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IT Practice Within Microsoft
SilentChris writes "Good article over at CNet regarding Microsoft's internal IT practices. Some intriguing statements from the CIO, from the obvious ('It's an easy choice for me--to run Microsoft technology. We don't run Unix. We don't run Linux. We don't run Oracle.') to the not-so-obvious ('Our users are the admins of their machines. They can load whatever software they want on their machines, but we do audit the network continuously.') I wonder how much time is spent combatting spyware?"
If you follow blogs.msdn.com, you'll find that while many people are admins of their own machine, they rarely actually run as admin. I think all they are saying is that they don't take away the power of the user to be able to install their own hardware or software. But the vast majority of people working at MS seem to understand the risk involved as running as an admin at all time.
They can load whatever software they want on their machines, but we do audit the network continuously.') I wonder how much time is spent combatting spyware?
I am a software consultant. The first thing I usually need when I go to a new client is to have local admin to run various coding tools (app servers, for example).
Do those clients have spyware running rampant? No, because the people that have local admin aren't idiots. I'm sure MS spends time educating non-techies on what to d/l and what not to. Its not surprising nor do I necessarily think its a bad thing for people to have local admin on their machines.
Of course, if this wasn't about MS, I'm sure no one would care... but some people simply need someway to stick it to MS....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If you read MSDN blogs you occasionally come across references to people using non-Microsoft software, including Firefox, Apache, and *nix. Hotmail uses UNIX tools running on Interix... which includes the "viral" GCC.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/
Of course Interix or whoever MS bought the thing from probably paid the piper already, but knowing SCO's proclivity for lawsuits, I don't blame MS for doing it again.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
NTFS was first used in Windows NT 3.1... Its more like 10 years old...
errr.. they do have unix boxes:
- 1.html)
t outs_unix/) they themselves state all sorts of advantages of unix, such as kernel stability, processing ability and complexity of windows.
:)
Although MS has replaced some of hotmail from bsd to win2k, for other portions, win2k is just not powerful enough to replace the Solaris UNIX back-end.
Quote:
(from http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/rejrev/pref
In the first section of the Preface, I cite the Microsoft-owned Hotmail service as an example of a major production facility that uses FreeBSD. Several reviewers pointed out that after Hotmail was purchased by Microsoft, they commenced a program to eliminate all usage of FreeBSD and replace it with Windows 2000, and that citing Yahoo as being entirely run on FreeBSD (which it is) would be a better cite.
I rejected this purely for political reasons. Most people aren't aware of this, but Microsoft itself extensively used BSD UNIX for years for Internet serving through the Windows NT 3.51 days. This continued well into the Windows NT 4.0 days, although during that time the company began hard efforts to switch away from BSD UNIX to NT. This was not done because NT was technically superior but rather because Microsoft wanted to "eat their own dog food" as the industry line goes.
The upshot of this is present even today. Microsoft uses Conexxion as their principal offsite FTP service to distribute upgrades of Microsoft Internet Explorer and other programs, purely for this reason. It is simply because NT 4.X and even Windows 2000 is not capable of serving such a large volume of files onto the public Internet. Other companies, such as Walnut Creek/BSDi and Sun, have no problems distributing just as large an amount of data because they use UNIX. Microsoft has mandated that this kind of file update only occur over NT/Win2K. As a result, it takes an entire plant stuffed to the gills with NT servers to accomplish the same thing that only a few UNIX servers are needed to do. After all, when the work is continually subdivided, eventually the limits of NT's abilities are reached. Because of having to involve so many NT servers, it turns what would be a simple task under UNIX into a giant task involving hundreds of people. In short, it cannot be done in-house anymore and must be turned over to an entirely separate company that specializes in distributing large quantities of files with Windows platforms. While every other major company that uses UNIX like Solaris or the FreeBSD operating system can distribute large numbers of files over the Internet without a lot of expense and effort, Microsoft--purely for marketing reasons--has to hamstring themselves and spend millions of unnecessary dollars. The fact that they admit this and were unable to redesign Hotmail into an Windows-only service deserves to be made obvious.
The final word on the Hotmail affair is this: FreeBSD is used as the "front end" mail processing part of the service. Sun's Solaris is used as the "back end" mail processing part of the service. Only the FreeBSD front-end has been replaced with Windows. Microsoft still cannot get Windows 2K to be powerful enough to replace the Solaris UNIX back-end.
end quote
Additionally, in their own whitepaper about the bds portion being migrated to win2k, (references here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/21/ms_paper_
a good read
Except that statement is no longer true. The back end migrated to Win 2K about two years ago. All the FreeBSD servers are long gone.