Maintenance is always an issue. Who is going to build this infrastructure. Free sofware doesn't mean crap is you can't afford to pay someone to install it.

TCO can be broken down into 3 main groups; hardware, software, and maintenance costs. Of those three, software is usually the smallest percent and maintenance is usually the largest over a 3-5 year period.

Maintenance > hardware > software

 

Depending on how much traffic you are going to host, find a hosting provider with the equipment and security practices you want and do it. Otherwise, you end up with way more TCO paying someone to maintain your colo facility.

Make sure they use high performance hardware. If you want to know what google/amazon/ebay/yahoo/etc use for their web infrastructure, lemme know.

 

i love it when people get religious. don't pay anything, everything is free now, outsource your programming to <your favorite third world country goes here>.