Microsoft: Linux isn't cheaper

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Your point is???

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make but "Big Iron" systems are expensive to purchase, maintain and operate. A 6 figure annual maintenance fees are not in anyway unusual (many are much higher). Administrators are paid more money. Just ask IBM and they will tell you it is much more expensive to maintain an entry level AS/400 or RISC (let alone mainframe) than "Intel" class machines. But they will also tell you that if you want reliability, scalability and performance for heavy workloads, then these machines are the answer.

You are not making a valid comparison because the design is completely different. For example; why can IBM make a very secure Linux port for a mainframe? Simple; they control the OS and every single piece of hardware. You don?t have many hardware choices from different vendors on big iron class machines. Contrast this with Intel class machines where even the processor can be different. Now add all the video, network, and many other cards and you are going to have a difficult time writing efficient code.

Don?t delude yourself into thinking you cannot run mission critical applications securely and reliably on Intel class machines. It is almost always the software (OS or applications) that is responsible for scalability, reliability and security. Sure you get this out of the box with big iron. But for the cost to purchase and operate one; you had better. To use your example of Oracle; did anyone say that they are not running critical applications on Intel machines? After all, Linux runs on Intel and all you said was they are switching to Linux (which has nothing to do with whether the hardware is big iron or not).

Posted by: MG_z   Posted on: 05/27/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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