Linux Server Business Case for Microsoft Users

Transcription

1 Linux Server Business Case for Microsoft Users Powerful and User-Friendly Linux Systems Management Tools Dramatically Reduce Switching Costs For companies that currently rely heavily or exclusively on Microsoft servers, the perceived switching costs to move to Linux can be high so high, in fact, that they may outweigh the savings in lower Linux license fees. The availability today of intuitive and cost-effective GUI-based Linux management tools eliminates this hurdle. The analysis in this paper demonstrates that even a commercial Linux server solution, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with patching and provisioning provided by Red Hat Network and ongoing configuration management from Emu's NetDirector, is still dramatically less expensive than an equivalent solution from Microsoft. And, because NetDirector and Red Hat Network deliver powerful, GUI-based administration, the feared retraining and rehiring costs that can prevent some Microsoft users from switching to Linux are eliminated. NetDirector is one of the best tools I've seen to help a Windows Server Administrator manage dozens of Linux servers without being a Linux expert. David Allen, Author of Windows to Linux Migration Toolkit With contributions by Red Hat page 01

2 Introduction A debate is taking place in the IT industry is Linux really less expensive than proprietary alternatives? As with many important questions, the answer is -- it depends. Certainly, for companies with on-staff Posix (Linux, UNIX, BSD, etc.) expertise, Linux delivers very cost-effective, stable, flexible and secure performance. On the other hand, for companies whose server environments are dominated by Microsoft, the cost of switching to Linux is frequently perceived to be too high. The concern is that these companies will face significant IT retraining and/or rehiring costs in order to effectively and efficiently manage a new Linux server environment. The combination of Red Hat Network and NetDirector from Emu Software erases this last hurdle to Linux adoption for Microsoft shops. Red Hat Network provides point-and-click provisioning and patch management to individual servers and groups of servers, and NetDirector from Emu Software gives administrators a single, secure and intuitive Web console for the ongoing change and configuration management of their open source server applications. Red Hat Network Red Hat Network (RHN) is a systems management platform that makes it easy to deploy and manage Linux systems. Its scalability and intuitive Web-based interface enable administrators to manage far more systems than they previously could. As eweek.com senior editor Steven Vaughan-Nichols notes, For businesses that are still getting their feet wet with Linux, RHN can make the difference between swimming to commercial success and drowning in technology confusion. Red Hat Network is the source for new content from Red Hat. Patches, updated packages and new versions of the operating system are all delivered through Red Hat Network in a secure manner where content is digitally signed by Red Hat. Dependency checking makes sure that customers receive all the packages needed to maintain the integrity of systems after an update. The functionality of Red Hat Network is available as a series of modules, allowing customers to choose additional levels of service that fit their needs. The Management Module allows systems to be grouped together for management actions so administrators can patch hundreds of systems as easily as a single system. With the Provisioning Module, system profiles are used to remotely provision systems with the OS, packages, applications and configurations needed. With Provisioning, it is also a simple matter to quickly redeploy or clone systems as business needs change. A Monitoring Module is also available to track the performance of Linux systems and applications. page 02

3 NetDirector Open Source Configuration Management Emu Software's NetDirector is an intuitive and open configuration management framework for open source server applications including HTTP, DNS, DHCP, FTP, File and Print (Samba, NFS), and Users and Groups. NetDirector provides the following benefits: Multi-server configuration change capability speeds management of large distributed networks Change scheduling capability Rollback to any previous state speeds recovery and reduces application downtime Role-based permissions provide security and regulatory compliance Server configuration cloning aids disaster recovery, migration and adding new servers Both RHN and NetDirector offer Systems Administrators such productivity-enhancing features as action rollback (with RHN this means uninstall/unprovision, while with NetDirector it means to restore a particular service back to a previous configuration state), multi-server actions and a Graphical User Interface. Where Red Hat Network manages the patching and provisioning of RHEL systems, NetDirector from Emu is designed to provide secure and efficient day-to-day configuration management of distributed Linux servers. Take this scenario for example: An Administrator uses Red Hat Network's Provisioning Module to populate an array of RHEL servers with a desired software stack consisting of RHEL AS, ISC BIND and DHCP Once the desired stack is deployed, the Administrator can then use NetDirector to quickly and easily make configuration changes to this array of servers such as creating a new master BIND Zone across all the servers in just a few clicks, or reducing the default DHCP lease timeouts across all the servers at once and scheduling this change to occur at 2:00 AM on Sunday. NetDirector's Familiar Left-to-Right, Three-Pane Web GUI Delivers Straight- Forward Linux Administration NetDirector provides IT staff with the management simplicity of a Windows-like GUI, while ensuring that IT executives have an unparalleled level of visibility and control over their Linux assets. With NetDirector, changes can be made across multiple servers simultaneously, changes can be scheduled to occur during a predetermined maintenance window, and any change can be easily rolled back at any time to a desired previous configuration. According to David Allen, lead author of the popular book Windows to Linux Migration Toolkit, NetDirector is one of the best tools I've seen to help a Windows Server Administrator manage dozens of Linux servers without being a Linux expert. page 03

4 Change your Operating System, Not Your IT Staff With staffing costs representing a large component of the five-year server Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), a cost-effective enterprise server solution must deliver the intuitive and powerful tools that keep Systems Administrators productive. Red Hat Network and Emu's NetDirector deliver, so a switch from Microsoft to Linux requires little or no changes to your IT staff. Below we provide an analysis of the acquisition costs for selected workloads on Microsoft compared to the costs of these same workloads running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Red Hat Network and Emu's NetDirector for intuitive and powerful management of the Linux infrastructure. The result is savings of 80 percent in licensing fees for the Red Hat/Emu Linux solution versus Microsoft. Linux vs. Microsoft Acquisition Cost Analysis For the present analysis, we take a hypothetical company with 800 employees and a total of 20 servers running File and Print, , Web, and Network Services. We compare the cost of running these workloads on the latest version of Microsoft Server System versus running them on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 with Red Hat Network and NetDirector from Emu Software providing the management capabilities. File and Print Servers Table 1: File and Print Server Cost Comparison A base Microsoft server license fee of $999 is applied for each of the six File and Print servers. The company also requires a total of 800 Client Access (CALs), which come in packs of 20 for $799. On the Linux side, we require standard single-processor x86 server subscriptions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) ES, which cost $799 per server and include a Linux platform certified for use with thousands of ISV applications, support, maintenance and upgrades. Each RHEL ES server is shipped with Samba, a robust open source solution for file and print services. Red Hat Network (RHN) Management and Provisioning capabilities adds $192 per server. Adding NetDirector from Emu raises the price per server by $199 and provides a user-friendly GUI for the daily management of Samba. Microsoft $5,994 $31,960 $731 $38,685 Linux $4,794 NA $2,346 $7,140 Linux Savings $31,545 1 Microsoft Management consists of SMS, which, according to Microsoft's Web site, costs $1,219 for 10 servers. So, for our hypothetical company with 20 servers, the cost is $2,438, which is allocated proportionately across the various workloads. page 04

5 Servers In addition to the license fee for the base servers, Microsoft requires two sets of CALs for Exchange servers, one set of standard user CALs for each base Windows Server System server that will be used for Exchange, and then one CAL per Exchange client. On the Linux side, RHEL comes with Thunderbird. Thunderbird is a free, open source and cross-platform mail client for most operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It is a robust and easy-to-use client, similar to competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification. Table 2: Server Cost Comparsion Microsoft $10,788 $85,560 $488 $96,836 Linux $3,196 NA $1,546 $4,760 Savings $92,076 File and Print Server Cost Comparison $31,545 Total Savings $123,621 Web Servers Table 3: Web Server Cost Comparsion The Microsoft Web server, Internet Information Server (IIS), is available in Windows Server System Web Edition, which costs $399, five of which total $1,995. The Web Edition of Windows Server System does not require CALs, so the total Microsoft cost for Web servers is $2,605, when the cost of SMS is included. Five RHEL ES servers with RHN Management and Provisioning along with NetDirector cost $5,950, and come with the market-leading, and very secure Apache Web server. This is the only workload for which the Linux solution is more expensive than Microsoft, but it is only $3,346 more, which is a small price to pay for the security and performance of Apache, the most widely used Web server on the Internet. Microsoft $1,995 $0 $610 $2,605 Linux $3,995 NA $1,955 $5,950 Savings -$3,346 File and Print Server Cost Comparison $31,545 Server Cost Comparsion $92,076 Total Savings $120,276 page 05

6 Network Services Domain Name Services (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers perform several vital functions that enable end users to communicate with one another and with end users connected to other networks. Both DNS and DHCP come as part of the Windows Server System, the required five of which will total, with CALs, $37,565. The open source DNS application, called Berkeley Internet Name Domain, or BIND for short, accounts for over 65 percent of all DNS servers on the Net, and it comes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES, as does the Internet Software Consortium's DHCP Distribution. Again, RHN and Emu's NetDirector deliver complete, GUI-based management capabilities for both DNS and DHCP, helping to speed the patching and provisioning, and minimize the misconfiguration, of these vital services. Our Linux grand total here is $5,950, rewarding us with another 80 percent plus savings versus Microsoft. Table 4: Network Server Cost Comparsion Conclusion Our hypothetical medium-sized business with 800 employees can save $150,000 in first-year software acquisition costs by moving from Microsoft to Red Hat Enterprise Linux managed by Red Hat Network and NetDirector. But any total cost of ownership analysis must address other critical pieces beyond software acquisition, such as staffing costs, systems manageability and support. RHN and NetDirector deliver the powerful and user-friendly GUI-based Linux systems management capabilities that keep ongoing staffing costs down. Microsoft $4,995 $31,960 $610 $37,565 Linux $3,995 NA $1,955 $5,950 Savings $31,615 File and Print Server Cost Comparison $31,545 Server Cost Comparsion $92,076 Web Server Cost Comparsion -$3,346 Grand Total Savings $151,890 With RHN and NetDirector, even administrators new to Linux can easily manage complex services across medium, large and distributed environments. Red Hat is the leader in delivering enterprise Linux solutions that are certified for use with thousands of ISV applications, and both RHN and NetDirector offer support, maintenance and Total Savings upgrades. page 06

7 With the right tools, any company can confidently embrace Linux. The fundamental conclusion from the analysis in this paper is that, with the right systems management tools, any company regardless of size and previous experience with Linux can select a subscription version of Linux, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, add the cost for Red Hat Network and Emu's NetDirector for powerful and intuitive management, and the software acquisition costs for this complete Linux solution is still dramatically less (over 80 percent) than a comparable Microsoft server network. Furthermore, the powerful capabilities of Red Hat Network and NetDirector ensure that the ongoing costs of operating and maintaining the Linux network are no higher with Linux than they are with Microsoft. To see for yourself how straight-forward Red Hat Network and NetDirector make it to deploy and manage a new Linux environment, please visit: and Download NetDirector from SourceForge: References: Maria Winslow, The Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source, 2004, Open Source Migrations. Neuse River Network, Inc. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, MS Software Assurance Versus Red Hat Network, eweek.com, June 21, Red Hat, Red Hat Network and RHEL are registered trademarks of Red Hat. NetDirector is a registered trademark of Emu Software. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows and Microsoft Windows Server System are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other company, brand and product names contained herein may be the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. page 07