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Unreliable Linux Dumped from Crest Electronics
nri writes "The Age writes, Linux misses Windows of opportunity. Crest Electronics chose a Linux operating system, then seven months on, the company chose to abandon it for Windows.
Mr Horton says. ".. the machine would basically, putting it in Windows terms, core dump or blue screen at random. It would run for weeks or so and then just bang, it would stop....I fully support Linux but if I had to make the decision again I'd pick Windows. A big reason is the fact Windows was up and running in two hours at all the right patch levels. The installation of SAP took two days on Windows, the installation on Linux Red Hat took two weeks. The total cost of ownership is actually lower in this case than with Linux because of the hidden costs of the support.""
...we will see what you have to say about hidden costs and core dumps.
Anyone that says that Linux will beat out Windows in every situation is a fool.
Choose the product that best suits your needs. If Linux doesn't cut it, get Windows. If Windows doesn't cut it, get Linux.
It costs money to hire qualified admins, Windows or Linux.
Obviously, your admins were not qualified to administer a Linux server like this. If it took them two weeks to get software installed and running like that, I'd fire them right away. Even if it is SAP, a complex piece of software. Just because you got it up and running in 2 days on Windows doesn't mean it was done right, or done securely.
"the machine would basically, putting it in Windows terms, core dump or blue screen at random"
whereas you can expect windows to core dump periodically and predictably.
Odd that the Windows terminology for the blue screen of death now seems to be the standard term for a computer crashing. Or maybe that's not so odd.
(please don't mod this as funny, I am very serious here.)
I wish he would have given us more information regarding the problems he ran into. I'm talking about system specs, the name and version of the Linux distro used, and more information regarding the software they apparently had so much trouble installing.
When problems do happen, the open source community is notorious for getting them fixed very quickly. If he were to provide us, the community, with more details about the problems he encountered, I just know they could be solved for him and potentially for many other users in a similar boat.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
What is SAP? A Google search yields a company that sells business products, but there doesn't seem to be anything related to a point-of-sale system or workstation software. Is it an electronics design software?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
This whole article is useless without really saying what the crash was. You could have the most rock solid stable server in the world, and it won't mean much if the applications you're hosting are buggy and badly implemented. It would be nice to know to EXACTLY what crashes he was getting and why. Not just "Uhh, there were core dumps and blue screens, but with a linux blue instead of microsoft blue." I think this would be a great opportunity for an Ask Slashdot poll. Maybe he'd even post some of the core dumps.
That the decision to go Linux was made by his predecessor.
Looks like 'new manager' syndrome to me...
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
I've known many, many, many people who swear by Linux's reliability and uptime. When I look at their load usage, it's alway like "0.01, 0.01, 0.02" or some such low usage box. Chances are, if they are running SAP, that box is loaded. Or overloaded. And then, things can sometimes get more dicey. A device driver that works okay under low-load is fine, but then when the commands are stacking up it barfs. Or some hardware that's been only marginally fast enough is exposed as underperforming (especailly hard drives and FSB). Performance degrades quicker than expected very often, and resources can easily become exhausted. I love Linux, but often people who swear by it have never seen the pain of a truly heavily loaded Linux box. It's much better now that a lot of sweat has gone into the scheduler.
When a program dumps core, it means that the program did something that it wasn't supposed to do (like try to read memory that isn't valid) and the operating system has (correctly), stop the program's execution, and to make life easier on developers, copied the program state into a handy file so that the problem can be debugged. No other programs on your system will be harmed by this one malfunctioning program.
When Windows blue screens, it means *the operating system* has done something it wasn't supposed to do (like try to read memory that isn't valid) and the operating system bails. Often, it will return execution to the next instruction and hope things will be okay. It almost certainly isn't. You're basically screwed.
The equivalent in Linux is an Oops. They don't happen that often on production systems. A crappy properitary program doing things it's not supposed to is *not* a Linux problem nor an Open Source problem. It's SAP's problem.
This is a testimonal about the crappiness of SAP and nothing more. They obviously didn't do enough testing on Linux.
"The Best Run Businesses Run SAP" is a true statement... SAP says it over and over again. What they're really stating is that only the best run businesses can survive a SAP implementation, the rest run out of money or patience, or worse, end up being driven out of business by the enormous cost and disruption it causes. SAP has a HORRIBLE track record on linux. They claim support for linux and other non-MS platforms, but that's only for their core products. Everything outside of CRM and R3 is riddled with technotes and disclaimers about needing MSSQL and WINDOWS. They don't really write cross-platform systems, they just make claims and back them up with fine-print disclaimers.
I just left a company that was $10M and 2 years behind on their "$2M" SAP implementation. It's a joke. Once SAP gets their foot in the door, they flood your company with incompetent consultants and rebuild your business around SAP-approved procedures and architecture. At the end of this clusterfuck you end up WAY over budget and desperately looking for a scape goat. Clearly Crest Electronics chose Linux.
SAP products require patch after patch, and take MONTHS to really install. We had a team of engineers working around the clock (literally) for 5 months to get our base systems set up to SAP specs. Even then we would receive "mystery" patches, frequently resulting in system crashes as they weren't designed to work with other patches. Bottom line - SAP is the problem. They churn out highly unstable software and have armies of consultants who will sweep problems like this under the carpet or find something else to blame.
Blue screen is a Windows thing but core dump is not.
Crest Electronics is trialling Microsoft's Windows Server Update Service, which allows automatic patching for the operating system and other Microsoft software on servers and desktop machines across a corporate network. Its benefits are one of the key reasons why Mr Horton stands by his decision to switch from Linux to Windows.
"We run Linux on our web server and for an accounting package with great success and we do use the auto-patching in those environments,"
I work in a Windows shop but we don't do automatic patching. We don't patch until we've done extensive testing on our own to make sure it works in our environment first. SUS/WUSS/whatever is great in the sense that it allows you to control how patches to your Windows workstations are distributed. You can change the workstations' auto-update behavior so they only update from your SUS servers, etc. But the automatic update thing, from what I've heard, is rarely used in a production environment. In fact, Microsoft gives you a considerable amount of control over its behavior, probably because in recognition of the dangers of auto updating in a production environment.
Mr Horton disagrees: "It might be fine for things like security patches, which don't impact SAP certification rules but with some patches you still actually have to check the release levels and then check against the SAP site. Otherwise SAP might ask you to roll back to the previous version before they will support it."
Give me a break! The same thing happens in the Windows environment. It took Bloomberg and our other vendors a while before they supported Windows XP SP2. When SP2 first came out, a lot of vendors blamed SP2 for problems that may or may not have been SP2's fault. It took Windows vendors a while to adpot SP2 as well.
In any case, the whole patching issue he takes with Linux seems absurd. Just a few days ago, I think our server guys patched their cluster with a Microsoft service pack. Now the cluster refuses to fail over properly. Patching in a production environment is ALWAYS a big headache if you want to do it right. Unfortunately for our server guys, we don't have a spare cluster sitting around for them to test patches on like they normally do with other servers.
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Yes, because we totally believe that you came up with that arguement on your own. "Total cost of ownership" is a natural concept which simply develops in natural language, like swear words based around bodily functions.
It's been a long time.
what a load of crap.in all my years admining linux systems i have never seen ANYTHING even remotely close to a windows blue screen style crash. a user land process cannot blow away the system like that under linux
A) You are admitting you truly know nothing about the NT architecture.
B) And it is normally called Kernel Panic, or a Random Reboot in your world.
C) If you never saw any OS fail in ALL YOUR YEARS ADMINING, are you sure they are really years?
The person giving the references in this article did not seem to be the long time UNIX user he claims to be.
first: He put his experience with Linux into a windows context, suggesting that he is in fact an experienced windows administrator.
second: he did not understand automatic updates. A feature which is and has been available on many linux distro's for quite some time, and a feature which is quite prevalent in UNIX especially from IBM
third: Red Hat Linux (even enterprise class) does not have a very restrictive hardware requirement, and the odds are pretty good that they would have needed to do the same hardware upgrades to run whatever windows system they eventually moved to.
fourth: Anyone who is an experienced administrator knows that the core operating systems are tremendously stable, be it windows or Linux, or UNIX, and that the instabilities in any system will be introduced by drivers needed for operation of application specific hardware (for example a custom cash register based peripheral or some such). This tells me that they had just such a piece of equipment in their systems, and that the vendor of this hardware did not supply working drivers. Further, I would conjecture that said supplier probably had a long standing windows driver, and had ported the drivers to the linux platform specifically at the request of this client. The result is what you would expect: a first generation driver which fails intermittently.
-=Geoskd
www.geoskd.com
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
You're the troll, not the trolls.
Do you observe that lately if someone puts Windows instead of Linux is news.
Just like: a dog bites a man is not news, but a man bites a dog is. That's telling.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Only an absolute moron would admit to that. You have idiots working for you fire them immediately! With absolutely no experience with any unix/linux system and very little windows experience, I setup a mail server, webserver and started creating a website for a company. I did that back in 1996 with RedHat 5 & a Linux for Dummies Book. Linux has come a long way since then. If they can't figure out how to install a modern linux distro in less than 4 hours, you should not be let near any computer ever! I could build a PC clone system from parts and install Fedora Core 4 configure it with apache, mysql, ftp and secure it before lunch. I've done it several times at work.
for example, if you only have one copy of zlib on your system, and it's managed by the OS vendor (up2date, apt, or similar), then you only have one copy of zlib that can be exploited, and you only have to worry about applying your vendor's updates to keep all of your zlib activity patched.
if you have 80 copies of zlib, each one shipped by a different application that uses the library, you've got a frigging mess on your hands, and you've probably got no hope of patching them all if there's a security bug.
what we need is more centralization of libraries, not the wild-west free-for-all that would result from what you're advocating.
Chances are, if they are running SAP, that box is loaded. Or overloaded. And then, things can sometimes get more dicey.
I've run busy mail servers hosting about 6,000 email addresses. I've seen a server run with a load average between 2.0 and 20.0, 24x7 for WEEKS ON END without any complaints. A full megabit of traffic, 24x7, just for EMAIL...
I've seen millions of website hits per month, month after month, year after year. No complaints, reliability simply excellent. And, I've seen this using Linux kernel 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6.
Sorry, pal. Maybe it's true for some other slashweenies, but in my experience, the reliability of Linux IS truly legendary, and is why I've standardized on Linux anywhere I can possibly use it.
Heck, when I'm putting together a new, high-capacity system, one of the first things I do is load a series of "torture tests" and run them. I put the server through its paces, running with a load average between 5.0 and 10.0, compiling the kernel or PHP in a loop, copying files, reading large files into memory and clearing memory out, while stressing whatever service the server will be using. (EG: if it's a mail server, while all the above is running, I have a script sending 10,000-20,000 emails per hour to 25 pseudo-accounts, while another script POPs them all to the bit bucket. If it's a web server, I have 10-20 wget shell scripts beating the webserver continuously)
Hour after hour, for a week or so.
A few disclaimers:
1) I make sure all the components for a high-capacity server (esp. the chipset & NIC) are on the RedHat compatability list.
2) When I'm buying hardware for a cheapie embedded server, I try to buy hardware that's been on the market for at least 6 months or so.
With this formula, I've had nothing but stellar results!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Who would choose to use a distribution called "Unreliable Linux"?
I live in Brisbane, and the area where Crest is situated is renowned for power supply problems - only the best UPS's will help. I'll bet that the guys who "fixed" the problems with WINDOWS supplied a new UPS with their gear.
when you have your servers up in 2 weeks instead of two might cost some dough .... but stability costs less at the end ...
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.. if you have 24hr support sitting on a reset button windows might be OK, if a reboot costs you heavy dollars and long distance calls and several minutes of services down you should choose 2 weeks install and no reboots..
when your servers on windows will blue screen at the middle of the production day that wiwill most likely cost a lot more on the long term in productivity loss and people sitting in their offices not being able to access resources
yes i can install windows box in 30 minutes with webserver, however i have bsd boxes running 365days+ with dns/apache restart and having a good sleep while my non windows machines run is just cheaper me than having a blue screened server for 8 hours and loose customers or receive pages to "fix that crap" in the middle of the night
of course your mileage might vary
just a note: how can an installation of a software last 2 weeks vs 2days ? Same software ? I know sometimes clicking a defult config together takes less time than building a config file (text) from a bad template/example but 2 weeks ?
God created all that in 1 week! (including basics for SAP and Linux in a way) -OK He knows more than us I guess
thats says it all in a nutshell i think. he's a retard.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Is it just me, or does this sound like an ad?
"I fully support Linux but if I had to make the decision again I'd pick Windows. A big reason is the fact Windows was up and running in two hours at all the right patch levels. The installation of SAP took two days on Windows, the installation on Linux Red Hat took two weeks. The total cost of ownership is actually lower in this case than with Linux because of the hidden costs of the support."
I feel like I'm reading a Microsoft brochure. And keep in mind that I *like* Windows as a desktop OS, for the most part.
I'm definitely a windows boffin but have tinkered with Linux. My experience with both are the same, the kernel's are rock solid in both products these days and with the RIGHT device drivers. The only time you see kernel level crashes is when there are hardware issues usually as a result of buggy device drivers, or faulty hardware.
The thing I find with linux is that you invariably find hardware vendors drag their feet on the linux drivers as it's far more important to get the windows drivers to market (due to the market's size). I'm no expert but I have found unless your machine's config is pretty vanilla Linux can be really hard to work with. Rate me a troll, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I just find windows with it's hardware auto-detection and out of the box support really kicks ass over linux.
Of course these problems aren't an issue with Apple and OS X as things are shipped as one complete package ready to work. If they wanted unix, maybe they should have gone apple....
It seems like the admin never really wanted to be on Linux in the first place and his knowledge of Linux is highly lacking. The fact that he knew nothing more to describe his problem than "blue screen of death" shows which OS he wanted in the begining.
I've had ongoing issues like that before of random crashes spaced weeks apart (userland software problem, not OS problem). I worked with the vendor very hard and we got the issue resolved over the period of a few months. Some suggested we switch to windows. Myself and my contact at the software vendor didn't think it was a good idea. In fact, it wouldn't have been a good idea, because there was a corruption in the data itself that was crashing it. An OS switch would have been loads of time and effort, just to have the problem still be there.
The fact that he never even returned Red Hat's calls leads me to believe he really didn't want the problem fixed. He wanted to make Linux look as bad as possible to his superiors so he could switch to what he really wanted. I doubt the whole operating system crashed. A misconfigured SAP was probably crashing and he was too incompetant to be able to tell the difference.
Also, what lameass autopatches on a mission critical server? That's such an incredibly bad idea. I'm sure all Red Hat's patches are of the highest quality, but if downtime could be a problem at all, take 20 minutes out of your day to look over the patches and make sure none will conflict with your particular setup. There's no replacement for human intervention if it's that important.
Ultimately I highly doubt the problems are rooted in Red Hat or SAP. They are rooted in a stubborn admin who didn't know what he's doing on Linux and found it easier to blame everyone else.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.