Desktops go Linux , saved $$$ and reduced help requests 45%
Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 5:08 pm
A company in the U.K. drops Windows for Linux and saves a lot of money and reduces support requests by 45%....
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Oldfields desktops go to Linux, Mac, and don’t look back
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/100605,ol ... -back.aspx
ASX-listed Oldfields has reduced its IT spending from just over three per cent of gross revenue to 1.2 per cent, mainly by reducing its reliance on Windows.
The company, which manufactures and distributes paint brushes and accessories, garden sheds, and operates an aluminium scaffolding hire business, runs a centralised Unix environment "with the exception of two servers", according to manager of corporate technology services, Paul Camillos.
Camillos said that only 25 per cent of the company's 120 users have Windows-based desktops.
Some 40 percent of desktop users run Linux and the remaining users have Macs.
"Our operating environment was predominately Windows when I first got here [seven years ago]," Camillos said.
"We found that by migrating away from Windows we've been able to significantly reduce costs and it's given us a far more stable environment.
"Is it unusual? Yes. Is it smart for us? Absolutely. If I look back at our IT spending four years ago, it was three-and-a-bit per cent not including depreciation and finance charges.
"Now we are at about 1.2 per cent of gross revenue, including all those financial charges too. A lot of that [saving] has been driven down by using non-Windows environments."
Unlike Mac and Windows users, the Linux contingent isn't running distributions on individual machines.
Instead, they access thin clients - either 386 or 486s that have been "recycled into dumb terminals" or Hot-e devices from the Sunshine Coast-based ThinLinX that remote boot into Linux terminal services - to get to the company's Pronto Xi enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which runs the core of its business.
Hot-e is an embedded Linux thin client computer that can be used to substitute a standard PC chassis.
Terminal services is a way of delivering remote access to enterprise applications.
"The key driver to move to Linux terminal services was cost-base driven but also so we can get in and manage stuff in the branches remotely," Camillos said.
"Part of our overarching goal is to get everything remotely manageable from head office. By having terminal services we can restart sessions remotely which fixes 90 per cent of user problems. Reboots of the terminal services boxes themselves are rare."
Camillos said that support desk calls showed significant changes when reliance on Windows was reduced.
"Literally the month we pushed Linux out to the branches the number of calls to our helpdesk dropped by 45 per cent," he said.
"Pretty much everyone who has moved [to Linux or Mac] has said they don't want to go back to Windows."
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Oldfields desktops go to Linux, Mac, and don’t look back
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/100605,ol ... -back.aspx
ASX-listed Oldfields has reduced its IT spending from just over three per cent of gross revenue to 1.2 per cent, mainly by reducing its reliance on Windows.
The company, which manufactures and distributes paint brushes and accessories, garden sheds, and operates an aluminium scaffolding hire business, runs a centralised Unix environment "with the exception of two servers", according to manager of corporate technology services, Paul Camillos.
Camillos said that only 25 per cent of the company's 120 users have Windows-based desktops.
Some 40 percent of desktop users run Linux and the remaining users have Macs.
"Our operating environment was predominately Windows when I first got here [seven years ago]," Camillos said.
"We found that by migrating away from Windows we've been able to significantly reduce costs and it's given us a far more stable environment.
"Is it unusual? Yes. Is it smart for us? Absolutely. If I look back at our IT spending four years ago, it was three-and-a-bit per cent not including depreciation and finance charges.
"Now we are at about 1.2 per cent of gross revenue, including all those financial charges too. A lot of that [saving] has been driven down by using non-Windows environments."
Unlike Mac and Windows users, the Linux contingent isn't running distributions on individual machines.
Instead, they access thin clients - either 386 or 486s that have been "recycled into dumb terminals" or Hot-e devices from the Sunshine Coast-based ThinLinX that remote boot into Linux terminal services - to get to the company's Pronto Xi enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which runs the core of its business.
Hot-e is an embedded Linux thin client computer that can be used to substitute a standard PC chassis.
Terminal services is a way of delivering remote access to enterprise applications.
"The key driver to move to Linux terminal services was cost-base driven but also so we can get in and manage stuff in the branches remotely," Camillos said.
"Part of our overarching goal is to get everything remotely manageable from head office. By having terminal services we can restart sessions remotely which fixes 90 per cent of user problems. Reboots of the terminal services boxes themselves are rare."
Camillos said that support desk calls showed significant changes when reliance on Windows was reduced.
"Literally the month we pushed Linux out to the branches the number of calls to our helpdesk dropped by 45 per cent," he said.
"Pretty much everyone who has moved [to Linux or Mac] has said they don't want to go back to Windows."