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Ask HN: What's the future for Windows server? How does compete against free?
I had an idea for an application that would have required Windows server.
When I saw what it cost I abandoned that idea.
Then I wondered - how does Windows Server continue to charge hundreds of dollars per instance when Linux and BSD are free?
- raxxorraxor 4y agoThere is a lot of tooling around Office that would require a Windows server. Some games require it as well for hosting. Also many corporate networks use MSSQL server, Active Directory domain controllers, etc.... Wouldn't choose it as a server if my applications doesn't require it, but I guess there are still a lot of cases.
- p0d 4y agoIt will become free in time. We are amidst an adjustment. The old way, buy our software. The new way, buy our cloud services.
- brudgers 4y agoLinux servers scale horizontally. Windows Server scales vertically. The price of horizontal scaling is complexity. Networks partition. Clocks skew. etc. Now you're running a Kubernetes management layer to manage the cluster you've built. The price of Windows Server is much closer to the price on the price list. Or to put it another way, you can roll your own infrastructure, but the odds are you are not going to put together a system as well as Microsoft has. And if you are in business, the cost of Windows Server is just a cost of doing business and nothing in comparison with the salary costs of Kubernetes expertise (and your business is not Kubernetes). To put it a third way, the people running the businesses that run Windows Server aren't dumb or unaware. They've run the numbers. Also Window Server is better funded than the free alternatives and is driven by sales not by developers solving their own snowflake problems. Sure, it might not be for you, but TANSTAAFL. Good luck.
- toast0 4y agoLinux and FreeBSD aren't slouches on large boxes either. Current Microsoft server licenses are priced based on core count, and I think you have to go to 'Datacenter' edition if you have a lot of ram, so I'm not sure you save that much in licensing by building up vs building out. Anyway, hardware pricing usually strongly suggests building out after a certain point, going above two socket Xeon in the 2600v[1-4] era was usually a poor choice, not sure where the line is right now. But, yeah, if it's a good fit, the cost probably doesn't matter. And as an enterprise product, there's probably a far bit of room for discounts if you're buying in quantity. Running on a platform provided by a third party with no source isn't how I'd run things, but not everyone is willing to dig into kernel code to solve problems either, so you know. I hear Microsoft support can be pretty good, especially if you have the right contacts working your case.