March 15, 2002 at 12:45 am
Our company has several HP 3000 backends acting as datastores and running critical applications. In a few years, HP will no longer support the HP 3000 or our OS. While my boss regards Win 2K and SQL as capable, he does not believe they are Enteprise-level-quality (too many reboots, support, "single server, single ap", etc.) Therefore he wouldn't consider replacing our aging HP's by a team of PC systems. (He would consider a mini IBM mainframe running UNIX). Do you know, articles appreciated, of any Enterprise-level systems that are based largely upon Windows? I think his attitude may be unwarranted, but I have no factual basis for my feelings.
TIA,
Bill
March 15, 2002 at 7:07 am
If you look at the Microsoft site, you'll find lots of propaganda about this. THere are tons of case studies at http://www.microsoft.com/sql . We have the same perception partially here. I found though that if you're rebooting the server constantly, it could be something as simple as configuration, RAM, or a poor application. For example, we have one server here that hasn't been rebooted in 2 months and another that's rebooted daily. The difference is the app for that one (they don't close connections explictly).
Brian Knight
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bknight
Brian Knight
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March 15, 2002 at 10:34 am
This is the same arguement I run into and it doesn't hold water. There are too many sites out there running that have very few issues on W2K and SQL. Are there more reboots than Unix? Yes, but that along isn't the answer. There are plenty of Java/Unix/Linux/Oracle, etc apps that experience crashes and cause pain. The single server/single app isn't true either. Where people often get into problems is with underpowered servers. The minimums specified by MS are, IMHO, completely ridiculous. A minimum should be an amount that is acceptable for the product to work, not to run.
Is a pc suitable in every case? No. There are still lots of places, espeically in large organizations, where a pc is not acceptable. However, this is not a general rule. There are also places where an HP mini won't work and big iron (mainframes) are still needed.
However, there are companies that run Windows in an enterprise environment:
BP:http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/casestudies/bp.asp - 60k users
Dell -
http://www.microsoft.com/servers/evaluation/casestudies/DellSQL.asp - Over $1 Billion online using Windows 2000 to drive the site.
Seimons - http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/casestudies/siemens.asp
Starbucks: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/casestudies/strbcks.asp
Nasdaq:http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/casestudies/nasdaq.asp
Leux-Nexus - http://www.microsoft.com/servers/evaluation/casestudies/lexnex.asp
These are biased, but they do show that lots of people and companies do choose windows for critical applications. Why? Often it is because of the development time. No matter how you slice it, development on Windows is often faster and cheaper than other platforms. This may be changing with Linux and as PostgreSQL and MySQL get stronger and more mature, but for now, SQL Server and Windows have been proven time and time again to be as sturdy as Oracle and *nix in 90-some % of the cases.
Steve Jones
March 15, 2002 at 10:43 am
I don't have any experience running a huge enterprise but from what I've seen SQL and Win2K is pretty stable, just booted one of my boxes after 180 days - because I could, not because I had to! I think Steve's argument about development is a valid point. I can understand not wanting to do a wholesale changeover, maybe get them to try it on the next project that comes along? Need to gain plenty of institutional experience before moving everything.
Andy
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