Understanding Linux Deployment Strategies: The Business Case for Standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

This IDC white paper compares organizations using a commercial Linux subscription from Red Hat to support their Linux servers with organizations that are using a mixed environment of both commercially supported and nonpaid Linux distributions aboard their servers. The results are clear: organizations that have standardized on Red Hat Enterprise Linux recover upfront subscription costs through more efficient operations, higher ratios of servers and users per administrator, and a significantly lower downtime cost annually when compared to organizations that maintain a Linux server infrastructure that is either mixed or is primarily nonpaid.