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