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Windows Servers Neck and Neck with Unix Servers
BrainSurgeon writes "According to the Register, Windows based servers are now even with Unix based servers in terms of sales for the first time ever." From the article: "In an overall up server market, IDC counted $4.2bn worth of Microsoft Windows server sales on the back of 12 percent growth. Total Unix sales also hit $4.2bn in the period, IDC said, on 3 per cent revenue growth. Those totals left Microsoft and Unix systems holding 35 per cent of the server market each."
Who wants to bet that maybe Microsoft just charge more? :)
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That doesn't count towards how many servers are running linux/unix without having paid for it... in regards to how many servers are out there of each, you can't go by just the sales. I would say linux/unix probably outweighs windows in quantity of servers on the net.
You're nothing; like me.
blade servers are VERY hot, at least compared to the density. A full rack of blades is nearly impossible, you simply can't cool the rack enough to run it. (most vendors don't tell you this, although IBM recently started admitting that fact)
10 idiots want to buy a lemon for $10/each and 100 people buy a tasty pear for $1/each.
Is it just me or does it seem like there are still a hell of lot more pears out there...
Still, this leaves us with 20% unaccounted for. What percentage of these were sold w/o an OS, and how many of these will end up with Linux (OK, fine, or BSD) on them? What other Operating Systems are filling in the gaps?
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so with the same number of servers, the load they are processing is 50-50 too, right?
.0001 .0002
Here are some official numbers from the WGAF 2005 Study of total workload being handled on the net.
Unix 85%
Windows 10%
Other 5%
HOWEVER, these numbers get funny when you factor in computing time spend running malware.
Windows outperforms Unix and others in this important category. Truly Windows has no peers when executing excrement.
Unix
Other
Windows 99.9997
These are REAL NUMBERS folks. every one of them. even the 7
So in this case the sales increase is not necessarily based on the quality of the offering but on the convenience.
The report actually indicates that Windows Servers are gaining a smaller share of the server market INCREASE than they should, and Linux is gaining TWICE as much as it should if they were all actually gaining an equal share.
Also a number of idiot commentators are saying "Windows servers wipes the floor with Linux" when in fact the report shows that both Windows and Linux are wiping the floor with PROPRIETARY UNIX.
Yawn - big surprise. This has been a foregone conclusion of every analyst for the past two or three years - that Linux (and to a lesser degree Windows) will replace proprietary UNIX and then the battle will come down to Linux vrs Windows - which Linux will win handily.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
One of the reasons Microsoft is making such inroads into the server market is that they've really improved their operating system. Windows servers can be made reliable and secure if they're administered properly. Insofar as it brings choice to the marketplace, then having Windows as a realistic option for a server is a good thing.
But don't lose sight of what's at stake. The Microsoft business model is to leverage it's monopoly in one area to drive out competition in another. If Microsoft will let Windows coexist peacefully with it's neighbors, then great. If they're true to form, though, they'll introduce incompatabilities and do everything they can to make sure businesses don't have any more of a choice in their server OS than their desktop OS.
The struggle isn't just about running the cooler OS, or using the command line vs. a GUI. It's about freedom and choice.
KTHXBYE
Linux usage is certainly up, the ROLE of the server needs to be discussed. I have 24 linux machines at one client's location, too bad most of them are just proxy servers running squid with an LAMP for configuring them. While all the chatter about Linux making progress into corporate IT the role of the machine needs to be involved in the discussion?
How many corporations have Linux-run PDCs? Email? File Respositories? Backup? All this talk about sales figures means little when you take out the role of the server out of the discussion. Without a breakdown along the Lines of X Windows 2003 Email Servers vs. Y Linux Email Servers the discussion really has little value besides a vague sales figure. The discussion of Linux, BSD, Windows, BEOS, Tiger, whatever is is lacking any real worth. Going on 11 years here soon and corporations are not cut and dry. What does this follow fact tell you (taken from one of my clients):
# of Linux Machines 3
# Of Windows 2003 Servers 24
# Of Windows 2000 Professional Machines 8
What do they use more? Windows? Not really. The 24 2003 Servers are used to simulate web traffic and other customized in-house traffic. Not one of those Windows servers is mission critical. The 8 2000 machines are the staff's workstations. The core critical machine that run's their entire manufacturing system is a linux machine. 1 Linux email server, and 1 linux firewall. Now looking at that figure you couldn't determine how important any of those servers are, we need more data in these discussions, it's incomplete.
Purchasing numbers mean little. Even across a broad scope there is no direct correlation between number of copies of X and their level of importance in a company, if you think that probaility shows that given there are 2 milion copies of A and only 1 million copies B that A is used more in mission critical services I would recomend you avoid gambling. The Christian Bible is in over 50% of homes yet less then 10% of people can repeat the opening of Genesis. ("In the Beginning God created the heavens and the Earth" I believe.)
I'll summarize with a classic Ken-ism:
OWNERSHIP OF SOMETHING DOES NOT GARUNTEE THE UTILIZATION OF SOMETHING.
Take a typical computer, slap some SNMP on it and grab CACTI and monitor the staff in a building. I bet you the average work-hour utilization of the processors will never exceed 50%. 10 years is hasn't. Just because you have a 3.4 GHz processor doesn't mean you'll use all that CPU power.
For you drivers out there your speedometer can post 125 MPH... doesn't mean your gonna ever go that fast right?
--END RANT + LUV--
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
An example I recently was involved in: I work with a company doing software. Big and mission-critical systems. One big customer wanted a really big installation of this software. We recommended that this was run on either Linux, BSD or Solaris. Our customer had hired their own consultancy company, and these consultants were very pro-Microsoft. So the customer said "We need this to run on MS-Windows", and we said "Ok, our software can run on MS-Windows, although we cannot recommend it.".
So a big server park was ordered with MS-Windows preinstalled.
Then, as the project progressed, the customer also hired an Oracle consultant. This consultant said "I would not sleep well at night if these Oracle servers are running on MS-Windows. Other systems will give you more stable operation". So all the operating systems on the Oracle servers were scrapped, and Linux was installed instead.
Then, when all the servers were sent to a hosting provider, the hosting provider said to the customer "We see that while the Oracle servers run Linux, all the application servers run MS-Windows. We will be better at supporting this system if all the servers run the same OS, and you will probably have better uptime if running linux on the application servers too. If you don't mind we will install Linux on the application servers for you free of charge.". The customer accepted.
So while this big server park was purchased with MS-Windows pre-installed, all servers were running Linux before the system was put into use.
SQL Server, lots of them. A good, fast (check the TPCC ratings) and reliable database with lots of features. OLAP cubes. Applications servers. Scalable n-tier applications architectures. SAP. Peoplesoft. Siebel. File and print services. SOE roaming profiles. Business Objects. Reconciliation systems. Document archiving and control systems for whole governments. Entire financial systems infrastructures. Enterprise messaging and groupware, all flavours. Enterprise directories. Risk management systems. Workflow and document routing engines. EIA busses. HR systems. Project management systems. Name it, it probably runs on a Windows server just as effectively as it does on Unix servers. In the name of the immortal John Von Neumann, I command you to Grow Up!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
But those are all real world applications.
I think what he meant was "none of my friends use Windows to run their at-home MP3 Server/Firewall/DIVX FTP server."
No reason to lie.
Unix is more typically loaded up, running as many things as the hardware can handle. When it starts getting too loaded then you buy another one (usually a bigger one).
We've recently bought two quad processor linux machines running vmware to run a dozen or more windows servers. Two linux sales, a dozen windows sales.
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