Novell's SLES9 vs. Microsoft's Win2K3 Server
A Windows Domain Control & File Server Comparison
Pricing
Cost wise, these products go in a different direction. Novell prices SLES9 on a per server basis, where as Microsoft prices Win2k3 not only on a per server basis, but also on the number of clients that actually connect to the server.
Novell's price for SLES9 (x86 and AMD 64 architecture up to 2 processors) is $349 per server per year. This includes however many clients you may connect to it.
Microsoft's pricing is a little more complicated.
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server pricing
First off there are different versions of Win2k3 Server available, once you figure out which version will suit your needs, then you must calculate how many clients will actually connect to your server, then finally (apparently) you must then decide if you have to purchase a "connector" license (not sure exactly what that is). So, the following chart compares the different prices for each server, depending on the number of users and architecture. All prices were computed using each companies web site, and Windows 2003 Enterprise Version is required if you want to use a 64bit processor.
| Software Pricing | SLES9 | Win2k3 Standard | Win2k3 Enterprise |
| Server Software | $349 | $999 | $3,999 |
| 10 Clients | $349 | $1,098 | $3,999 |
| 20 Clients | $349 | $1,596 | $3,999 |
| 30 Clients | $349 | $1,997 | $4,198 |
| 40 Clients | $349 | $2,395 | $4,596 |
| 50 Clients | $349 | $2,796 | $4,997 |
| 75 Clients | $349 | $3,794 | $5,995 |
| 100 Clients | $349 | $4,792 | $6,993 |
| 150 Clients | $349 | $6,791 | $8,992 |
| 200 Clients | $349 | $8,787 | $10,988 |
As you can see, using Windows 2003 Server, as the network grows, so does the cost of the server software. This is one of the drawbacks of using any software that requires you to have a seperate "Client Access License" (CALs) for each computer accessing it's resources. Fortunately Novell did not take the CAL route when pricing their SLES9 Server. Let's hope Novell takes the same route when they price their Open Enterprise Server (I highly doubt it though).
Pricing Leader: SLES9
Conclusion
As you can see, Novell's SLES9 is a very worthy contender to Microsoft's Win2k3 Server in a Windows environment. Not only does SLES9 perform better on the same hardware, but it costs less - possibly more than 1/10th the cost of a Microsoft solution. So most of the "Lower Cost of Ownership" talk coming out of Redmond is either just plain false, or they think people cannot comprehend anything relating to computers that is not a Microsoft Solution.
Is SLES9 a perfect solution for every network? No, you still must factor in all issues before deciding upon the server software. Especially find out if you may have issues relating to software support from other vendors. Until Linux Servers become more popular in the Small-Medium network environment this will always be an issue.
For ease of Administration, Microsoft's Active Directory is a nice utility to manage the network.....but is it all that Microsoft says it is ? Most network installations that I have come across that utilize Microsoft Windows 2000 and 2003 server do not take full advantage of Active Directory. Mainly because they either don't know how to properly implement it, or they utilize login scripts to accomplish basically the same thing. As a matter of fact, a lot of the Administrators I know that handle larger Windows Installations (500+ computers) just use the basic features of Active Directory and use either ScriptLogic, Kixtart, or another scripting language to manage everything else. A few that I know even went to the extent of getting away from roaming profiles by having the login script create the user profile "on the fly" and just blow it away after the user logs off.
There are many other issues to consider when choosing a server platform that were not covered here. The first step you should take is figure out exactly what you want the server to do, then go from there. Other issues could involve disaster recovery, security monitoring / Intrusion Detection, "other than Windows" client access, clustering, other servers (such as Web Server,Database Server), etc.
Currently, unless you are going to take full advantage of Active Directory, or you have a vendor that refuses to support their product on anything but a Microsoft product, I cannot find a legitimate reason for anyone to choose Windows 2003 Server over Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9, especially for the price that Novell is selling it for. Novell has a golden opportunity here - First they need to start pushing SLES9 more. Second, once all the components of their "Open Enterprise Server" are finished, do not utilize outrageous pricing or licensing. It is much better to have 1,000,000 customers pay you $1,000 - $5,000+, than have 10,000 customers pay you $10,000 - $50,000+.
With SLES9, it's not "Where do you want to go today?", but Where do you want to be at for tomorrow's technology?
