“Windows Server 2008, which was released earlier this month, was officially launched today. Windows Server 2008 brings many eagerly anticipated admin-pleasing features such as a stripped-down mode called “Server Core” that does away with many unnecessary features that are normally installed, and a new virtualization platform – ‘Hyper-V’ – that should increase Microsoft’s foothold in this increasingly important market sector. Windows Server 2008 wasn’t the only product to be launched today either; Visual Studio 2008 also saw its official launch, even though it has been finished and available since November, and some fanfare was made about SQL Server 2008, though that won’t be finished until later in the year.”
Vendor lock-in or the need to run MS Exchange, ASP.NET and other such MS-only things is not the only reason why Windows has become a popular server platform.
Linux, BSD and Unix might often be more reliable, secure and faster as server operating systems, but they could still learn from Microsoft’s (or from Apple’s) server usability features and focus. I think the gap in usability between *nix and MS Windows may actually be bigger in server than desktop software nowadays. In *nix and MS Windows desktop environments there’s not much difference in general usability anymore.
Microsoft and Apple servers tend to be more newbie-friendly, and often have handy features like GUI tools also to ease the tasks of experienced administrators. But maybe typical Unix admins and other real men could only despise the idea of some easy to use GUI server tools…?
It’s not necessarily clear to me that the *nix OSes you mention are more reliable or faster. I won’t argue about the speed since I haven’t seen any head-to-head comparisons on that front, but on server-class hardware with server-class drivers the reliability should be pretty good. There’s a large set of stress tests that must be passed for shipping components in Windows and all of the server-side stuff is heavily dogfooded at large scale by Microsoft itself. Windows Server is actually extremely solid when administered as carefully as you’d administer your *nix server.
For internet hosting servers we have the Netcraft figures for Ranking by Failed Requests and Connection time:
http://news.netcraft.com/
In the top ten the most reliable host was using FreeBSD followed by a Linux based host at number two. Of the top 10, Five were using Linux, four were using FreeBSD and one tailing at number nine was using Windows Server 2003.
This I think is an indication of the relative reliability of *nix based server systems compared to Windows.
This simply proves that you ignore other factors such as who is operating the servers, and why the choice of OS was made. You can not compare the reliability of a server OS based upon other companies maintenance, or lack there of. This is about as reliable of an assessment as my own conclusions based upon client’s servers, some of whom pay for preventive maintenance, some do not. I could therefore draw a conclusion that maybe Win2k is better than Win2003…which it is not.
If Windows is so easy to configure and maintain, and FreeBSD and Linux are so hard (which is one of the points vaguely made in these comments today), why is it that Windows only has one position in Netcraft’s top-ten list?
You do have a point, to be sure, but it is highly irrelevant in regards to Netcraft’s results, unless you’re saying Windows CAN be as good as Linux and FreeBSD, but isn’t because Windows admins choose to be lazy admins.
I disagree with your comment because there is quite a bit of data that suggests Unix-based operating systems are more reliable and faster than Microsoft’s offerings. As someone else has already mentioned, Netcraft’s results are quite telling.
Microsoft hardware certifications don’t mean much, as is evident by their “Of course this dumpy laptop will run Vista” stickers.
Dogfooding your software, while good for finding bugs and increasing stability, does nothing in the way of ensuring your software runs as well as your competitors’ software does.
Edited 2008-02-28 21:11 UTC
I^A'm not sure about that. Ease of use can also be subjective to some degreee. Yes, Win servers are easier for ‘anyone’ to come in and install it, tinker with it and even get it running just by reading the friendly wizards.
But sooner or later some serious administration is going to be needed and then the ‘friendly’ wizards become incomplete or cryptic or vanish from screen… and if you have to end up messing with the registry and using obscure undocumented tools… well, you might as well be hand editing your *nix conf files, it will be easier and you will be confident that it won^A't kiss your install goodbye if you make some mistake.
I think there is a point were ease of use actually flips sides, at least for some people it does.
Edited 2008-02-28 00:55 UTC
I completely agree. I like OS X a lot, and I’m sure Windows has its uses too, but I really don’t care for either one of them on the server. I find that GUIs and wizards get in my way. To me, Linux and FreeBSD are both much easier to configure for server tasks than either OS X or Windows.
That’s ok, keep the fancy user interface and pointy clicky admins. I know too many Windows admins who don’t know fully what they are doing – often just opting for ‘what works’ without an ounze of understanding and constantly battling the problems that arise because of this. On the other hand I know very few (if any) *nix admins who don’t understand their tools because, well, they can’t just click and hope, and their open source nature means the stuff is much more community orientated.
Of course there are plenty of capable Windows admins, but they are a minority. You could argue it comes with the territory of being the dominant industry force – more less-skilled people trying to get jobs whereas skilled people are more choosy – but I think it has something to do with the closed and opaque nature of the product.
Poor admin competence has nothing to do with the quality of the platform. It’s a hazard, no matter which platform they’re running.
Why would it have anything to do with the closed nature of the product? Admins don’t typically read source code, so open or closed source is pretty irrelivent for them.
I think it has more to do with the user friendly gui tools all over the place. A trained monkey can admin a windows network, albeit poorly. It takes a basic level of skill to accomplish the same thing in the UNIX world.
IT is a really tough job that takes experience, skill, and knowledge to do properly, no matter what the platform.
Amen. If only more people would understand this.
You must be kidding. There are admins which have to resort to hacking binaries in order to fix bugs which the vendor has promised to fix, but failed to deliver.
Having access to source code is one of the most potent weapon an admin has against hard to troubleshoot problems, or for performance optimization. Sometimes, changing the code doesn’t even factor in the equation, as it is also used to understand how the implementation differs to the documentation when it produces unexpected behaviour.
Most Admins work in shops with support agreements. Those support agreements become useless if you are hacking binaries and the like to work around around problems. I haven’t known too many admins who go about their job hacking things like that. Hacking up scripts, sure. Hacking up executables, not so much
Even if it invalidates support agreements, it doesn’t mean admins don’t do it. It’s a trade-off, are you willing to endure the risk of a security vulnerability for 2 more days to comply with the terms of the support agreement, when the software vendor probably has no way of knowing what you did either way?
There is something seriously wrong if an admin has to be looking at source code, let alone changing it.
You are right in that it is not completely irrelivent, it is just mostly irrelivent. The only way an admin would be looking at source code is if the software failed horribly, there was no alternatives, and all other support channels failed.
Admins have to deal with operational issues on complex systems. Systems which sometimes end up in states which are not completely documented by engineers. This may be due to shoddy engineering, bad design, or poor implementation. It’s not supposed to happen but it does.
So what do you do when your database replication system fails and your support vendor for the replication blames the database vendor and vice versa? Meanwhile the executives are complaining to the service manager that the reporting is fubared and the analysts doing data entry are sitting idle wasting time and money?
Do you wait 6 hours for your gold level support agreement to escalate through the hierarchy to 3rd line support and while you’re doing it go outside to the common area to have a chat, or do you raise the support request, and the try to find out the issue with what you already know about the replications software because you’ve troubleshooted it before with the aid of the source code?
If you are the former, then you are nothing more than a computer operator. An admin has real responsibility and support contracts are only tools to help admins meet that. It all boils down to whether you blinding follow the procedure, or whether you use actual initiative in your work.
What you are talking about is not exactly an every day occurance though, is it? The origional poster said that there were more bad windows admins then there are bad linux admins due to the open nature of linux. I said that it is more likely that there are more bad windows admins out there due to how you could get a trained monkey to perform most common tasks, while on the linux side you need a basic level of skill. I also said source code is only really relevent when everything else has failed, and then only to a good admin anyways.
I admit, I am a developer, and my knowledge of the field comes through times where I have worked closely with IT guys, or friends in the field. This is based on the impressions I have got from those experiences, but I am by no means an expert, and from the sound of things you know what you are talking about more then me. So feel free to correct me if I am wrong about something here, I just get the impression you are jumping into the conversation mid way
I think it’s because Windows comes with tools that enables any schmuck to make a half-assed job while on, say Linux, the entrance level is higher.
I’m currently dealing with someone who thinks he can switch an outdated environment to AD and set up several 2k3 clusters simply because he’s got the MS certification books.
Sometimes the click and play nature of MS servers gives a false impression of ease. Then when you try to do something fairly advanced, you enter a whole new territory and you can’t click your way out of it anymore.
Even MS understood that, which is why they came up with that powershell thing and lets you mess with WMI from shell/script commands.
And frankly, I prefer to dig through a well commented .conf file on linux to change an advanced option I don’t have a GUI for than to try to figure it out in the registry.
People say Window has been a good server for awhile now and I’m sure they are right.
But I’ll always choose Linux or BSD for any of my personal server needs simply because it can be free without commercial support (free community support is good enough for me), whereas the cheapest, “fully functional” Window Server is $999?
It really depends on where you are coming from. If you are talking about business, up front cost is only one of the things that go into the descision making process, and most of the time it is not even the most important.
If you are talking about home use, that is a completely different matter.
Personal use would refer to “home” in my case.
Microsoft already have a product for the personal server market and I doubt they expect huge take up.
If you think this has anything to do with the home server market in any shape or form shows your limited knowledge.
Telling us you wouldn’t use a $999 product for your home server is about as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm. Well done though.
Edited 2008-02-29 09:35 UTC
Many of us don’t like Vista. Too slow, too bloated, and so on… But Win2008 would make a fast, reliable desktop!
http://blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/archive/2008/02/11/using-windows-serv…
http://blogs.systweak.com/2008/02/12/windows-server-2008-desktop-ev…
Only disadvantage: I could not find directx 10 support for win2008.
I think I will try it out.
Edited 2008-02-28 09:38 UTC
If you manage to sign up for the 2k8 launch wave, you can get a free copy as part of the swag
I’ve had the chance to try it out and I must admit it is just as responsive if not more so than Windows XP on the same system. I was really surprised after my experience with Vista and how dog slow it ran. The only thing I did not like was the new Windows Explorer. Like Vista it does not like to remember settings, and refuses to remain in double click mode for some reason. I don’t like how it underlines every folder you point at, and overall it just seems unfinished and sluggish. A third party file manager is one cure for that. There is also a problem with getting programs to install on it, many consumer apps and even some drivers will refuse to install on a server OS.
That being said, Vista SP1 is based on the exact same kernel, so it is probably possible to turn off a lot of junk in Vista and get it running just as lean as 2008, though I think I’ll stick with XP instead.
Oh, so we have to wait for SP2 from now on
Caused hardly a ripple.
I remmember the time when I used to go bersek over every new version of windows. Had to have the latest. Visual studio, MSDN, SQL Server etc.
Things have change since last few year.
Now I use Linux
and crave about ubuntu next version. Downloading a lot of Live CDs and testing them out is my primary hobby.
[trolling]
Why not just leave Linux out of Windows-related topics, even just for once? >_<
“Why not just leave Linux out of Windows-related topics, even just for once? >_<”
Because this is a major upgrade to anyone who has not been using the lastest version or two from Microsoft (reasons of costs or just that the present setup was working ok).
If one is going to do a major upgrade of one’s servers then it makes sense to compare it to what else is available, and why one should consider the non-MS options.
I attended the launch event in LA yesterday. Aside from seeing Steve Ballmer live (who unfortunately didn’t throw any chair) the high of my day was a chance to play with Hyper-V in one of the labs they had setup.
Pros:
– you can extensively script the host behavior using wmi.
– clustering is done the same way as the rest of the applications, gives a nice feeling of integration with the rest of the OS.
Cons:
– Performance feels pretty lousy. The workstation was a 4 core HP with 4GB, running 3 VMs (1 full 2k8 server, 2 2k8 server core) and it was far from flying. The VMs mouse cursor had a hard time keeping up and everything tended to drag. Might simply have been the disk access but I’ve had a better experience with Virtual Box on Suse x64 with a way crappier box. I also run an ESX cluster but it wouldn’t be fair to compare the performance there because the setup is way nicer.
– The management tool (using the new MMC 3.0) seems a little weak and doesn’t offer many options compared to VMWare. For example, the virtual switch only has 3 modes (if I remember correctly: guest only, through the host, bridged) so there seems to be no way to trunk and create portgroups with different VLANs etc… Of course I’m biased because I’ve been using vmware infrastructure for several months now so I know where everything’s at.
– apparently the live migration might not make it for the first release (which itself will not make it for the release of 2k8) which is quite a big drawback since that’s one of the most impressive features of vmware.
Conclusion: not as good as vmware infrastructure but will probably gain a decent chunk of market share simply because it’ll come bundled with 2k8 like they did with IE…
From what I was reading, Hyper-V is going to be released as an addon later this year. Hopefully they will be able to clear up some of the performance issues.
A question about the swag, what version of 2k8 do you take home? Usually it is a not-for resale pro edition. (our launch here is in april)
What we got was:
– Win 2k8 enterprise (both x86 and x64 DVDs with their license key) 1 year eval.
– Sql server 2008 CTP (x86 and x64 DVDs) with a coupon for a 1 year eval of the final one when released.
– Visual Studio 2k8 Standard full version ($250 on Amazon)
There was also an eval version of Expression and Vista with SP1 but I’m not sure of the duration.
Hi,
Has anyone tried the new Win2008 Terminal services. It’s supposed better in performance and support remote program which is a bit like Citrix
For users with lower tech requirements, there’s always software like nomachine and ThinServer XP which offer terminal services on a shoe string
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm