joined as a Windows Member Server to our Windows AD Domain. It servers about 2TB of file share data via SMB and NFS protocols to the entire network (I mentioned we have 200+ *ix machines, I didn't mention the 350+ Windows and desktop hosts). It also servers as our Web Portal with thousands of pages of information about our site, machines, network, personnel, etc. It serves as our SNMP monitor host with graphs for things like cpu, memory and network utilization. It houses our automated platform inventory system which scans the network every night for any changes. It houses a POP server and acts a mail destination for mail testing. It has a MySQL database running on it. I'm sure I've left some things out. When's the last time you saw even a large single machine running this much using Windows Server? The answer is, you don't... and certainly not a single virtualized platform. Our Home Directory, Authentication ServersWe have twin servers for redundancy. Each has 8G ram (we just recently upgraded from 4GB, and we weren't even using that). Each server is joined as a Domain Member Server to the Windows AD Domain. Each server is also an authentication server for our *ix boxes (since many *ix boxes, unlike "Linux", cannot integrate well with Windows AD). Our home directories for our users are split with 800G on each server, this is expandable since each box is connected to our SAN. In all fairness, these boxes are very underutilized. It takes VERY little resources to do file sharing. VERY LITTLE. Unfortunately, the same CANNOT be said for the Windows Server implementations I have seen where 2-3 times the Windows server horsepower is required to serve up the same amount of data. Granted, I think a lot of the issues are lack of experience amongst the MSCE of the world. Since Microsoft WANTS their users to live inside of the "Microsoft Box", they tend to lack the creativity and skills required to build fast reliable infrastructures. But even so, I am certain I could beat the most saavy Microsoft individual in any Price/Performance contest. Our DNS/DHCP ServersAgain, we have two for redundancy. We run ISC BIND and ISC DHCP. These run on fairly low end boxes with single processors and 1G of memory. There are over 3000 records inside of our DNS. We migrated away from Windows DNS mainly because Windows DHCP does NOT handle non-Windows clients well at all. All entries are handled dynamically inside of our DNS allowing us to minimize the number of zones. We also handle the "_" zones needed by our Windows AD machines, allowing those hosts to populate their data dynamically as needed. This one is NOT a price/performance issue. The issue here is WORKING vs. NON-WORKING. There are issues not only with the design patter used by Microsoft's DNS/DHCP, but in the implementation as well. Also, Microsoft believes that they can implement draft and even pre-draft protocol strategies and get away with it (figuring that they ALONE "set the standard"). In particular I am referring to Microsoft's DHCP implementation for IPv6... but certainly there are many other cases. This is what makes Microsoft work so poorly in mixed platform environments. Our Backup ServerOur backup server backups up about 5TB of full copy data, but is smart in that it does a rolling backup only of what has changed on a daily basis. So the platform presents views of "full" backups, when actually, there is a lot of shared data going on. The server itself is a dual processor host with 8G of memory. It is connected to our SAN so the backup areas can be expanded as needed. Our backups used industry standard open source technologies. No vendor lock in. No massive annual fees. No worries about old backups being in formats that can no longer be read/used. Our Outbound Mail GatewayWe operate an outbound mail gateway (SMTP) on the network. It is a Pentium III box with 256M of memory. Yes... 256M! Nuff said. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 simply cannot do this. Performance?Our infrastructure is only limited by our 1Gbit IP network and 4Gbps fibre channel. We can easily saturate either one with just 2 machines communicating with each other. I estimate again that an equivalent Windows Server environment would require 2-3x the number of host machines and even so, the configurations required for each would be much larger in general. The good news, I sometimes get to take advantage of the throw away Windows machines, which in all fairness are well spec'd for a "Linux" platform. ConclusionDeploying a Microsoft Windows Server environment requires more expensive platforms, requires more platforms and therefore delivers much, much less performance for the price.... even if you do not count the huge acquisition costs of using Microsoft products. ReliabilityWe strive for zero downtime. We usually handle about two tickets every quarter with regards to support. In comparison, parts of our company that use Windows AD DNS, see at least 10 DNS related tickets every month. That's too many IMHO. However, we do have downtime. We do have to perform platform migrations and updates that sometimes require hardware outages. With that said, we have had some host up for over 800 days, but in all fairness that's too long without doing some routine maintenance. I have NEVER seen one of our Windows boxes stay up for over a year. Patching DilemmaSo, why does Microsoft Windows Server struggle here? Patches. I'll admit, for any given "Linux", the number of patches and fixes will ALWAYS far exceed Windows Server. And folks... that's a VERY VERY VERY good thing. I'd say that more than 90% of the "Linux" patches DO NOT require rebooting of the server and probably more than 75% do not require any restart of any services. The result is very low downtime for "Linux". When is the last time you got a critical patch that did not force a reboot for Windows? And that is THE difference. Attacks and ExploitsTo their credit, Microsoft has really focused over the past several years on trying to prevent major issues, especially with regards to remote exploits. This is a GOOD thing. However, even so, the amount of exploits active for Microsoft Windows products far exceeds the number for "Linux", even though patches are made often against "Linux" to prevent both LOCAL and remote exploits. Microsoft will tell you that this is because Microsoft is popular. Who cares? What Microsoft is covering up is that there are REAL reliability issues when using a Microsoft based infrastructure. And that's the point... come one Microsoft, NO MORE EXCUSES. Fixing is Good, Fixing Often is VERY Good"Linux" is more reliable BECAUSE of the amount of fixes going on. Again, this is a VERY GOOD thing. Why don't we see the same level of fixing from Microsoft? Because ONLY Microsoft (and those few that are allowed outside of Microsoft) can actually view deep into its source code base. Probably the best part of reliability with "Linux" comes from that fact that the developers and testers using "Linux" are very motivated individuals which view their work as a benefit to others rather than just a means to get a paycheck. Conclusion"Linux" is very reliable. Has absolutely huge uptimes compared to any Microsoft product. It does not suffer from the myriad of exploits. And ultimately, because so many people work on "Linux" and so many test "Linux" and so many are truly motivated to work on "Linux" (without being paid even), "Linux" may be an example of some of the best quality code ever written. Just fyi, I just checked, we have a server with 805 days of uptime. Not bad. We had a really bad HVAC outage at the beginning of the year, so most machines we were forced to shutdown. Just so happens this particular machine was not impacted by the HVAC issue. Normally, we never have to reboot or shutdown any of our Linux servers... unless we have a reason. It's that stable. Oh.. and the last time you had to reboot your Windows Server box, did you know for sure the reboot was going to fix the issue? Too many mysteries with Windows Server. It's a very obscure black box that companies are trusting their businesses to. Even if there were some reliability issues with "Linux", I'd much rather trust a system that fails occasionally AND I can actually understand the reason why. Better SecurityTo fully understand Microsoft security vs. "Linux" you have to understand a bit of history and definition. First remember that Windows started out as just a GUI interface. Then it gained some limited multi-tasking support (with global crashes). It later gained networking support, and the concept of file shares and centralized authentication. It's also important to realize that in the Microsoft world, there is a HUGE distinction between what is a client and what is a server. A client is a connection. A server serves up connections. Seriously, that is essentially Microsoft's view. Windows 3.1, XP, NT Workstation, 2000 Workstation, Vista and Windows 7 are are examples of Microsoft desktop OS's (client centered). The NT Server 3.5.1, 4.0 and Windows Server 2xxx lines constitute Microsoft's server OS offerings.  The reason why the history is important is because Microsoft strives for a lot of backward compatibility. This means that even at the lower API levels there are old functions that exist solely to fulfill backward compatibility. This is just ONE of Microsoft's security Achilles' heel. Another fault is the idea that security problems only exist when made widely known. That is, if most people do not know about the security hole, then it doesn't really exist. Compatibility at All CostsBecause of the cost of computers and more specifically, of Microsoft products, Microsoft made sure future versions of Windows maintained compatibility with software designed for older versions. Unfortunately, that meant that Microsoft had to keep their bizarre view of client and server. This not only limits the flexibility of any server-like product that Microsoft produces, but greatly raises the price of trying to maintain security. Secrets! Shhhh......Another huge Microsoft fault is the idea that security issues only arise when they are discovered by someone outside of Microsoft. That means it is very possible that there are many exploitable points inside of Microsoft's code base, even remote exploits. Since nobody can see into the Microsoft code base except a privileged few. The idea that "bugs" and "exploits" do not exist unless you are told about them, is NOT good security. It's security by perception. Are Microsoft products secure? Why do you ask? (In a wisper) Did you hear something? In general, people do NOT like fancy cover-ups when they find out they have been deceived. And Microsoft wonders why they have such a poor reputation amongst their consumers (?). That Other BusinessThe anti-virus industry for Microsoft ALONE counts for literally billions of dollars of annual revenue. There are now more than a few major players (those making more than a billion in revenue annually) providing protection primarily against EXISTING software exploits on the Microsoft OS and application platform stack. Access To Source CodeMicrosoft is an Open Source company. Yes. You heard right. If you do not believe it, please go to http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/default.aspx In fact, Microsoft boasts (loudly) their enormous monetary sponsorships of (somewhat lesser known) Open Source conferences around the world. Okay. So what is Microsoft trying to say? It's probably better to look at what they are NOT saying. They are NOT saying anything about the percentage of popular Microsoft applications that are written using "open source" (answer is NONE). The are NOT saying anything about their policy AGAINST the most popular open source license in existence, the GPL. The are NOT saying the vast majority of major projects that are part of their "open source" community are actually ports of projects that started on non-Microsoft platforms. What they SHOULD be saying, and the vast majority of people already understand, is that they ARE NOT supporters of Open Source software, and DEFINITELY not a supporter of free software. Just to be accurate with the real facts. As a player in "open source", Microsoft is pretty much non-existent. Their anti-GPL stance (and thus anti-"Linux") does not help their reputation. IP, Microsoft StyleMicrosoft's argument against "open source" (in the free sense of Open Source) is that you are giving away your Intellectual Property (IP). Microsoft knows that to be successful in the software industry all your dirty laundry HAS to be kept secret. The alternative would be to expose your IP and possibly allow others to enhance it and most likely, make it better with patches and fixes and the like. Microsoft's view of Intellectual Property is that it does NOT exist within the hearts and minds of their developers, but rather in the lines of "quality" code produced. In other words, Microsoft Developer, you do not have any intrinsic value inside of the Microsoft Corporation. Unless you too agree that the only things of value is really the lines of code produced and NOT your ability to create. This is probably Microsoft's biggest lie. Microsoft wants you to believe that access to source code for free allows people to steal ideas at your expense. However, that presumes that the majority of people are thieves. However, if you believe that the value of the lines of source are in the people and how the people use those lines of source, then suddenly the idea of revenue loss due to "shared" IP seems meaningless. Licenses like the GPL keep the sharing of information going by preventing the stealing of ideas through proprietary changes. Under the GPL, you do NOT have to distribute software, and as long as you do not, no source code is shared at all (unless you want to). The idea with GPL is that programs need to come with the code (at least) to allow you to make changes, modify and build the program. What does that mean to you and me? It means that software no longer forces me to its design... it flexes with me to do whatever I need for it to do... and if there are anymore out there like me, my efforts will likely benefit another, and so on and so on. ConclusionIs Microsoft REALLY and Open Source company? No. Absolutely not. However, if one day you see Windows (likely it will be Windows 1.0 or something stupid like that) going Open Source, or perhaps Exchange, or maybe Office, then and only then can you believe that Microsoft may be willing to change. However, before you get too excited. Remember that it could be VERY difficult to compile or port Microsoft Open Source. With that said, Microsoft does provide an almost NDA-like environment by which educational (and a few others) can actually get access to Microsoft code. But at what cost? Can they modify, build and distribute? No. Access DENIED. InteroperabilityMicrosoft claims that "Linux" and "Open Source" software (did Microsoft forget their case arguments for the last section?) DO NOT have interoperability as a primary goal. In fact, the inference is that Microsoft is ALL about interoperability. But history show us time and time again that Microsoft is fine with "standards" as long as they are produced or driven by Microsoft or a key partner with Microsoft interest. Need proof? Microsoft wanted to provide a DHCP server for IPv6. So Microsoft did an implementation on early pre-draft documents for how DHCPv6 could be done. There have been more than 100 changes, plus additional RFCs submitted since Microsoft's implementation. So what? At least Microsoft was supplying a solution, right? True. But when Microsoft creates something, it alone MUST become the "standard". So even if an approved standard is made for something like DHCPv6, ALL clients MUST adhere to Microsoft's early rendition. Do you see the problem? Microsoft feels that they are the SOLE leader with regard to technology. Question: Has Microsoft ever taken an existing technology or standard and chose to force everyone to do things differently? Yes. Many, many times in fact. You may recall a recent example where Microsoft took the (somewhat limited) ODF 1.0 specification and made their own extensions to fill in what they perceived were gaps in the design. In all fairness, there were gaps and thus a newer revision needs to get standardized to prevent further pollution. Microsoft views their "embrace and extend" methodology as salvation for the consumer. But the price we pay for supporting Microsoft's twists on standards is high. In all fairness, Microsoft has been around long enough to know how to "follow the rules" with regards to standards and such. Thus Microsoft not only alters the direction of standards, but knows well enough how to submit data into the process to make sure their way becomes the new standard. Who Builds the Bridges?Microsoft certainly DOES drive standards toward their own way. However, there are some other large companies, like IBM, that tend to set "the" standard by what they do. If interoperability is important, then what does Microsoft do to build the bridge to foreign "standards based" systems? Actually, they DON'T. Microsoft interoperability is far more important to the 3rd party vendor than to Microsoft. I'm not saying that Microsoft doesn't help IBM, or whoever with regard to building bridges between their software and systems and the Microsoft world. But I am saying the bridge is built primarily by somebody else. Occasionally, Microsoft will acquire the companies that own important bridge pieces, but ideally, Microsoft expects others to build their bridge to them. Linux, All Things to All PeopleOn the other side, "Linux" tends to build bridges on their own to as many different platforms as possible. Microsoft claims that they support their software on more architectures than "Linux", but the figures do not add up. Even if they did, do you really believe that Microsoft FULLY supports their product line on minority architectures? Everyone does remember Windows Server for ia64, right? Did you deploy? One thing "Linux" provides is a very community centered set of individuals working together to make "Linux" work with other systems seamlessly. Granted, there is always more work to be done, but by porting to new architectures and creating the api's and pathways to other systems of software in a open AND free way, "Linux" interoperability is much more solid than Microsoft's attempts to have others build bridges to them. ConclusionAsk yourself: Does Microsoft support my platform architecture? Do they integrate with my mixed platform environment? How many filesystems does Microsoft support? How deep does their POSIX support go? (not very) If you're building a new tool that has to be flexible and join together several different OS's and architectures, is Microsoft Windows Server the "right" platform. How much does Microsoft "interoperability" cost? Welcome to the Spin ZoneMicrosoft uses carefully placed wording to twist and slant reality so that it appears that Microsoft is free, open and fully complies with industry standards. They want you to believe that no matter what you might think about "Linux", only Microsoft provides true scalability, reliability, security and interoperability. Granted, a true "Linux" user already knows that none of that is true, but how can we convince a world that is suffocating under the stifled creativity of a single company? Since even Microsoft gets confused and starts believing their own propaganda, Microsoft is often surprised at the number of embedded systems that use "Linux" rather than their own solution. The are amazed when they see Windows + Unix + Linux inside of an environment where "Linux" is the platform that made the interoperability so seamless if not merely possible. Every person has to make their own decision. Let's fact it, most people do NOT like the responsibility that comes with setting direction. We are much more comfortable with somebody to blame when THEIR direction doesn't work. But at some point, companies will tire of not being in control of their own technology destiny. Eventually, pulling out the blank check for Microsoft products will become loathsome. Surely a new dawn is coming where IT professionals will realize their true independence... or maybe it's already dawn? 1. Microsoft support prices vary. For Windows Server 2008 premier support, the cost is ~$200/hr in blocks of 40 up to $6000 for 2 full days of onsite support. It's difficult to directly compare with Red Hat or Novell since the level, quality, quantity, etc. of support will vary even from incident to incident. |
