WTF is the BFD with TCO

OK so that's a lot of 3-letter phrases in a title. While browsing through /. as I am apt to do on a night where I can't sleep. I happened to find a few articles discussing the merits of switching from an AS/400 system to one hosted on Windows.

Opinions were of course fairly biased against Windows in this particular discussion but I think there were a lot of good points brought up. From my vantage point having worked the Linux/UNIX vs. Windows side I'd have to say there is no black and white answer.

While people can toss around theories and studies saying that in a basic setup Windows outperforms and undercuts Linux/UNIX or vice versa in the end it boils down to some very basic design decisions and management.

Experience of your administrators. Let's face it there's no making up for experience. You can have one good administrator or three mediocre ones but you aren't going to get the same quality of service from the lesser experienced team. Now I am not talking about something as basic as familiarity with the system. I'm talking about down to earth, troubleshooting. When a system is functioning normally day to day operations are going to usually be easier with a Windows system. However the catch-22 is that when things go horribly wrong it is often the Windows admin who is left with two options. Vendor support services or rebuild/refresh.

Flexibility of product in my eyes is something that cuts both ways. Linux/UNIX solutions provide a lot of leeway to the developer and the system administrator but sometimes that myriad of choices makes things harder to debug or optimize out the gate. In comparison the relatively close-ended structure of most Windows solutions mean that you're only going to get a narrow window of movement out the box. The decision about where you want to go with the resources is a sticky subject these days.

Security is the last major factor I wanted to take a look at. Let's face it nobody is perfect. Be it a Windows flaw, a structural issue (network hardware) or a Kernel problem in a Linux/UNIX system there are always going to be issues faced by administrators. With patch management I think Linux and Windows are just about at the same level of work effort required to maintain a current system. There are some subtle differences however.

With Windows you're going to find that nearly every MS Update that gets released will wind up on your box in one form or another. As a Windows admin sometimes I find it irksome that even though I intend to never open IE from one of my servers I know its better to have the update than not.

Linux on the other hand is a bit more selective. A lot of times unless it's the kernel level issue the question is really, do I have this package installed and if so, am I using it at all? In that regard it's nice that I won't necessarily need ALL the updates that I see posted to somewhere like Bugtraq. Of course that just means that I need to provide a little more scrutiny.

So is there a holy grail when deciding which platform/solution to go with? Oh heck no, there's just a series of guidelines about what to factor in when making your decision. As someone who tends to tread lightly in both camps, I think there's times when Linux is a perfect fit while other times Windows clearly has its advantages. Sometimes the best way to win a war, is knowing which battles to fight where. Let me know your thoughts.