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Red Hat/Apache Slower Than Windows Server 2003?
phantomfive writes "In a recent test by a company called Veritest, Windows 2003 web server performs up to 300% higher throughput than Red Hat Linux running with Apache. Veritest used webbench to do there testing. Since the test was commisioned by Microsoft, is this just more FUD from a company with a long history? Or are the results valid this time? The study can be found here."
Here's an article from linuxworld. Dated but shows that Veritest makes mistakes in setup.
Anyone do the math to see what that would cost.
It's conventional wisdom that Google has about 100,000 servers. If google went with Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition (which costs $3999 ) That would cost google about half a billion dollars.
Extending the logic to use SQL Server Enterprise Edition as their search database, at $25000/server the price would go up to about $2.5 Billion.
Every CEO likes to be like Google and likes talking about numbers like billions of dollars; so this is a fun set of numbers to throw around when your're discussing microsoft partnerships with the CEO.
(Note, however, that in the true spirit of Team99, I must say that Longhorn will make it well worth the price, though, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Google switch)
I personally run a windows based server (yes, hate me if you will, but i need some windows only tools at the moment). I used IIS for about 3 to 4 years, until I started to get heavy into PHP development, running a source control system, and game hosting. I switched from IIS to Apache because it had better support for virtualizing directories based off of conditions in easy to setup script files, which made it easy for me to run the UT2004 server, plus mod download server on the same box. This turned out to be a big hit at lan-parties, since the server had all of the packages, and would share directly from the server folders (but restricted the server's config files from anon access). I later switched to SVN for storing my programming projects, and its integration with Apache is great.
I am a microsft OS user by nature. I switched to using Apache on my Windows server because of features it lacked, and now I'm never turning back.
"I am Darkain... and I'm a coder"
Microsoft argue that Apache is slower because CGI is slower. They say that it needs to spawn a new process for each request, which is correct.
But how many years have mod_perl and mod_php been around now? Does anyone actually use CGI on Apache this decade?
Perhaps a more fair comparison would have compared CGI on IIS with CGI on Apache. And I'm pretty sure that for various reasons (spawning processes is slower on Win32 than on Linux) IIS would lose horribly.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
They are looking at the methodology objectively and have in the past. The deal is that MS keeps rolling out this same study, using the same methodology, and it isn't true.
a) they use a slower kind of encryption on the apache side, which makes apache seem slower.
b) they use a 2003 version of Red Hat with a 2.6 kernal whereas Linux is now up to a newer version.
c) they make other tuning decisions for the RH they do use in order to slow it down, and to speed Microsoft up.
In short, the test is rigged so that MS wins and Linux loses. It is that simple.
This is my sig.
Actually the ultimate test would be for an independant party to Sponsor a challenge.
Each would team would get(windows and linux):
$5,000 in cash with which to buy hardware and software. All purchases must carry a receipt and all parts must run to spec. No overclocking.
Garunteed 5 9's power.
Each Team's computer will be housed in the same independant facility maintained by Sponsor.
The contest can last no longer than a year. Each team will be able to maintain their own server throughout the competition.
The scoring will be simple. You won't lose points for having down time. Your score is simply the number server pages(the kind to be determined) you've properly served before your first moment of downtime. So if your server crashes before the year is over, the number of pages served up to that point is your score.
Maybe someone has an idea for what a good server is to run.
The "big players" can contribute cash, but not hardware. It is too easy for them to contribute hardware specifically enhanced for their product.
#1. Each team gets X dollars and no restrictions on what it can buy. After all, that should be how businesses run their shops. We aren't comparing hardware, but total systems.
#2. Each team must purchase the software off the shelf.
#3. No team is allowed to recompile anything or to use any drivers, etc not available from a public server for the past 12 months. This might sound like a bad deal for Linux, but it will also stop Microsoft from re-writing the drivers. Again, most companies do not have access to that level of expertise so that won't be allowed.
#4. Each tweak or configuration setting must be documented and a reference for it shown on a public website or manual. Again, businesses only know what they can read.
#5. At the end of the competition, the other teams will critique each team's configuration. We've all seen the "tests" where Windows is running on a RAID 0 array which is beyond stupid for real production work.
That way, each team can deploy the best system they can think of for the test. I'm sure you all remember MindCraft and their massive single server "test" for webservers when anyone else would have run multiple cheaper servers and gotten higher throughput.
So, a test in run and the Windows team buys the biggest single system they can afford for the money. While the Linux team fields a dozen boxes booting from CD and one storage box.
Which system would be "better"?
Which system would be faster? Would that be the same answer under different loads?
Which system would be easier to maintain?
Which system would have higher uptime?
Which system would be easier to scale up?