If you’ve been through the hardware acquisition cycle a few times, already, and have more computers than you know what to do with, then you may be giving another look at the Open Source® movement – because systems that aren’t powerful enough to run Windows XP, or even Windows NT, may still be perfectly adequate for use delivering UNIX-based services – such as LDAP, Samba, DNS, WAP, or even protecting your network boundaries.
Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope calculations, to see what you can expect to pay for an equivalent Open Source server, installed manually … regardless of which ‘free’ operating system you actually use.
provider | your cost | duration | total cost | comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
student | $20/hr | 40 hrs | $600 | minimal, more to do |
student | $20/hr | 400 hrs | $6000 | too long, too much |
employee | $40/hr | 40 hrs | $1600 | minimal, more to do |
employee | $40/hr | 80 hrs | $3200 | too long, too much |
contractor | $80/hr | 20 hrs | $1600 | minimal, more to do |
contractor | $80/hr | 40 hrs | $3200 | too much |
contractor | $80/hr | 80 hrs | $6400 | too much |
vendor’s FE | $200/hr | 40 hrs | $8000 | too much |
Estimated cost of installing one Open Source® server, manually
In these calculations, we haven’t even factored in the cost of the hardware. Sure, if you don’t mind spending $50,000 or more for a piece of hardware that will be obsolete in four years, and unsupported in six years, spending another $10,000 for a consultant to install and configure this over a leisurely period of several weeks is just a technicality. We haven’t even discussed yearly support contracts.
For many businesses, it doesn’t seem right that the cost of the installation should approach, or exceed, the cost of the computer itself. They are right. The only reason it costs so much is because each server and each piece of software is manually installed.
It doesn’t need to be that way. The entire task can be accomplished, automatically, in less than an hour. From dead PC to fully installed UNIX server … with latest OpenSSL, OpenSSH, Apache, or Samba, fully configured firewall, and much more.
In less than 60 minutes, you can reap the benefits of over 20 years of solid, industrial strength computing experience and have a server that will run for a year, or more, without needing to be rebooted. It’s that good.
Compare these estimates, against our reasonable per-installation rate of $1000 per server, for a fully installed system, warrantied, for 90 days, to be free of defects – with one week of free technical support – and you will quickly see why we think a Daemonized TM server is, not just the fastest, not just the most cost-effective, but the all-around best solution, to your industrial computing needs.
(Volume rates are available; please contact us.)
We also offer onsite consulting services, at a very reasonable rate of $90.00/hour; $80.00/hour if we are able to complete our billing cycle the same day.
We offer special rates for non-profit organizations … very small businesses … and individuals. If you’re interested, again, please contact us.