[olug] support costs. for Linux

[Schmeits, Roger]

What are typical support costs for Linux servers???  I have a quote from
Caldera for a 5 pack at $1650 or per server is $3130 per year.  SUSE is $400
per incident.  This will be for Apache, Squid, content filtering at the
packet level, MRTG packages running on Redhat, SUSE or Solaris.  We run all
Compaq machines and I am limited to these three operating systems.

Would anyone like to expand on/share your experiences?  I have strong
windows background and have been playing with Linux for about one year.  I
have installed most Linux distros in one degree or another.  Caldera seems
to work as well as anything for us here.  I don't not feel comfortable just
throwing a machine without a high degree of success.  I am not the brightest
bulb in the room but I will not kill my career without some type of support
system underneath me.  Hopefully within the next two years I can wean myself
of any support contact but initially it is a necessity.  I already threw the
idea at my boss and he seemed to be ok with my idea.

Currently we have a T1 that is pretty well soaked during the day and am
looking a SQUID to allieviate the problem.  Or at least knock the top 20% of
the traffic through our ISP.  I have one Compq ML370 1G CPU with 500M ram.
Plenty of disk space to boot.

Any comments?

Roger



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