This question is currently floating around at my work: How will Linux lower the TCO? RedHat AS 2.1 is about ~2000 dollars/server - not free. I don't think Hardware costs would be a huge area of savings either since Sun/IBM pricing has improved considerably - and I believe the OS comes bundled with the cost of the server itself with Sun/IBM. -- Here's an answer that someone gave - I don't feel it's the best, but don't really know too much since I've only played with linux on old desktops - not server class machines (multi processor redundant this-and-that etc). Also RedHat 2.1 is a must because Oracle certifies on RH AS 2.1 (They might on other distros - SuSE?)?? Anyway here's the answer that was given by a not so techie manager for the above question (I think it's kinda fishy...any one else got better reasons??? ) The cost of Linux AS 2.1 is on par or less than many proprietary OS costs (Solaris, AIX, etc). Intel based hardware is less expensive though UNIX boxes have indeed come down in price greatly so a 4-way Intel box is close in price to a 4-way UNIX box. The main thing is that Intel boxes are much faster than UNIX (CPU speeds up to 2x UNIX) and therefore you typically need fewer CPUs - i.e. where you would need a 6-way UNIX box you could do with a 3 or 4-way Intel box (to be validated during volume testing). This lowers the hardware cost, and because there are fewer CPUs it lowers Oracle costs as well (usually up to $20K per CPU depending on what options are included). -- _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list