5 ms·

It is hard to run Windows Server in the style favored by serious devops shops- CI for infrastructure, totally automated bring up, etc. There are lots of compani

It is hard to run Windows Server in the style favored by serious devops shops- CI for infrastructure, totally automated bring up, etc. There are lots of companies that don't/won't run SQL Server because they don't think they can do that with windows, or don't want to try and port their tooling.

spydum 10y ago
Exactly this.. The about shops that have all their server tooling for Linux, and want this nice 3rd party tool but it requires SQL Server.. Either team grins and bears supporting a one off OS and application, or they find another solution and MSFT loses a license.
dogma1138 10y ago
It's really not, it's that most devops engineers don't want to learn or even bother and most windows sysadmins simply don't know how. Windows automation kinda died when system admins stopped needing to know how to work with JET DB when needing to do one serious ad work. I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. Licensing is the only thing really that makes windows machines a pain to work with unless you are big enough for a sell reporting volume licensing scheme.
- inferiorhuman 10y ago
  My experience at a largely Windows based Fortune 1000 company was that Windows is that hard. I dealt with 12-ish factor apps on Linux exclusively, but the teams dealing with legacy stuff on Windows really struggled. If you're very careful with the tooling you may get lucky, but I watched as things like Chef, Sensu, and Collectd all took significantly more effort on the Windows platforms.
  - larrywright 10y ago
    More recent versions of Windows Server have definitely improved, but this is still pretty accurate. When given a set of tasks to do for Windows and Linux, the latter is always easier. If it takes x amount of time to automate something on Linux, it's 5x on Windows. Every time. Some of this is due to MS themselves, some of it is due to the software vendors, but it's a very real thing.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Can you give an example? In virtually every case I've seen it's people don't knowing powershell, winapi or not having the right tools for the job.
      - inferiorhuman 10y ago
        I wasn't the Windows guy so my memory is a bit hazy, but I remember trying to get Chef properly daemonized on Windows was a nightmare. Likewise trying to get collectd installed via Chef was great if you had a fully supported version of Windows. IIRC the collectd MSI only worked on some versions of windows (and 32-bit support was a whole other matter). In an ideal world you wouldn't have to deal with 32-bit versions of Windows, or EOL'd 64-bit versions. The real world with lots of legacy stuff doesn't work that way. Meanwhile EOL'd versions of Linux chugged away just fine. Iteration on the Windows instances was also quite a bit slower than with the Linux ones. Applying all the requisite compliance stuff resulted in a number of additional reboot cycles. I could get a Linux instance bootstrapped in half the time, without having to bake a custom image.
        dogma1138 10y ago
        Chef is the wrong tool for the job use sccm even if you still want to use chef as a front end have the sccm agents installed and use it. This is a tooling issue, dont expect to use a tool that was hacked together for all intents a purposes rather than a native solution and get good results.
        10y ago
- geocar 10y ago
  > > It is hard to run Windows Server… > It's really not, it's that most devops engineers don't want to learn or even bother and most windows sysadmins simply don't know how. From a hiring/project/management perspective, this is my definition of "hard". From a sysadmin perspective, a huge problem is the amount of knowledge needed to be an effective windows sysadmin absolutely dwarfs -- by several orders of magnitude -- the amount of knowledge needed to be effective on Linux. How many sysadmins have you heard suggest, with all credulity that the solution is downtime and a reinstall on Windows? on Linux? Once a sysadmin knows how to move files around, run strace and grep, there is very little hidden from them on Linux, while on Windows they still don't even know how to take a backup, which is helped less by Microsoft refusing to publish any documentation that makes them look stupid -- like it being impossible to take an on-line backup of a server running Microsoft Exchange 2007 prior to SP2. > I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I hope that UNIX sysadmins want to learn, and bother to learn well the Windows environment better: UNIX sysadmins already know how a system is supposed to work, and it is by large the sheer number of inexperienced Windows sysadmins that make Windows look stupid. UNIX sysadmins have a better chance of running Windows well simply because they won't put up with "have you tried reinstalling everything"? There's also some really good ideas in the Windows ecosystem that Linux (and even OSX) could really benefit from. > Licensing is the only thing really that makes windows machines a pain to work with unless you are big enough for a sell reporting volume licensing scheme. An aside: I'm not so sure this is true anymore, at least not with Azure for infrastructure, and Open programs for desktops/laptops.
  - sjellis 10y ago
    "> I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I hope that UNIX sysadmins want to learn, and bother to learn well the Windows environment better: UNIX sysadmins already know how a system is supposed to work, and it is by large the sheer number of inexperienced Windows sysadmins that make Windows look stupid. UNIX sysadmins have a better chance of running Windows well simply because they won't put up with "have you tried reinstalling everything"?" Powershell is the key that unlocks Windows administration, I think. Certainly, as somebody that does both platforms, learning Powershell made a big difference to how I work and think when using Windows. Having said that, Windows Server is still fundamentally bad. The logging is a mess, remote access is awkward compared to SSH on Linux, the failure to properly integrate package management hurts every day, the Registry is still...there, and the list goes on. The disparity of DevOps tooling is another issue. I would agree with the comment that automating Windows takes several times as long as Linux. It's just not happy fun. At this point, Windows is probably not retrievable. The Windows Server folks will keep improving it bit by bit, but I can't see an argument for continuing to flog the horse and use Windows Server outside of full-dress Microsoft corporate environments.

spydum 10y ago

Exactly this.. The about shops that have all their server tooling for Linux, and want this nice 3rd party tool but it requires SQL Server.. Either team grins and bears supporting a one off OS and application, or they find another solution and MSFT loses a license.

dogma1138 10y ago

It's really not, it's that most devops engineers don't want to learn or even bother and most windows sysadmins simply don't know how. Windows automation kinda died when system admins stopped needing to know how to work with JET DB when needing to do one serious ad work. I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. Licensing is the only thing really that makes windows machines a pain to work with unless you are big enough for a sell reporting volume licensing scheme.

inferiorhuman 10y ago
My experience at a largely Windows based Fortune 1000 company was that Windows is that hard. I dealt with 12-ish factor apps on Linux exclusively, but the teams dealing with legacy stuff on Windows really struggled. If you're very careful with the tooling you may get lucky, but I watched as things like Chef, Sensu, and Collectd all took significantly more effort on the Windows platforms.
- larrywright 10y ago
  More recent versions of Windows Server have definitely improved, but this is still pretty accurate. When given a set of tasks to do for Windows and Linux, the latter is always easier. If it takes x amount of time to automate something on Linux, it's 5x on Windows. Every time. Some of this is due to MS themselves, some of it is due to the software vendors, but it's a very real thing.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Can you give an example? In virtually every case I've seen it's people don't knowing powershell, winapi or not having the right tools for the job.
    - inferiorhuman 10y ago
      I wasn't the Windows guy so my memory is a bit hazy, but I remember trying to get Chef properly daemonized on Windows was a nightmare. Likewise trying to get collectd installed via Chef was great if you had a fully supported version of Windows. IIRC the collectd MSI only worked on some versions of windows (and 32-bit support was a whole other matter). In an ideal world you wouldn't have to deal with 32-bit versions of Windows, or EOL'd 64-bit versions. The real world with lots of legacy stuff doesn't work that way. Meanwhile EOL'd versions of Linux chugged away just fine. Iteration on the Windows instances was also quite a bit slower than with the Linux ones. Applying all the requisite compliance stuff resulted in a number of additional reboot cycles. I could get a Linux instance bootstrapped in half the time, without having to bake a custom image.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Chef is the wrong tool for the job use sccm even if you still want to use chef as a front end have the sccm agents installed and use it. This is a tooling issue, dont expect to use a tool that was hacked together for all intents a purposes rather than a native solution and get good results.
        10y ago
geocar 10y ago
> > It is hard to run Windows Server… > It's really not, it's that most devops engineers don't want to learn or even bother and most windows sysadmins simply don't know how. From a hiring/project/management perspective, this is my definition of "hard". From a sysadmin perspective, a huge problem is the amount of knowledge needed to be an effective windows sysadmin absolutely dwarfs -- by several orders of magnitude -- the amount of knowledge needed to be effective on Linux. How many sysadmins have you heard suggest, with all credulity that the solution is downtime and a reinstall on Windows? on Linux? Once a sysadmin knows how to move files around, run strace and grep, there is very little hidden from them on Linux, while on Windows they still don't even know how to take a backup, which is helped less by Microsoft refusing to publish any documentation that makes them look stupid -- like it being impossible to take an on-line backup of a server running Microsoft Exchange 2007 prior to SP2. > I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I hope that UNIX sysadmins want to learn, and bother to learn well the Windows environment better: UNIX sysadmins already know how a system is supposed to work, and it is by large the sheer number of inexperienced Windows sysadmins that make Windows look stupid. UNIX sysadmins have a better chance of running Windows well simply because they won't put up with "have you tried reinstalling everything"? There's also some really good ideas in the Windows ecosystem that Linux (and even OSX) could really benefit from. > Licensing is the only thing really that makes windows machines a pain to work with unless you are big enough for a sell reporting volume licensing scheme. An aside: I'm not so sure this is true anymore, at least not with Azure for infrastructure, and Open programs for desktops/laptops.
- sjellis 10y ago
  "> I don't can't think of a single CI or automation thing that works with Linux that you can't do in Windows if pushed I can probably come with considerably more things which are opposite. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I hope that UNIX sysadmins want to learn, and bother to learn well the Windows environment better: UNIX sysadmins already know how a system is supposed to work, and it is by large the sheer number of inexperienced Windows sysadmins that make Windows look stupid. UNIX sysadmins have a better chance of running Windows well simply because they won't put up with "have you tried reinstalling everything"?" Powershell is the key that unlocks Windows administration, I think. Certainly, as somebody that does both platforms, learning Powershell made a big difference to how I work and think when using Windows. Having said that, Windows Server is still fundamentally bad. The logging is a mess, remote access is awkward compared to SSH on Linux, the failure to properly integrate package management hurts every day, the Registry is still...there, and the list goes on. The disparity of DevOps tooling is another issue. I would agree with the comment that automating Windows takes several times as long as Linux. It's just not happy fun. At this point, Windows is probably not retrievable. The Windows Server folks will keep improving it bit by bit, but I can't see an argument for continuing to flog the horse and use Windows Server outside of full-dress Microsoft corporate environments.