5 ms·

I'll pluralize this anecdote. Every bit of my little software empire runs on a single Windows box. That includes my 3 main money-making products, a couple doz

I'll pluralize this anecdote. Every bit of my little software empire runs on a single Windows box. That includes my 3 main money-making products, a couple dozen smaller sites being hosted for consulting clients and my partner's businesses, and the Expat blog. Lots of steady-state traffic to lots of sites, several Techcrunch, Reddit and HN poundings, nothing to write home about as far as downtime or drama in the 6 years it's been running. Say what you like about Microsoft, but their server stuff just plain works.

viraptor 13y ago
Just out of interest - what's your plan for when that host dies? (complete disk corruption) How quickly can you recover to the exact same state? (I don't mean getting the data back, I mean actually having your software empire back online, serving live traffic again with minimal data loss)
- jasonkester 13y ago
  Restore from yesterdays backup onto the machine below it in the cage. Then buy a new machine to replace it. That 2nd machine is already running all the same sites (as a QA/Staging server), so it's pretty much good to go already. Sorry if I wasn't clear that "running everything from a single server" doesn't equal "only owning a single computer".
toomuchtodo 13y ago
I've worked in IT for 12 years. Microsoft server stuff never just works. I'm in the process of replacing a $1 MM video asset management system that sits on top of Windows Server with OpenStack/Debian precisely because of this. Microsoft server just works. Hah!
- soundgecko 13y ago
  Meanwhile millions of businesses are able to get it to work quite well. Ever use StackOverflow? NewEgg? Their server and tools revenue continues to increase by double digits. You think that's all media manipulation? Go search Dice for for the number of openings. Just because someone was not able use the right tool for the right job in your instance doesn't prove anything. One of my friends used Windows Server to stream popular sports and got so much traffic that he got shutdown by Dish.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Wow, great. Stackoverflow and Newegg. Amazon? Linux. Google? Linux. Apple? Linux. Large Hadron Collider? All. Linux. Using Microsoft server in a production environment? Gonna have a bad time. There's a reason most sane people don't use it in important places. I don't hate on Microsoft server products because its in fashion. Its because I like to sleep at night.
    - mattmanser 13y ago
      It would be more enlightening and people might agree with you if you told us what was going wrong to cause you such pain? I have had many windows servers and often you can almost just forget about them entirely once they're setup, which takes all of like 2 hours even if you're using a whole new stack.
      - toomuchtodo 13y ago
        Excellent point. I apologize for my brevity in my previous posts. I agree that you can't color Microsoft's server offerings by their older products (Server 2000, 2003). I do agree that 2008/2012 are much more solid products comparitively speaking, but I still would not use them in a production environment for several reasons: Debugging: Have you ever attempted to debug edge case issues in a Windows server environment? I don't mean ASP/.Net issues, but I mean issues within Server itself (random reboots, OS hang, etc). Sometimes, your only answer is "Windows does that occasionally". I have Linux servers with uptime measured in thousands of days, almost as stable as the solid state networking gear. Cost: I worked on the CMS detector for data taking at the LHC. We had over 6000 servers, not only doing data crunching but also providing REST services, database services (for both data and parallel file system metadata). Everything was Linux. The licensing cost alone for just the Windows OS on all of those machines would have been massive. Patching/Upgrades: The only time you need to reboot a Linux box is when you're upgrading/patching the Kernel. Windows boxes? Patch Tuesday. Rarely have software updates broken a Linux box, and if they do, its much easier to revert back to a previously known good config. I can go into greater detail if necessary. I agree, 12 years of experience is just a drop in the bucket, and my experiences are anecdotal in nature. I just rarely see (if ever) someone using Microsoft software in missions critical environments.
- midnitewarrior 13y ago
  Yeah, gotta say if the world can make it work, but you can't, must be Microsoft's problem, right? I'm guessing Microsoft isn't your problem.
- jmj42 13y ago
  I've worked in IT for more than 15 years. More often than not, Microsoft's enterprise products do "just work." In fact, due do volume pricing (making server 2008/2012 licenses very cheap), around here I recommend Server 2012 w/ standalone LDAP role when people need an LDAP server. Why? Because it just works. An a related note, I, too, am in the process of building a new video management system based on windows (why anyone would want to sit and stare at solar PV panels all day is beyond me). Install and set up has been a breeze. Don't get me wrong, I'm more likely to use linux for things. Most of my development is done on linux, our video wall display management, AMI emulation platform, any many other tools and utilities, but MS does have its place, and where it fits, it usually beats everything else in set up configuration and management.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Have you ever had Active Directory go sideways? I mean, really badly? In a large (100+ employee) setting? If not, please don't say "it just works", especially when you're calling to get "enterprise support" from Microsoft and not even the engineer you're on the phone with can explain why your configuration is failing. Microsoft might have had its place. On the desktop. 5-10 years ago. But for environments where you need uptime? No. No. No. EDIT: With regards to your video management system, does it have to be broadcast grade? Mine does. The FCC doesn't let you explain away fines for not being on the air "because the Windows box crashed".
    - jmj42 13y ago
      100+ Employees? Well, my current environment is about 500,000 users across 3 campuses, and 4 domains. Throw in federated authentication (shibboleth), custom apps, *nix auth, etc. With that in mind: It just works! With any large deployment (100 users isn't large) there are bound to be difficulties. That isn't the exclusive realm of Microsoft. As mentioned elsewhere, have you ever done a large deployment of kerberos? I have. I'll take AD on the infrastructure side any day. "Sideways" AD is a whole lot easier to manage than a sideways MIT Kerberos5 KDC. Microsoft does have its place. In the enterprise, in the server room, today.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
- adventured 13y ago
  It does just work, very well in fact. I've run a 1.3 million uniques / month site on a $150 / month Windows 2008 server. Zero downtime. Zero crashes. Zero maintenance. Zero effort at all really. MySQL + IIS + Win2008. The server was cheap, fast, and trivial to set up and operate. I'd have no concerns about using Windows Server again.

viraptor 13y ago

Just out of interest - what's your plan for when that host dies? (complete disk corruption) How quickly can you recover to the exact same state? (I don't mean getting the data back, I mean actually having your software empire back online, serving live traffic again with minimal data loss)

jasonkester 13y ago
Restore from yesterdays backup onto the machine below it in the cage. Then buy a new machine to replace it. That 2nd machine is already running all the same sites (as a QA/Staging server), so it's pretty much good to go already. Sorry if I wasn't clear that "running everything from a single server" doesn't equal "only owning a single computer".

toomuchtodo 13y ago

I've worked in IT for 12 years. Microsoft server stuff never just works. I'm in the process of replacing a $1 MM video asset management system that sits on top of Windows Server with OpenStack/Debian precisely because of this. Microsoft server just works. Hah!

soundgecko 13y ago
Meanwhile millions of businesses are able to get it to work quite well. Ever use StackOverflow? NewEgg? Their server and tools revenue continues to increase by double digits. You think that's all media manipulation? Go search Dice for for the number of openings. Just because someone was not able use the right tool for the right job in your instance doesn't prove anything. One of my friends used Windows Server to stream popular sports and got so much traffic that he got shutdown by Dish.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Wow, great. Stackoverflow and Newegg. Amazon? Linux. Google? Linux. Apple? Linux. Large Hadron Collider? All. Linux. Using Microsoft server in a production environment? Gonna have a bad time. There's a reason most sane people don't use it in important places. I don't hate on Microsoft server products because its in fashion. Its because I like to sleep at night.
  - mattmanser 13y ago
    It would be more enlightening and people might agree with you if you told us what was going wrong to cause you such pain? I have had many windows servers and often you can almost just forget about them entirely once they're setup, which takes all of like 2 hours even if you're using a whole new stack.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      Excellent point. I apologize for my brevity in my previous posts. I agree that you can't color Microsoft's server offerings by their older products (Server 2000, 2003). I do agree that 2008/2012 are much more solid products comparitively speaking, but I still would not use them in a production environment for several reasons: Debugging: Have you ever attempted to debug edge case issues in a Windows server environment? I don't mean ASP/.Net issues, but I mean issues within Server itself (random reboots, OS hang, etc). Sometimes, your only answer is "Windows does that occasionally". I have Linux servers with uptime measured in thousands of days, almost as stable as the solid state networking gear. Cost: I worked on the CMS detector for data taking at the LHC. We had over 6000 servers, not only doing data crunching but also providing REST services, database services (for both data and parallel file system metadata). Everything was Linux. The licensing cost alone for just the Windows OS on all of those machines would have been massive. Patching/Upgrades: The only time you need to reboot a Linux box is when you're upgrading/patching the Kernel. Windows boxes? Patch Tuesday. Rarely have software updates broken a Linux box, and if they do, its much easier to revert back to a previously known good config. I can go into greater detail if necessary. I agree, 12 years of experience is just a drop in the bucket, and my experiences are anecdotal in nature. I just rarely see (if ever) someone using Microsoft software in missions critical environments.
midnitewarrior 13y ago
Yeah, gotta say if the world can make it work, but you can't, must be Microsoft's problem, right? I'm guessing Microsoft isn't your problem.
jmj42 13y ago
I've worked in IT for more than 15 years. More often than not, Microsoft's enterprise products do "just work." In fact, due do volume pricing (making server 2008/2012 licenses very cheap), around here I recommend Server 2012 w/ standalone LDAP role when people need an LDAP server. Why? Because it just works. An a related note, I, too, am in the process of building a new video management system based on windows (why anyone would want to sit and stare at solar PV panels all day is beyond me). Install and set up has been a breeze. Don't get me wrong, I'm more likely to use linux for things. Most of my development is done on linux, our video wall display management, AMI emulation platform, any many other tools and utilities, but MS does have its place, and where it fits, it usually beats everything else in set up configuration and management.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Have you ever had Active Directory go sideways? I mean, really badly? In a large (100+ employee) setting? If not, please don't say "it just works", especially when you're calling to get "enterprise support" from Microsoft and not even the engineer you're on the phone with can explain why your configuration is failing. Microsoft might have had its place. On the desktop. 5-10 years ago. But for environments where you need uptime? No. No. No. EDIT: With regards to your video management system, does it have to be broadcast grade? Mine does. The FCC doesn't let you explain away fines for not being on the air "because the Windows box crashed".
  - jmj42 13y ago
    100+ Employees? Well, my current environment is about 500,000 users across 3 campuses, and 4 domains. Throw in federated authentication (shibboleth), custom apps, *nix auth, etc. With that in mind: It just works! With any large deployment (100 users isn't large) there are bound to be difficulties. That isn't the exclusive realm of Microsoft. As mentioned elsewhere, have you ever done a large deployment of kerberos? I have. I'll take AD on the infrastructure side any day. "Sideways" AD is a whole lot easier to manage than a sideways MIT Kerberos5 KDC. Microsoft does have its place. In the enterprise, in the server room, today.
- dragontamer 13y ago
adventured 13y ago
It does just work, very well in fact. I've run a 1.3 million uniques / month site on a $150 / month Windows 2008 server. Zero downtime. Zero crashes. Zero maintenance. Zero effort at all really. MySQL + IIS + Win2008. The server was cheap, fast, and trivial to set up and operate. I'd have no concerns about using Windows Server again.