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Linux servers scale horizontally. Windows Server scales vertically. The price of horizontal scaling is complexity. Networks partition. Clocks skew. etc. Now y

Linux 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 ago
Linux 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.

toast0 4y ago

Linux 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.