InfoWorld recently talked about the TCO equation, and I was intrigued. The linux kernel (2.6) has had 19 updates in 2005, all of which would require a reboot of a Linux server. How many reboots would a windows server require in the same time period?

I navigated to the Microsoft Security Bulletin Search, searched for Important or Critical updates for Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, within the last year, and the number of updates I received: 40!

Does that help the TCO equation? Not really, but at least you get answers for both sides, so you can determine the cost to you. I will make one small side note that since the last time I had to manage a set of Windows boxen, I was able to find what I needed within a minute on the Microsoft web site, so they are improving. The same search 4 years ago would have been fruitless, and I would have ended up waiting for the next service pack.

I do agree with the summary, do your own TCO calculation:

The upshot is that although you may not be able to convince your CFO to stop asking for TCO figures — and you certainly won’t stop the analysts and the software industry from serving them up — you can learn to live with TCO as a tool for justifying IT purchasing decisions. The key is to make sure that the TCO figures under consideration in your organization are your own, and not the vendors’, because only you can see the whole picture.

So, when a vendor offers you a TCO analysis, your job is not to accept it as the truth, but to find where your situation differs from the analysis that the vendor provided (never accept anything that says stuff like “on average, …”). Only then will you know how to guess TCO.

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