The number of sites running Windows Server 2003 is already more than the number running Sun Solaris 9, even though the former has not yet been formally launched, the latest monthly web server survey from Netcraft has found.
Windows Server 2003 Overtakes Solaris 9 on the Web
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Even if this time Windows 2003 server get boosted just in number of servers, this doesn’t show that it’s equal to solaris 9, there’s no way to talk arounf the architecture is so differnet that win2003 svr should be called desktop OS , while solris for workstation is always the best Unix server ever made … Anyway Linux server are in the toplist and that’s enough , Solris it’s self is using linux for some servers, I have a many friends that have prefered to replace solris in their sun servers with a linux dist. just because that felt more familar and get easy to use a lot of available software.
Well now… what are our BSD-loving unix purists going to say to this? Don’t be surprised this is happening. Unix pundits with heads on sand don’t seem to realise it, but Windows servers are spreading everywhere. Wake up and smell the coffee!!
Why are Windows Servers succeeding?
1. They are easy to administer
2. They leverage people’s familiarity with Windows desktops
3. They are stable and maturing fast -belive it or not
4. They are quietly acquiring all the advantages that formely belonged to unix.
5. With the possible exception of Linux, Unix Oses are doing nothing to remain competitive in a windows world.
While MS is carefully copying features from Unix, Unix pundits and purists are busy pretending that every IT person worth anything enjoys being a hardcore unix masochist. Its like building a DOS desktop in 2003, and expecting people to use it just because, they used them 15 years ago.
Its time to build easy-to-use Unix Servers. You certainly don’t want MS to rule the server end like its rulling the desktop.
Hit the nail on the head.
Hmm, this is a little scary. Just to mention a Linux distro headed in the right direction, ClarkConnect is a server-centric distro that at least *tries* to ease admin pain. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I am saying it’s making an effort to ease administration and bring UNIX-like systems up a notch. Basically it just boots in to an ncurses menu from which you can do a few lite admin things (including drop to console). There’s also webmin…
http://www.clarkconnect.org/
Not that I’m saying things like these are enough. More stuff like this needs to be pushed, developed, noted, etc., lest Windows acquire a greater user base.
Linux baby, sorry I wonder if you ever professional maintain unix servers? I pointing to
“Its time to build easy-to-use Unix Servers. You certainly don’t want MS to rule the server end like its rulling the desktop.”. It’s not true, I can maintain twice as much as unix/linux machines as my fellow windows admins. Why? because *nix is so hard? No because it has 1000ths of tools who can make my job easier(and faster).
And if i install a patch I don’t have to worry IF the patch works and not crashing the machine on next boot. I saw my colleagues installing patched on Win2kAS and servers not booting up anymore (and yes they tested it non productive servers first).
Well ontrack, in this bad economical time it’s hard for Sun, there Hardware/service is very expensive. But you do get GOOD support. And people who really want to be 24/7/365 on mission critical don’t gonna use win2003. simple.
Well all seems to be a troll, but it’s not
All I can say is that you’re a very sad little man making such illinformed comments such as that. Maybe you should own a company and realise that having a Windows server in the long run isn’t a wise choice and those that promote Windows are merly those whose limited experience with computers borderlines on changing USB devices.
what does this prove oh yea that people are not investing in unix anymore. please realize that unix is NOT linux its a compeltely difrent animal. most companys are finding that linux is starting to look a lot better than unix. So wake up and smell the coffee. last year IBM made 1 billion on linux related services this year they expect to double that figure. now of course if you MUST continue the OS war realize that linux can be a desktop and server platform. and in some opinions windows isnt an option for servers.
But really who gives a shit? even if you shout out the superiority of one specific operating system people will still use _BOTH_.
Wake up and smell the coffee!!
I think, you need some more water to see something clear as what UNIX/Linux SysAdmins have seen. 😉
1. They are easy to administer
Really? I find that it’s hard to administer Windows than UNIX/Linux do. Why do M$ has to hide so many tools? Also, most of them are too far to find, why? Is it easier to edit the GPO in Windows than UNIX/Linux? Windows’s admin tools and their locals drive me crazy.
M$ has written the white paper about why they still keep use the UNIX as their hotmail server, because it’s easier to control, secure, stable and etc. Sorry, I don’t remember what URL, but it’s over at M$’s website.
3. They are stable and maturing fast -belive it or not
Sure, they are stable and fast, but not as UNIX/Linux.
While MS is carefully copying features from Unix
Like what? M$ still lack of multi-user login, lack of like crontab (in the M$’s white paper) and etc. When, you create a new user and user is already under admin group by default.
Windows does still need to improvement and relogical on many stuff. Everything is hiding and too far to find them, when M$ called them as OS server. That’s silly.
Please note netcraft findings apache which runs on nearly all *nixes and windows has 62.5 % share of the sites tally up all of the rest and it still doesnt match apache what does this say ? nothing new. How many companies have sun but run apache ? how many run bsd and run apache ? how many run linux and run apache ? These results show nothing woohoo new ms server os released just need to wait for the attacks and vulnerabilities of the new iis to start rolling in.
For desktop maybe some of you see command line as pointless but in terms of servers it just cant be beaten can you have loads of rdesktop sessions to loads of different servers at once without throttling your bandwidth simple answer no. For server administration and maintenance nothing beats *nix it may not have a fancy gui. But the gui is ultimatly windows down fall in server os. As gui == resource hog. what the hell does a web server need with a gui ? it only needs to dish out as many sites as possible thats all. it doesnt need bloat with a gui stuck on it. for maintenance host the server in somewhere with a lot of bandwidth and just ssh in to maintain the server all you need for ssh is a 56k modem . Even fine with 28.8 connection. Its only text after all.
When you can kill the gui in windows and have proper ssh access to the server thats when windows can compete on server market and thats where you might aswell run *nix.
End of story.
M$ has written the white paper about why they still keep use the UNIX as their hotmail server, because it’s easier to control, secure, stable and etc. Sorry, I don’t remember what URL, but it’s over at M$’s website.
Oh? The only thing on MS’s website I can find is about them migrating from FreeBSD to Windows 2000 and the reasons why… http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseSt…
I agree that Windows is making some good strides toward adopting some UNIX powers, but the way they go about it really isn’t promising. In UNIX, there’s that string-of-tools mentality, whereby things are well streamlined, very efficient, etc. In Windows, they’re having to develop a new tool for every purpose. In the end, UNIX will be able to keep a lot of legacy code as if it were new, and Windows will have to rework it. Thing is, as UNIX tools get older, can we find ways to improve on them, ways to reuse them? If we can’t, it doesn’t matter if MS has to keep reinventing the wheel, they’ll beat out UNIX. It’s a slow process. Really, UNIX should start being innovative with the given toolsets again. I’m not saying the current setup isn’t great, but I’m looking at all these tools and thinking how much better they could be.
it doesn’t prove any of your points. what it could prove is:
1. people aren’t forced to upgrade. so there are still plenty of Solaris 2.5, 2.6, 7 and 8 machines running just fine, so why start “fixing” them?
2. more windows servers are necessary. redundancy is extremely important with Windows(really with any x86 hardware), to maintain high availability.
3. we’ve been promised that IIS 6.0 will fix some of the major issues with IIS, so people are quick to upgrade for stability and security reasons.
and as for this remark:
They leverage people’s familiarity with Windows desktops
I would hope there’s really more to it than that. familiarity vs. choosing the best tool for the job is a terrible idea. Also, I’d like point out that familiarity of the windows interface has thus far tended to make people think administering a website is easy. guess what, it isn’t… proof of that is Nimda, a ton of sample IIS websites left active even though there are known exploits, badly laid out file permissions and other arbitrary code exploits. people start screaming about MS bugs every time a new exploit is discovered and there are some legitimate holes, but just as often a well thought out website would not have suffered from these issues.
when I see an experienced NT/2K admin with a defaced site because he didn’t understand file permissions(even though he works with them everyday), I have to wonder how easy it really is for joe user to get things right.
hopefully, joe user and joe NT admin wouldn’t take apache so lightly, and that’s a good thing.
>Its time to build easy-to-use Unix Servers. You certainly >don’t want MS to rule the server end like its rulling the >desktop.
What exactly is “Hard to Use” in Solaris or in fact any other UNIX server ?
A properly setup UNIX server is much easier to manage and troubleshoot than any of the Windows boxes.
As of Linux replacing all UNIX out there: Sweet Dreams to you…
Oh? The only thing on MS’s website I can find is about them migrating from FreeBSD to Windows 2000 and the reasons why… http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28226.html
Like what? M$ still lack of multi-user login, lack of like crontab (in the M$’s white paper) and etc. When, you create a new user and user is already under admin group by default.
I’ll agree with the crontab comment, but full multi-user login support was introduced with WinXP, or if you want to count the RunAs feature, in Win2K. Both of which are multi-user features…
As for creating a new user being an admin by default, is absolutely BS. In the 10 years of admining WinNT boxes, I have never seen a new user being an Admin by default (talking corporate environment, not some piss-ant home Joe User). If this is the case under Home versions, I do stand corrected, as I only touch the corporate stuff…
Now I do paid work with Linux, BSD and Win2K/XP boxes for a living, and often find it’s not the OS that’s the problem, BUT THE ADMINISTRATOR. Please don’t forget this when making any comments about any OS. The OS is only as good as the sysadmin piloting it…
Chewy509…
So people are putting beta version of Windows 2003 out on servers on the Internet. Does this not worry anybody? The reason that Solaris 9 is not getting installed on many new machines is that normally people who install Unix are not just clicking yes a few time then slaping the box on the internet, they are setting up a web server that is secure and reliable.
When you have stable business services you can’t afford to slap on the latest and greatest as soon as it comes out. I wonder how many of the so called servers running Win 2003 are just home desktops on broadband who don’t even realise that they are hosting a website! Correlation of win 2003 sites and Kazza, dc, or edonkey services would be more telling.
but full multi-user login support was introduced with WinXP, or if you want to count the RunAs feature, in Win2K. Both of which are multi-user features…
I am aware of it. Old Windows -> WinXP improvement, but still suck. WinXP still has the worst multi-user way and logical, which M$ still need to work more on it.
As for creating a new user being an admin by default, is absolutely BS. In the 10 years of admining WinNT boxes, I have never seen a new user being an Admin by default (talking corporate environment, not some piss-ant home Joe User). If this is the case under Home versions, I do stand corrected, as I only touch the corporate stuff…
Nope, it’s not BS. Today, I just created ten accounts on WinXP Pro and they are in the Admin group by default. I had to edit them to the limited and two super users.
Well now… what are our BSD-loving unix purists going to say to this?
Well, I’m going to say “if it works for them, great”. If Windows get the job done I’m not going to tell anyone that they should run BSD instead just because it’s better in some irrelevant (to them) sense. I would certainly prefer FreeBSD, but it’s not my business (that could be interpreter several ways, and I mean all of them).
2. They leverage people’s familiarity with Windows desktops
I’m not sure how important that is. There’s so much you need to learn to reasonably manage any system in a server environment that I’m not sure picking up a new OS would be too much of a problem.
Actually, now that I think about it I’m not sure how much familiarity is really there. Most Windows users haven’t touched (or heard of) Win2K3, and most have probably never used a member of WinNT family without the eye-candy and hand-holding of XP. Someone coming from Win98 is going to find that a lot of what he knows just doesn’t apply anymore. My first (and hopefully last) job doing server administration had me managing Solaris, which I thought would be fairly straightforward since I’ve been running this or that BSD or Linux for years. It was an enlightening experience, to put it mildly. I would expect the same enlightenment to strike a Win98 user dropped in front of NT.
3. They are stable and maturing fast -belive it or not<i/>
I should hope so.
[i]While MS is carefully copying features from Unix, Unix pundits and purists are busy pretending that every IT person worth anything enjoys being a hardcore unix masochist.
Maybe, but don’t you think it’s a bit interesting that MS is copying features from UNIX? The decision to finally add a really usable command-line environment to Windows, for example, seems like a move intended to satisfy the UNIX masochists (after all, Windows masochists wouldn’t expect such a thing). If Microsoft feels that the only way to beat UNIX in the market is to turn Windows into a better UNIX, then it seems to be the masochists who are really coming out ahead, eh?
Its time to build easy-to-use Unix Servers.
Ease-of-use is a function of what you know. FreeBSD is easy for me to use because I’ve been using for a long time, and I’ve been constantly interested in learning more about it. I don’t use Windows all that much, and have never been terribly interested in it, so it’s more difficult for me when I’m forced to deal with it.
In other words, what we need to do is to build easy-to-find UNIX administrators.
You certainly don’t want MS to rule the server end like its rulling the desktop.
If they really build a system that’s better than UNIX, then hell yes I want them to rule! I want a good system, and I don’t much care who makes it.
I managed to write all of that without misspelling anything, so I should have known something was terribly wrong somewhere else 😉
Well now… what are our BSD-loving unix purists going to say to this?
Solaris is a tool, and it works very well for my purposes. Do I care if everyone uses the same brand of tool as me? No. Do I care if a different brand of tool is more popular? No. I feel I am using the right tool for the right job, and that’s all that really matters to me.
Re: –Dopey (dont be fooled)
—————————-
>> netcraft findings apache which runs on nearly
>> all *nixes and windows has 62.5 % share of the sites
I’m not sure what the figures are, but IIS is definitely grabbing market share from Apache. Speaking of which, do you know how many web developers are learning and using ASP? An average web designer/developer is more likely to learn ASP than Php, for instance, and while commercial ASP solutions on Unix do exist, Windows is the natural platform for ASPs. So, every developer developing with ASP is a customer that will most likely host on a windows server. That’s another thing unix pundits should be worrying about. And no, administering apache is NOT automatically easier than administering IIS. You can easily script/automate everything in IIS, same as in Unix. Plus, IIS has a great GUI tool that definitely beats Comanche.
Re: g.de.vries
—————
>> It’s not true, I can maintain twice as much as
>> unix/linux machines as my fellow windows admins.
Unless you’ve missed out on developments, scripting and automation on windows servers theseday isn’t bad either. It still isn’t as advanced as what we have on unix, but it is getting better every day. As in other things, Unix will NOT maintain the scripting advantage for long. And having a GUI server that you can also automate from scripts is much better than one that primarily functions from a shell prompt.
>> And if i install a patch I don’t have to worry
>> IF the patch works and not crashing
>> the machine on next boot
That’s not really true. For example, if you apply all those patches from Redhat without digging further first, you will quickily find yourself with broken systems and services. Been there many times. Same for BSDi.
>>And people who really want to be 24/7/365
>> on mission critical don’t gonna use win2003.
I don’t know about Win2003, I’ve never used that. But I administer a couple of Win2k boxes, for web and SQL hosting, and they don’t keep me up at night. Believe it or not, they are very stable and hardly ever go down. Am the only one with this experience?
Re: BSD rocks ..
—————–
>> lack of like crontab (in the M$’s white paper)
What do you mean, lack of crontab? The windows scheduler may not be as sophisticated as the unix variant, but it works just fine for most purposes. Plus, its more much more friendly and intuitive, at least to newbies.
Re: Matthew Gardiner
———————
>> those that promote Windows are merly those
>> whose limited experience with computers
>> borderlines on changing USB devices.
Well, that would include Dell Computers for one. Wake up, son, Windows is seeking to rule on the high end, and is already a formidable force for mid-sized companies.
Doesn’t this say more about Windows and Windows users than it does about Solaris? The point is, Solaris 8(–) is doing a fine job at being a web server so there is no need to change it.
Windows is either not doing the job people want very well so people are desperately upgrading to a beta release (which they should be shot for doing) or don’t have a clue what they are doing and are just slapping on the latest thing every five minutes.
Whatever way you look at it it’s more a sign of bad admins or bad Windows than anything else.
It’s a culture thing, *nix admins get things working then leave them, then forget they even exist for 10 years until there’s a hardware failure. Windows admins can only get things working well by continuously upgrading.
> I’m not sure what the figures are, but IIS is definitely grabbing market share from Apache
Go to http://www.netcraft.co.uk. Look at the blue line going up, that’s Apache, look at the red line going down – that’s IIS.
PHP far outweighs ASP development as well. Most newbie developers are PHP developers because most ISPs are supplying PHP and MySQL as part and parcel of their package, from corporate hosting to freeserve accounts. Even in the corporate world there are far more PHP than ASP sites. Get real and stop dreaming.
The other thing, a sister company used a supplier who specialises in high security hosting for governements, banks and other such orgs. Basically they are terrorist/nuclear/bomb proof and for some really strange reason I cannot explain will _not_ let anyone run Windows boxes unless they are on a seperate network and sign a disclaimer saying the ISP is _not_ responsible for whatever happens for the box. The *nix boxes they absolutely guarantee.
This is the real state of things – not the one imagined in your a BillG’s heads.
Stop wittering on about which operating system is best and look at the information conatained in the original artcle.
I am not the sysadmin of a webserver, but I am a scientist trained to understand what a set of numbers means.
The quoted netcraft data does not tell you if windows based webservers are increasing increasing their share relative to Unix based systems or to proprietary UNIX, nor even compared to Solaris. All it tells us is that there are now more win 2003 webservers than Solaris 9.
Most probably this just represents a faily rapid deployment win2003 as upgrades for NT4 and win2000. This is born out by the fact that the dominance of Apache over IIS remains steady with no significant change in site use percentage.
No one is changing their BSD, Linux, Solaris, AIX or HPUX boxes to win2003 (No one is that stupid)
Could not have said that any better,
Thats the facts windows as a server has been proven time and time and time and time and time. … again that it just just crap at security. It leaves so many ports open. It does so much stupid crap why tf do u need a gui on a web server ? understand that there is no need for a gui. Its not just about the extra disk space it eats up but the memory and so on.
Here we have asp.. weigh that against java servlets, jsp and php (hey look osnews even runs php) also not to forget fact that u can run asp on linux with apache aswell.
http://www.toxik.com/en/presentation/linuxexpo2000/
check that url out.
Microsft cant be seen to indorse any open source software, whereas sun can only gain by doing so.
my brother admins both windows 2k servers and linux debian and sun boxes he is senior sys ad for an isp here in uk. Ask him ask any of them working there which is better which does the job. They have thousands of customers spread across their servers. Where once they were buying shit loads of suns the cost is just too high instead now they buy shitloads of intel xeon dual and quad from dell with rh on em. Wipe it out and stick on debian. One of these quads come in at about 4 000 pounds whereas a sun comes in at 40 000 pounds. As for windows thats a joke they are even running front page extensions from debian using apache ( one of the only ports of any microsoft software onto linux wonder why they had to port fp extensions to linux (apache) is it because front page would fail miserably and no isp would offer it support ?) Even saying that its shite. Its closed off there is a few bugs which they cant do nothing about, and microsoft bug fixing release cycle is slow. INtention youve offered your customers fp extenisions unfortunately it doesnt work well on nix so buy some of our server products so that it will work properly and your customers will be happy ( theirs certain functionality of fp extensions that just doesnt work in linux). In effect forcing Isps to keep a few windows servers lying around for the odd customer that needs that particular functionality of fp extensions ( my personal opinion fp is utter shite any person that develops sites on fp needs their head examined)
As for automation. Yeah automating gui things is just stupid command line programs that can take parameters are far superior take this for example in linux you could automate with cron that every day at 8:30 am for it to use mpg321 and play an mp3 track for your alarm clock or set up a script that checks your system every 20 minutes see if a particular service is running or dead and using smssend to send u a txt message or using gnokii or whatever. Ultimately command line gives u flexibility. Using a command line isnt masochitic its sensible. using a gui on a server environment where its not needed is masochistic. also can u imagine having to reboot your machine every now and then instead of just being able to stop/start a service man o man. In server invironments thats just plain stupid. And unfortunately anything that updates dll’s or installs new dlls requires a windows reboot.
in the heat of promoting their loved OS everyone seems to forget the main issue of this article: The MS/win2003 increasing position in the market, regardless of it’s quality.
Nathan,
If you like ClarkConnect you should take a look at E-smith (www.e-smith.org). It is very similar and is the most secure Linux distrobution I have used.
E-smith is more of an office type server than a web server but it has both Samba (Windows) & Netatalk (Macintosh) sharing built into it by default as well as a powerful web based control panel.
It doesn’t do everything, but it sure is a good start and has a large base of community support. The only part that I don’t like it that it doesn’t support apt-get out of the box like ClarkConnect does…
The article states that Solaris 9 has been overtaken by Windows 2003. It then goes on to say that Sun is not pushing Solaris 9 over Solaris 8.
Solaris, in common with most other *nices, is stable. Once people have it setup and configured, it’ll run forever. There’s no need to upgrade. Windows, on the other hand, is designed/marketed to force an upgrade cycle.
These new versions of Windows are replacing whatever version of windows was there before.
To claim that a new version of Winblows is somehow better than a new version of Solaris simply because Windows users are upgrading is just plain wrong. In fact, what this says to me is that older versions of Windows are so bad that the users need to upgrade OR they’re stuck in the never ending upgrade cycle.
Simple.
“Nope, it’s not BS. Today, I just created ten accounts on WinXP Pro and they are in the Admin group by default. I had to edit them to the limited and two super users.”
While the Control Panel interface checks off the Admin radio button by default, you can switch it immediately to Limited before creating the user account. If you use the MMC to create an account, WindowsXP places the new accounts in the user group. You have to manually adjust their user groups after the account is created.
Now the real question is who really gives a shit? Windows is a fine OS believe it or not. Why people feel the need to evangalize thier OS 24/7 is beyond me. As a graphic designer I find Windows works quite well and I can run 3DSMAX and a whole suite of Sonic Foundry audio apps alongside my Adobe apps. My system has never crashed on and I leave it running 24/7 since I typically render large projects at night and my website is running on IIS on this system. It’s not the system that sucks, it’s the admin.
Ez,
If Solaris was so wonderful and upgrades weren’t such a big deal why then is Solaris at version 9.0? Their OS version upgrade releases have been steadily increasing in frequency. Solaris 8.0 was barely out the door before people started to get wind of version 9.0.
The fact is no one forces Windows users to upgrade. New features attract new clients and entice old clients to consider their usefulness in an already established work environment. I’m sick and tired of hearing the FUD about forced upgrades. There are still a lot of Windows NT 3/4 servers out there running strong. There are going to be people running Windows 2000 servers for just as long if not longer. If Windows 2003 happens to suit your needs for your next server or improves functionality over your older server why shouldn’t you upgrade?
>> The fact is no one forces Windows users to upgrade… I’m sick and tired of hearing the FUD about forced upgrades.
Sorry that’s just not true. Tried running .NET on NT4 – you can’t. If you want to upgrade just IIS from 4 to 5 then you have to upgrade Windows from NT4 to 2000. Need a vital feature of ASP 4? Sorry only comes with 2000 – need to upgrade. Need to get better .NET connectivity with IIS 6? Then you HAVE TO upgrade to 2003. Need a secure system – well M$ have released a press statement saying the only option you’ve got is to dump NT4 and get something newer.
Forced upgrades FUD? Tried running Apache 2 on Redhat 5? No problem. Upgrade to PHP 4 on an old FreeBSD? Who’s stopping you? A very rare security hole on an old version of Linux? Someone’s patched it.
Want to know why people aren’t upgrading to Solaris 9 but have to upgrade to Win 2003? You’re answers in the question – because they are forced to.
I don’t think linux/unix server should be ‘easier’ to administor (for starters, I think they ARE easier)… To say which is ‘easier’ you’d have to define ‘easy’
Which is tough to do… if you define easy as “Admin knowing nothing and being able to pick up a server and have it running”, then yes, windows is MUCH easier than linux.
However if you define easy as “Administrator being able to make changes, reconfigure, etc”, then I think Linux/Unix is easier.
Competent unix admins can make configuration changes, check up logs, etc faster and more efficiently in unix than in Windows.
ANd I don’t know about you, but I don’t want someone administering my server that just ‘picked it up’ because it looks so similar to Windows XP Home.
I do think that most management will perfer Windows because anyone can just ‘administor’ it, but in the grant scheme of servers, I’d say Linux/Unix is a safer bet.
I don’t get it.
The article says there are more win2003 webservers than solaris 9 webservers. Ok. It doesn’t say the numbers of Solaris servers are going down. So people are upgrading to a product that isn’t *really* out yet… Woohoo?
The other thing that bothers me is that people think *nix is hard… Why has it become a bad thing to have to learn something new? Sure there is a learning curve, but it is only as steep as you make it out to be.
I found that it was quite easy to figure out my way around the command line, and that there was a logical and usually rather elagent way to do things. Sure editting config files isn’t loads of fun, but it usually only has to be done once.
As for a Gui on a webserver, it is a bad thing. The simple and undeniable fact is that anything unnecissary is an unnecissary vulnerability. If that vulnerability has its hooks in the kernel (which the winGUI does) that is dangerous. If you can’t turn it off it is a bad thing. Any programmer or sysadmin worth their salt should understand this.
What does that mean *really*? That windows has vulnerabilites… anyone surprised? So does Linux, *nix, Beos, AmigaOS, etc… But the ability to completely customize a system is the key to being able to make a solid system, if you can’t cut cruft you will be burried by it.
Ok, I feel better now
Hi, I think we should calm down a little bit.
However they are only tools, so we are as sysadmins should learn so many tools to make sure we are using the best tool in every need.
I like linux (slackware) and when my CD come, I will install and learn FreeBSD. I want to know the strengths and weaknesses of BSDs.
And I want to learn WinXXX servers too, although when I try to manage some Win2K servers at my company they aren’t as easy as my linux server. Because may be because I am so acustomed to linux.
So yes, please explain to me kindly why I have to use windows as my web server or database server, how about long term managebility, security and quality of server apps. Easyness is not too important for us, I think, because unless they are too difficult to be used, they are not problems (as long as we produce the best result for our work we tolerate some difficulties, text based config … ah piece of cake as long as our server runs well, I hope you all understand what I mean).
And sorry for my poor english, if something wrong please tell me how to correct it. Thanks.
Some people here are confusing ‘initial learning curve’ with ‘hard’.
*nix based servers have a tougher initial learning curve than Windows based ones. However, after the system has been set up, unix servers are much easier to maintain–especially when there is a fleet of them.
Crontabs, SSH, bash/perl scripts are all invaluable and can dramatically cut down the maintenance time for a *nix server.
Windows simply doesn’t have that level of automation yet.
Now the real question is who really gives a shit? Windows is a fine OS believe it or not. Why people feel the need to evangalize thier OS 24/7 is beyond me. As a graphic designer I find Windows works quite well and I can run 3DSMAX and a whole suite of Sonic Foundry audio apps alongside my Adobe apps. <u>My system has never crashed on</u> and I leave it running 24/7 since I typically render large projects at night and my website is running on IIS on this system. It’s not the system that sucks, it’s the admin.
Despite whichever OS has more merits, someone is lying here if any OS never crashed on running 24/7. Sysadmins are human beings who could have flaws in misconfiguration of system setting, on whichever OS they used. I will never believe an OS never crashed – either by human mistakes in configuration or faulty patch/package upgrade, or some really badly application consuming too much resource and dragging the system down. If it actually did never crash, it is purely entirely circumstantial case. I have never heard any OS can never crash at all, if it ever has something like that in existence, perhaps the computing industry was mistaken not to talk about it in CS science or magazines vocally.
No information about what machines they’re running on – I bet that many of those boxes running Solaris are quad-CPU systems with huge amounts of cache and SCSI I/O. Comparing a system like that to a $1-3k PC is pretty much pointless – you might as well try to intuit something meaningful from the fact that there are more mini-vans on the roads than 18 wheelers.
There are some much more interesting and relevant points in that Netcraft article linked to from the theage.com article.
http://news.netcraft.com/
For instance, there’s the bit about how Sun isn’t “eating their own dogfood” (sun.com apparently still running Solaris 8), or the blurb on how quickly JSP acceptance is growing.
Some of your comment might be true. However I’ve seen/use for myself a QNX system that control the highway traffic information system that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and the communication server have been running since more than the last two years. The user console did crash the the GUI but not the overall system. By right the GUI can be restarted without reboot but since I’m not always available, my subordinate just hot reboot it.
I also got a Redhat 7.3 PC cum server that serve as web and database server that manage the webbase data management system that my subordinate will enter data at any time, 24 hours a day (the got 3 shift). I only have to reboot when I’ve to use Win98 partition to shared some data that only available in Windows environment since my company still in the policy of using Windows (except me). By right if that PC is a dedicated server, I don’t see any possibility of it to crash.
Maybe there are others that have tried their system under heavy load without crashing. Thats why there are always somebody writing about 24/7/386
>>
Their OS version upgrade releases have been steadily increasing in frequency. Solaris 8.0 was barely out the door before people started to get wind of version 9.0.
<<
Indeed – and how many people have felt the need to take up version 9?
>>
The fact is no one forces Windows users to upgrade. New
features attract new clients and entice old clients to consider their usefulness in an already established work environment.
<<
Presicely. In order to get these “new features”, Windows users *must* upgrade. That’s how Microsoft works. See post by Peter Moss above – he explains it far better than I have the inclination to.
My point about Solaris 9 in the light of the article was that the take up of Winserver 2003 may be greater than that of Solaris 9 but that’s simply because users of Solaris 8 don’t need to upgrade in the same numbers as users of older versions of Windows – a point which you’ve tried and failed to refute.
Ez, Pete Moss (ha ha, peat moss…er…nevermind)
You’d have to upgrade to Solaris 9 if you want the new set of features it offers. Yes, some things like IIS 6.0 require Windows 2003 but if your web server is running just fine why would you be forced to upgrade? You still haven’t refuted my general argument that upgrades are not forced on Windows users. If you want new features of ANY software you have to upgrade, duh. If you want the new features of Solaris 9, does Sun offer the features as a stand alone package that can be used on Solaris 8?
BEST ANSER SO FAR!
i complete understand your point and i am sharing your view! i have myself a set of servers and i migrated all of them, exept one server wich is still runing winnt4 to linux. and i run all the stuff i need and i am not making a marketing or a advertisement because of that. they work and work and work and i don’t need anything else. and if i would try to do the same with windows, then i would spend to much $$$ for that!
i personaly find it easy to administer *nix boxes then windows. but that is my personal view.
just 2 weeks ago, one of my customers had a crash on a winnt4 enterprise server. after he reboted the server, the dam ms cluster manager did not fire up correctly. and after some hours the cluster mate went down as well. and guess what? the cluster manager did not work as well. and guess what? –> serval hours the server was down and all customers of that national insurance could not get to the web-page! gee! and now please any windows administrators…. tell me what the problem was/is with the cluster manager and how to fix it? tell me! i am 100% sure you could not find the solution! and i can tell you that the network for the hartbeat worked inbetween those 2 servers and everything was set up correctly (nothing was changed on that server and on the cluster manager!).
anyway… i can tell you that administering windows is easy as long everything goes well. you put the cd and install all the stuff you need. but when things go down and do not work the way they are expected to work. then i wish you luck! no way you can find the secret switch in that black-box-software called windows! no way! you can be mcse or whatever… it does not help. and go to google or microsoft and serch for a solution. you will read so much time things like this:
– reboot the computer and try again
– reinstall the software/service
– do that hidden and not documented registry hack or whatever
– reinstall windows
what kind of solutions are this? this is a joke!
i am happy i have the knowledge and the power to use whatever system i like (i prefere *nix wherever i can).
and i am happy that i do not have the time and the money to play around with windows on the server. this is just not my world and i have better things to do then playing around an guessing solutions when i have problems. i want quick solutions wich work and i do not care how nice the dam gui looks and how nice the animations are playing when i copy files or whatever. i need a system i can relay on and it must do what i want. and i don’t want to be forced to do what the os wants me to do (i buyed that dam thing! it has to serve for me and not i have to serve it! he is my slave and not i his!).
anyway.. happy stupid flaming to all of you. when will you realize that it is a waste of time to try to convert others to windows or *nix and vice versa!
use what you know and be happy with it. no matter how bad or good it is. if you know it better then the other systems then use and be happy with it!
We don’t get any cncrete inormation here. We know that the increase of Win2003 servers is certainly not on the expenses of Solaris 9 upgrades – because you can’t install Win2003 on a Sparc-based computer.
We also know very well, that the average Solaris webserver has 4-8 CPUs, while the average x86 webserver has 1 CPU.
What we definitely DON’T know are the actual figures and the trend in the last 2 years.
Funniest thing I have read in a long time. I still have tears in my eyes. I know where the Iraqi Ministry of Information is working now.
I wonder if MS will go after these “pirates” already running W2003.
W
First of all, most solaris admins are good so they arent going to rush putting a new version of an os. I dont think Ill upgrade my sql server boxes till next year, unlike the lan fan boys. second, solaris tends to be in on more bigger boxes for bigger systems. not frickin ma and pop lan shit. This is not news.
Wasabi: Microsoft has been distributing 180 trial versions of the final version since it went RTM, then after that it’s a very simple process to upgrade to a full version.
“You’d have to upgrade to Solaris 9 if you want the new set of features it offers. Yes, some things like IIS 6.0 require Windows 2003 but if your web server is running just fine why would you be forced to upgrade? You still haven’t refuted my general argument that upgrades are not forced on Windows users.”
But they are, if you want security features or to run new MS applications such as Office XP you need to updgrade your OS. Sure, sometimes, though it normally has a really valid reason, on *nix you have to updgrade to a newer version, but it is very, very rare but most of the time you can get away with just updgrading the Kernel and leaving the rest of your machine intact.
Even then, most of the time you can compile from source. I can use the new feature set of Apache 2 on most *nixes no matter how old they are – hell I can even use Apache 2 on Win 95 if I really wanted – can you say the same about MS products? No.
Take an example of MS flagship products and their competitors and look at their requirements and tell me there is no forced updgrade cycle:
Java 1.4:
# Microsoft Windows 95, 98 (1st or 2nd edition), NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5, ME, XP Home, XP Professional, 2000 Professional, 2000 Server, or 2000 Advanced Server operating systems.
# Pentium 166MHz or faster processor
# At least 32 megabytes of physical RAM
# 70 megabytes of free disk space.
.NET
# Microsoft Windows® Server 2003 family
# Windows 2000, with the latest Windows service pack and critical updates available from the Microsoft Security Web site
# Windows XP (Windows XP Professional is required to run ASP.NET)
128 MB of RAM, 256 MB recommended
660 MB of hard disk space required, 190 MB additional hard disk space required for installation (850 MB total)
Apache 2:
* Windows NT: This means all versions of Windows that are based on the Windows NT kernel. Includes Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows .Net Server 2003.
* Windows 9x: This means older, consumer-oriented versions of Windows. Includes Windows 95 (also OSR2), Windows 98 and Windows ME.
IIS 6:
* Windows .NET Server Family
When a machine is running Win 2003 there are 3 options
– it’s running a trial version
– it’s running a ‘warez’ version
– it’s running a beta version
Something tells me that all these machines are either test machines or 1337 warez kiddies playing around, and NOT production servers – while the Solaris machines probably are.
So why is this news?
The article on Netcraft was about “eating your own dogfood”. Microsoft has been running Windows 2003 on numerous system for about a year now, including Microsoft.com and parts of Windowsmedia.com and MSNBC.com.
Once again, Pete has beat me to it (There’s some poetry in that statement, somewhere!)
If I want to upgrade the webserver on Solaris 8, I upgrade Apache – I don’t have to upgrade the operating system. Not true of IIS6 on Windows.
Nuff said.
You two morons keep trying to compare apples to oranges. What’s next, shoving the square peg into the round hole? Poetry my ass.
Look, it’s really quite simple. If I wanted to use Apache on Windows NT I could keep doing so. I could even use the latest version of Apache on Windows NT. There is nothing Microsoft could do to get me to upgrade as long as Apache supported NT. If one wants to benefit from the new features IIS 6.0 offers, yes they would have to upgrade to Windows 2003 but this in no way implies that Microsoft id forcing everyone to upgrade. Only those people who benefit and need the services IIS 6.0 offers. If people simply want to run a web server and nothing else, Microsoft is offering an inexpensive version of Windows 2003 whose sole purpose is to be a web server. But it’s still apples to oranges.
You two morons keep trying to compare apples to oranges. What’s next, shoving the square peg into the round hole? Poetry my ass.
Sorry, I thought we where comparing web servers with web servers. Is IIS a web server? Yes! Is Apache a web server? Yes!
The only difference is that to run a new version of IIS you are forced to upgrade – if your not being forced to upgrade you could run IIS6 on NT4, but you can’t.
With Apache you’re not forced to upgrade – you CAN run it on NT4, hence MS forces you to upgrade.
Oh I get it – Apache is the apple because it is fair and supplies what the consumer wants and needs without putting it’s pockets first, M$ is a rotten orange because it is money grabbing and greedy at the expence of the consumer.