Network Consulting Services
We provide Network and Computer consulting services for the Central Texas Area, which includes Temple, Killeen, Waco, Austin and Dallas Areas. Our normal rate is $100 an hour (an additional travel charge may apply), but we will work with you if the problem / installation takes an unusually long time.
We normally specialize in deploying Servers in small to mid size networks (10 to 500 clients), both GNU/Linux and Windows Servers. Also, we no longer provide any virus/spyware removal, for help in resolving these issues, check out this guide.
As for my background, I have been maintaining GNU/Linux Servers since 2000 and maintaining Windows Servers since 1996, including Microsoft's advanced services such as Exchange and SQL Servers. We recommend GNU/Linux servers for most situations, but realize that some circumstances require Microsoft Windows Servers, especially for some software vendors.
GNU / Linux Benefits
Besides the most obvious cost benefit for using GNU/Linux Servers, there are many other benefits for using GNU/Linux Servers over Microsoft Windows Servers. Here are a few of them:
* No vendor lock-in - All GNU/Linux distributions are based on Computer Standards and use programs which readily have the source code available for all services. This means that you are not dependant upon a single vendor or a group of programmers (hired by a single vendor) in order to fix problems that appear.
* Network Stability - GNU/Linux servers are known to run for years without needing a computer reboot. I personally have servers that I help to maintain that never need a reboot (except for kernel updates) even though they have hundreds of users logging into them every hour.
* Network Speed - Every test that I conducted comparing the speed of GNU/Linux Servers and Microsoft Windows Servers have always shown that GNU/Linux Servers are substantially faster at serving files to Windows Clients than Windows Servers are using the exact same hardware. For further information you can reference an older article I wrote here.
* Cross Platform Services - GNU/Linux servers provide services for various different client platforms. This means that you can have Microsoft Windows clients, Apple Computer clients, other GNU/Linux clients, old Unix clients, etc. accessing the same server using the standard protocol build for each platform. For instance, you use SMB/CIFS for Windows Clients, NFS for newer Apple Clients and GNU/Linux Clients, Appletalk for older Apple Clients, etc.
When Not to Use GNU/Linux Servers
Even though, in my opinion, the benefits of using GNU/Linux greatly outweigh the benefits of using Windows Servers, there are a couple of instances where will need to use Windows Servers.
Vendor Requirements - Unfortunately, many vendors require the use of Windows Servers to host their products, especially Accounting applications which are based on Microsoft SQL server. Fortunately Intuit provides a Quickbooks Server service for GNU/Linux Servers, but for the others the only solution to this is to simply use a Windows Server (or a Windows Workstation if you only need 5 concurrent users) to host these applications.
Scheduling Services - Although there are a few Scheduling servers available for GNU/Linux, there hasn't been one that has really taken off. Because of this, your organization may need something more powerful than an online service (such as Google Calendar) to handle scheduling. In these cases, a Microsoft Exchange Server may be the way to go (although I highly do not recommend the server from a maintenance point of view).
Cost Comparison
One of the biggest benefits from a business perspective for using GNU/Linux Servers (and workstations) is the cost benefit. This is an easy to see benefit and is a benefit that you receive immediately.
For a quick cost benefit analysis of using GNU/Linux Servers over Windows Servers, here is the pricing for Windows SBS 2008 Standard (which increases with the number of computers/users in your network). This pricing is based on information from Microsoft's Website on Jan. 1, 2010.
5 users/cpus - $1,089
10 users/cpus - $1,474
15 users/cpus - $1,859
20 users/cpus - $2,244
25 users/cpus - $2,593
Add to the fact that the Microsoft Outlook Client is no longer included in the price ($110 per computer!), the cost can quickly become a huge expense.
Sometimes the cost difference is so great that the cost alone would pay for the server hardware (and most labor).
Note: Some GNU/Linux distros require a subscription fee for updates (i.e. Novell charges $350 per year).
