What is cheaper and more practical to use on a corporate network instead of Microsoft: Thin client, Linux, or others?

Question

Computer networks

Welcome all!
I work in the SD service of a fairly large corporate company. Taking into account recent economic events, the management of IT specialists was asked the question - "reduce IT maintenance costs?". Up to this day, we have only used Microsoft products (both PCs and servers). And as you know, if you “get hooked on their needle”, they will already be immodest to “suck”! Now we are wondering what is better to use?!
Switch to Linux, maybe a thin client, or there are already better options that are both cheaper and more practical. We actually have a sysdam department, but after frequent problems with our network, I doubt their competence.
Therefore, I would like to deal with this issue myself.
/add/ After reading the comment, I add the following data. If something is not specified, you can ask, I will add.
1. SD - Service Desk
2. I'm not going to deal with this issue myself. The task was for everyone, but not everyone will come to the meeting with ready-made proposals! So I want to sketch. Of course, the decision is not one-day and the implementation of the project will be calculated over the next couple of years. We are not going to get hung up on thin clients or Nix systems, so I'm asking if anyone has already had experience in implementing or working with other solutions.
3. According to specific data:
- 500 PCs, about 60 servers;
- of course there is no competence. probably everyone will have to relearn;
- we do not work on web applications;
- Implemented by SAP, Lotus, ArcGIS, ASKUTSiR - this is from the global. mail on MS Exchange;
- at workstations, 95% are standard programs, not counting the above-mentioned ones (office, readers, archiver, etc.);
- with a pirate ambush. Microsoft often does audits.

Answer 1

Order an external audit.
And local admins will stir and objectivity will be on the face.
Transferring a working office completely to *nix is ​​not always justified.
I do it in stages ...
As an example:
1) those who need office software and no more than *nix ha
2) Accounting partially on *nix + terminals for win
3) Particularly advanced (PS / graphic software / CAD / and other specialized and leave the software sharpened under win as it is)
4) Particularly not advanced ones can be hung on thin clients under * nix

Answer 2

In the implementation of MS - thin clients are such toys for administrators. If you ask yourself the question of their legal implementation, then it turns out, of course, cheaper, but not to say that GLOBALLY. Real exhaust will be if you really have a lot of computers.
Moving to Linux? Hmm, do you have admins who are at least something in it? Well, of course it depends on the tasks. If your users 99% of the time work with web applications, then in principle the OS is not so important. You can at least give out android tablets to everyone. And if it starts: I want an office, I want photoshop, I want a tablet (ala wacom), I need 1C (although now it seems to be), and soooo - I don’t know a single bank-client for lin (yes, they are often crooked-ass under Windows).
And if you have crooked admins, then you will first get just hemorrhoids, and then with the change of the axis, it will begin to grow in progression.
But in fact - little data from you, it all depends on the situation.
By the way, some firms practice external IT audit. A normal auditor will tell you about your admins, and estimate options with savings, and your admins will be in good shape. He himself participated in such an event - extremely useful.

Answer 3

A company with a strong vendor lock-in to Microsoft will have a hard time solving this problem "on the fly", especially without any experience from users, or even from the IT department. It is quite risky for you to take steps without good advice from specialists.
Contact a company that specializes in optimizing your IT infrastructure. It will help you prioritize and suggest a suitable solution.
In my understanding, the following steps are possible for you:
No action should be taken without the approval of the head of the IT department. It will only get worse - you can ruin the whole business.
I myself am not an expert in the field of IT optimization and this is just my opinion.

Answer 4

You describe exactly what you want, and we will help you with the decision.
The phrase "cut costs" is catchy.
Joke of the day: "Fire one admin who laid the grid, already cut costs by 400+ thousand a year, for the company :)"
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Linux has its own services, offhand.
openfire(jabber) - messenger with jitsy integration is already a small analogue of skype. But you will have to change the client for users and it is written in Java.
Zimbra (Mailer out of the box) with a web interface.
1C server, quietly deployed.

Answer 5

Not sure about Zimbra. It has several unpleasant jambs, for example, the cost of a license. Here it is more practical to use CommunigatePro. A Russian product with Russian technical support and a completely democratic price. We use it ourselves - we know :)
Switching to Linux - why? If you have already paid for Microsoft products, then just do not renew support / warranty and you will be happy. But even if you extend it, it will still come out cheaper than buying thin clients for 6-8 thousand rubles (I personally didn’t find any sane ones cheaper - either they slow down, then there are problems with resolution, then with color). You can make your own assembly for thin clients, but do not forget that they will need to be additionally licensed by Microsoft + they will load the server quite well. Those. automatic hardware upgrade.
It is necessary to switch to thin clients when office operating systems and servers are hopelessly outdated and their unconditional replacement is required. Then you can immediately change servers with sharpening for working in terminal mode, set up a Windows-Linux server (preferably Windows) to work and connect all this goodness, change the boot mode to PXE (LAN) on user cars and then configure specific users for their jobs . That's the only way to save money. Yes, and then it must be considered already in detail.
Regarding the qualifications of administrators. Everyone is wrong. The one who does nothing makes no mistakes.
As for the openfire + jitsi bundle. openFire is evil. Maybe in the last 8 months something has changed drastically, but before that, the same glitches pursued this product for at least 4 years. And not just me. And if you didn’t have problems with OpenFire, then you most likely didn’t have more than 50 users in the company. From what first came to mind: after a reboot, AD does not always normally cling back to the server. As a result... In general, God forbid you disable the local (not domain) admin for openFire. Sometimes users drop out "into the astral plane". Those. the roster is divided into two parts. And users in the first part think that people from the second part are offline. And vice versa. It was possible to understand that a glitch had occurred only if one of the users came up and said, they say, "Nif-Nif is in the office and says that he is online, but I don’t see him."
The plot is like this. If you want to cut IT costs, then you can consider waiving extended warranties and technical support, which is very fraught. It is possible to revise the suppliers, since now the competition has intensified between them, but the guarantees of this supplier, his responsibility, and so on, should be taken into account. You can revise the policy for using software from Microsoft, but also very carefully. For example, if you need to upgrade Windows OS and Exchange, then you can install CentOS and change Exchange to CommuniGate, which is MUCH cheaper, and not much inferior in terms of capabilities.
But the best thing is to get an informatization plan (Financial plan for the IT department with an indication of expense items and actual expenses) for 2015 and study it in detail - what should / can be thrown out of this, and what can be replaced with another - cheaper or longer-lasting to cut costs in the long run. Although such a reduction in costs should be dealt with not during the crisis, but before it.

Answer 6

Make a normal inventory of everything in the office.
Count all business-critical applications. Find out their requirements (whether they can be replaced, on what platforms they REGULARLY work).
At this stage, you will roughly see whether it is possible to transfer everyone, whether it makes sense to transfer everyone.
Among other things, you can opt out of individual MS services, for example, corporate mail can be safely transferred to gmail, you can even stay on the same Outlook but do not pay for the exchange server and connections to it. And just windows, and even some kind of oem thread is not so expensive.

Answer 7

They give us sanctions and a weak ruble - and we do not buy their products in return, we use pirates. Option? Why not .. And you can easily justify the authorities - the damned West, do not buy anything from them, we are patriots, lala, poplars.

Answer 8

Moving 500 PCs and 60 servers to nix is ​​a crazy job for a department of at least 5 people.
It seems unlikely to me that the costs incurred during the move and the further costs of support and training of staff will pay off due to the reduced "IT maintenance costs".
In addition, "service costs" are the costs of salaries to the people who serve. If taken literally. And niks admins are more expensive.
As mentioned above, the inventory + inspection of the utilization of equipment capacity (and the resulting optimization) + administrative tightening of the screws will give a comparable effect in terms of money. IMHO.
Perhaps virtualization of both servers and workstations (VDI) will help.

Answer 9

Look towards VmWare vSphere

Answer 10

Fire admins.
The one who bought SAP and Lotus should be fired and shot.
Switch from Exchange to Google Mail.
Do not touch Windows.