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Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:17:25 -0700
From: Andrew Sharp <andy.sharp@onstor.com>
To: "Bob Miller" <bob.miller@onstor.com>
Subject: Re: Slides
Message-ID: <20080815161725.4a38eadd@ripper.onstor.net>
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Oh, much more than that!  Migrate from M$Exchange to exim/webcalendar,
uh, well, now that you've got me started:

Attached is something I wrote back in February...

You'll notice I don't actually know the invoice numbers for the
software packages I've mentioned.  I didn't get that far in my
investigation.  Something about getting Cougar shipped.


On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:52:51 -0700 "Bob Miller"
<bob.miller@onstor.com> wrote:

> I guess what you are doing is volunteering to help the company
> migrate from PCs to macs. B
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andy Sharp
> To: Bob Miller
> Sent: Fri Aug 15 15:27:56 2008
> Subject: Re: Slides
> 
> Alright, alright, I'll take pitty on you poor Windows users.
> 
> Powerpunt version attached ~:^)
> 
> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:13:59 -0700 "Bob Miller"
> <bob.miller@onstor.com> wrote:
> 
> > What do I use to open them?
> > B
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andy Sharp 
> > Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 14:44
> > To: Bob Miller
> > Subject: Re: Slides
> > 
> > On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:35:10 -0700 "Bob Miller"
> > <bob.miller@onstor.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Andy
> > > Can you please send me a copy of your slides.
> > > It was a very good job.
> > > Bob
> > 
> > Thanks.  The slides are attached.

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Executive Summary
=================

Get the company to profitability sooner by saving costs with out incurring
sacrifices.  Cost savings would be achieved by reducing the company's
dependence on foreign oil.  By foreign oil, I of course mean
proprietary software and support licenses as well as electrical power
consumption.

IT Cost Saving Plan Summary
===========================

Via strategically converting various network services over to open
platform, open source alternatives, without sacrificing services
offered, a large cost savings can be achieved while also bringing the
company to a more open platform compliant state.  In other words, walk
the walk, not just talk the talk.

    Plan Details
    ============

    The company expends a great deal of money on software licenses for
    network services such as email, firewall, database, source control
    management, and issue tracking.  All of these services enjoy
    particularly competent open source offerings, many of which are
    considered more competent and reliable than the proprietary offerings
    we pay high license fees for.

    In addition to these services, we are forced to pay for expensive
    software that allows us to access these non-open platform services
    from our non-windows platforms, of which we rightfully have a large
    number.  I am referring to Citrix of course.

    If that wasn't enough, our email/calendaring service is so inefficient
    that we have to spend large amounts of money on special high performance
    machinery just to get it to run at a barely useable speed.


    Current Software list               Yearly cost
    ---------------------               -----------
    Exchange                                $999.99
    Citrix                                  $999.99
    Perforce                                $999.99
    Clearquest                              $999.99
    MSQL                                    $999.99
    Firewall software (?)                   $999.99

    Replacement software list           Yearly cost
    -------------------------           -----------
    Exim4                                     $0.00*
    webcalendar                               $0.00*
    SVN                                       $0.00*
    Bugzilla                                  $0.00*
    Linux or OpenBSD based firewall/VPN       $0.00*

    Under this plan, the software package Citrix is to be completely
    eliminated.  The rest are replaced by open source software.


    Caveats
    =======

    Some users might wish to continue to use their non-Windows
    platforms, but continue to use Windows applications via Citrix
    [grounds for termination?].  So that software may need to remain,
    but even so, a substantial cost savings can be achieved by
    dramatically reducing the number of seat licenses that need
    be purchased.

    A decent plan to switch email and calendaring over to their
    open source alternatives has to be laid out in order to avoid
    disruption.  [Overheard in company hallway: how did we get
    anything done before M$Exchange/Calendar?  Answer- the same
    way we do now.] A beta trial with a small number of employees
    is advisable.

    *Truth in advertising
    ====================

    The open source paradigm is a much different one than proprietary
    software purchase model.  In order to be successful, the right
    model has to be followed.  The primary difference is support.
    Open source software is largely self supported.  This generally
    means at least one additional employee in IT.  Even if self
    supporting does not amount to any dollar savings over purchased
    support contracts, our economy and our corporate karma are
    greatly helped by employing a person rather than paying these
    fat companies their over priced support fees for support we
    rarely if ever use.  And there is another advantage: we get the
    software tailored to our desires and whims, customized at will.
    Something that can never be achieved with proprietary software.

    Email/Calendaring switchover plan
    =================================
    (The machinery has been upgraded since I wrote this.)

    Current (non-upgraded hardware) is probably more than sufficient to
    run email and web calendaring services at a very high performance
    rate.

    Therefore, we can keep the current machinery and execute the following
    plan:

    1.  Export email database in a form that is importable by exim4.  This
        will take a bit of research but is quite doable.

    2.  Import email to beta trial server.

    3.  Set up webcalendar and integrate it to email (ical).

    4.  Engineer PDA sync'ing methods for calendar and email.
        Some methods may be found on the internet, others may have to
        be implemented.

    4.  Take a small number of sophisticated volunteer users to use the
        new services for a month, providing feedback to IT.


Power Saving Plan Summary
=========================
Phase out low performing, high power consumption hardware, and replace
with higher performing, very low power consuming hardware.

    Plan Details
    ============

    The walls of our company are plastered with articles about
    greening of data centers and machine rooms, but in side our
    machine rooms, we ourselves are completely ignoring the issue.
    It's time to realize a huge potential cost savings by reversing
    that situation.

    The largest piece of low hanging fruit in this area is the number
    of low performing, high power consuming single and dual Xeon
    systems, both in the lab and out.  These systems typically consume
    several hundred watts while sitting idle, yet their performance is
    somewhat marginal for all that heat generated.  Gradually
    replacing these systems with lower power consuming systems made
    with low power offerings by AMD or Intel would net us a very large
    savings, both in direct electrical costs as well as cooling and
    power distribution and UPS costs.

    A typical single 2.8HGz Xeon consumes 169 watts, and that doesn't
    include it's chipset, which requires an extra chip that
    Opteron/Athlon64 CPUs don't require.  Low power Athlon x2
    processors with greater performance and lower power consuming
    DDR2 memory consume as little as 45 watts.  More than double the
    computing performance, at 25% of the power consumption.  Multiply
    that by the number of such client system in our lab alone, and we
    have achieved a very large power savings.  Such systems also are
    very cost effectively priced as well.
    [Sell the old systems on EBay]

    High power consumption lab systems would be gradually replaced
    with new power saving units.  A budget of 2-3 systems per month
    should be set in order to not overload lab personell or disrupt
    client usage by QA and development staff.

    Development and QA workstations can also be replaced at a 1-2
    unit per month rate, possibly higher depending on IT availability.
    The cost savings and performance increase will be sizeable in only
    three month time frame.

    Higher performance directly correlates to higher efficiency of
    engineering and IT staff members.

Savings Estimate
================

Such an estimate involves a high degree of speculation, but half a million
dollars a year if both plans are implemented is not out of the question.
Possibly even higher.  I completely made that number up.  I wonder how
close I might be.  In fact it might triple that.


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