Windows Servers Beat Linux Servers

RobbeR49 writes "Windows Server 2003 was recently compared against Linux and Unix variants in a survey by the Yankee Group, with Windows having a higher annual uptime than Linux. Unix was the big winner, however, beating both Windows and Linux in annual uptime. From the article: 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.' Yankee Group is claiming no bias in the survey as they were not sponsored by any particular OS vendor."

Comments

Same as last year.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Lets look at last years survey being debunked in a business week analysis. ('cause I'm sure not a damn thing's changed since last year's study).

The biggest criticism of the study is this:

Only people running w2k3 AND linux were allowed to respond. Hmmmmmn, so how many MS shops with an evaluation linux server (installed by their clueless MSCE) were included in this "survey"

Yankee group can claim no bias all they like - but I am sick of Laura DiDio fud being posted here (Oh she of 'SCO's claims are justified after looking at the source' fame).

Call this ad-hominem if you like, but if someone pushes a POV year in, year out, you tend to dismiss them.

Re:Same as last year.

[grub]

It was by Laura DiDio. They may as well have had Steve Ballmer make the judgement.

Re:Same as last year.

[semifamous]

Another tech site has an editorial article on this report.

From the editorial:
I administrate both Windows and Linux servers and was interested to see this report. However, reading into the article a bit more makes me question the validity of their assessment.

The Yankee Group states that Windows 2003 Server led Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20% more annual up time.

I had to do a double take when I saw that. 20% more!? Assume for a moment that you have two servers, one running Windows Server 2003 and one running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. Assume that your Windows box ran non-stop, without rebooting (which means you probably are not loading any Microsoft security updates) for 365 days. For your Linux box to have 20% more downtime it'd have to only be up for 292 days. If that is the case, your machine is no longer a server and is nothing more than a space heater.

Re:Same as last year.

[mrchaotica]

Call this ad-hominem if you like, but if someone pushes a POV year in, year out, you tend to dismiss them.

You shouldn't dismiss them just because they're consistent; they could in fact be consistently right (e.g. RMS).

Did you perhaps mean that if someone continues to push a POV after their reasoning has already shown to be flawed once you tend to dismiss them because the situation (and their flawed reasoning) is not likely to have changed?

Re:Same as last year.

[Crashmarik]

Documentation for linux is bad. Theres no arguing the point

I just switched a box from fedora core 4 to core 5 and was real pleased nobody had bothered to document the changes to the default install of Apache. I also can't count the times I have looked for things on the LDP or the HOWTO's and found yes this is a very good howto but the distribution is entirely freaking different.

Now I'm not saying microsfts documentation is any better, but they make up for it with consistency in the setup. Pretty much once things are set with M$ they are there. By example, You may not like the registry but its pretty consistent in how it works from win95 to win 2003.

That said once a server is setup and in production why the heck will a lack of documentation bring it down ? I have had Novell servers up for 4+ years at customer sites and they don't even get the docs.

Re:Same as last year.

[peragrin]

Go back and carefully read the study. Windows doesn't have 20% more uptime, Windows has increased their uptime by 20% while Linux was increased by (insert some random number here)

So if windows servers were available 90% of the time htey have now hit 95% but the linux servers were already at 97-99% uptime so they could only increase by a small margin.

Whenever didio writes you have to learn to read in between the sentences. She throws fud around(finding Linux documentation online, when you could simply call Red Hat and ask???? especially for RHEL 4.)

What she wrote was while techincally true, was so twisted as to be a lie. Notice how she refuses to post hard numbers,or other hard data so you can judge for yourself.

Re:Same as last year.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

That said once a server is setup and in production why the heck will a lack of documentation bring it down ?

It won't bring it down, but it might keep it down.

Re:Same as last year.

[Jon Peterson]

Only people running w2k3 AND linux were allowed to respond. Hmmmmmn, so how many MS shops with an evaluation linux server (installed by their clueless MSCE) were included in this "survey"

Err, that works both ways, doesn't it. Think of all the Linux shops with one little windows server they had to have because some app they needed didn't run on *nix. And IME *nix admins will happily reboot a windows box claiming "it's the only solution" rather than spend 30 minutes actually learning something about how windows works.

*nix admins seem to consider learning windows to be somehow beneath them, while windows admins usually consider learning *nix to be either worthwhile but hard, or simply irrelevant.

Re:Same as last year.

[nikoftime]

Windows has increased their uptime by 20% [...] So if windows servers were available 90% of the time htey have now hit 95% [...]

This doesn't seem correct to me - if Windows "increased its uptime by 20%" from an original uptime of 90% then it would have 90% + (.2 * .9) = 108% uptime (or read a different way, 110% uptime). Clearly, you didn't mean either of these. But even if we were to read the statement as "decreased its downtime by 20%" we would still have 10% downtime - (20% of original downtime, or 2%) = 8% downtime. So we'd have 92% uptime, not 95% as you have stated.

Re:Same as last year.

[Illbay]

Isn't comparing Fedora to Red Hat Enterprise inappropriate here?

Fedora is "bleeding edge." Major changes are incoporated from one release to the other, with the time between releases only six or nine months.

RHEL is extremely stable and well-tested, and the time between major releases is long. Therefore, documentation for RHEL will be "true" for a long time.

Not the case with Fedora (I use Fedora, btw).

Re:Same as last year.

[sharkey]

Windows doesn't have 20% more uptime, Windows has increased their uptime by 20% while Linux was increased by (insert some random number here)

Well, the article states "Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime."

That certainly sounds like a claim that Windows has 20 percent more annual uptime than RHEL, expecially since the article doesn't state anywhere that the 20 percent figure was an increase over last year. The only improvement statement made was that "...the major server operating systems all have a 'high degree of reliability,' and have showed marked improvement in the last 3 to 5 years."

Re:Same as last year.

[ketamine-bp]

please, if you'd think that somebody who would complain that installing apache is difficult would be able to write their own installation script, i have nothing to say but to stamp the "ignorant" sign on your head.

be realistic.

Re:Same as last year.

[rbochan]

...It's no secret that Windows admins have a harder time with Linux and I agree something needs to be done to help them (us) take the plunge with confidence...

You know what?
There is something that's been done.
You can actually download just about every Linux distro... for free ... and educate yourself instead of bitching and whining "It's too hard! I can't do it!". It doesn't cost you umpteen thousands of dollars to purchase the server OS, just takes an hour or 3 on a decent pipe and blank cd or 3.
Most competant linux admins have done so, even if it's to set up a server situation on some age-old hardware they have lying around to learn how to do things. Also, doing so on older hardware usually forces them to learn how to make the installed server OS more streamlined and efficient so that they can do more with the hardware they have on hand.

I for one, have single-handedly set up a local library with a 500MHz Pentium/256 meg ram that handles all their database and file server needs. I did a testbed on a 233 I had sitting in a closet and had everything down to the tweaked config files ready to go over a month before the project came into fruition. The cost to the library was a 128 meg stick of ram and a 100G hard drive, since I donated my time to them, and they already had the other hardware.
I'd never set up a system exactly like that, and it's worked perfectly for them for the last 6 months, with zero downtime. Took me about 3 days to figure out packages and tweaks for their particular needs. Onsite, it took me about an hour from blank hard drive to them being in full production. They put about $200 into it, and it replaced an aging "server" some salesmen had sold the county for about $3000 that they'd never been able to keep up and running for more than a week on their own.

Can't do Linux? Download it and learn yourself. Anything less is just excuses.

Re:Same as last year.

[FireFury03]

That certainly sounds like a claim that Windows has 20 percent more annual uptime than RHEL, expecially since the article doesn't state anywhere that the 20 percent figure was an increase over last year.

The article is rather contradictory because after they say Windows has 20% more uptime than Linux they then say:

On average, individual enterprise Windows, Linux, and Unix servers experienced 3 to 5 failures per server per year in 2005, generating 10 to 19.5 hours of annual downtime for each server.

So, lets assume (for the sake of argument), worst case figures for Linux - 19.5 hours of downtime a year - lets make it 20 hours for ease of calculation. And best case figures for Windows of no downtime.

1 year = 365 days = 8760 hours
So for Linux that's 8760-20 = 8740 hours of uptime per year.

Windows is alledgedly 20% better than this, so we get 8740*1.2 = 10488 Hours of uptime. Which is 437 days.

So to summarise, they've said that Linux gets just over 364 days of uptime per 365 days whilest Windows gets 437 days of uptime per 365 days. I want one of those windows servers that can accumulate well over a year's worth of uptime in a year.

Re:Same as last year.

[FireFury03]

Documentation for linux is bad. Theres no arguing the point

I just switched a box from fedora core 4 to core 5 and was real pleased nobody had bothered to document the changes to the default install of Apache.

Whilest I love Fedora Core, I have many years of Linux experience under my belt. I think it is worth pointing out that Fedora Core is really intended as a testing ground for RedHat and not as an enterprise grade system. If you want things to Just Work and be documented you need to switch to something like RHEL - what you're doing is equivalent to playing with a bleeding edge beta version of Windows and complaining that Microsoft didn't bother to document some brand new feature.

Re:Same as last year.

[jackspenn]

It is 20% better then the Linux downtime. So that would be that Windows is down about 16 hours a year using the 20 for Linux in your example.

Couple of points as an RHCE that does both Windows and Linux, I can say that the more I am called to fix Linux machines as an outside consultant the more it pisses me off that each system is configured to the personality of the admin who built it and left, rather then a proven and tested standard. That adds to the amount of time it takes to get a system fixed because there are various smtp, pop and imap servers and various ways to do things that could be the issue with e-mail on a Linux machine, that adds to longer discovery time and in turn longer time to final resolution. Counter that with Exchange 2003 that has published best practices and in most cases one or two ways do do something. This should be common sense to most /.ers. Exchange will not send mail. OK, check the mail queues and the services, look in the event logs. Linux system will not send mail, OK, first figure out what smtp deamon they are using, is it sendmail or not, if not, what. Is it running? Oh, I have two sendmail services, one was installed by RPM, the other was compiled from source, but they previous root user remove those configuration files. And on and on sometimes.

Personal experience has taught me two things:

1). Just because I like Linux, doesn't mean it is perfect. Support issues like undocumented server settings, admins who delete or move the source configs they used in building a package and admins who do things "just to be different" hurt Linux uptime. Also when a company has a Linux server and Windows techs, they will let the Windows techs beat on it like monkeys before calling an outside consultant who costs money; that leads to a large part of that 20%.

2). Your post about 437 days was retarded. No doubt retards everywhere will mod you up as insightful and informative, but that makes your comment no less annoying to people with brains.

- Eric

Another 'study' by the Yankee Group...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Why does Slashdot continue to even acknowledge 'studies' performed by the Yankee Group? You think we would have learned our lesson by now...

Hard evidence of collusion may be lacking, but it's still patently obvious that Laura DiDio is a Microsoft shill.

Past experience should be enough to show this, but just in case it's not clear enough yet, here's a snippet of TFA:

But standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.

Translation: "We don't know how to support Linux, so it's Linux's fault."

Also from TFA:

The Yankee Group made a point of stressing that the survey was not sponsored or supported by any server OS maker.

I'll bet they did...when you turn out such a ridiculously skewed 'study', you pretty much have to make certain everyone knows how 'unbiased' it is.

Re:I'm just not seeing it

[MSFanBoi2]

I, on the other hand, see just the opposite.

For years the Linux mantra was that Windows cannot do enterprise, wasn't secure, and on and on... however with a good, well trained administrator behind the console of ANY operating system, it can be made secure, it can do enterprise.

here, because of the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitudes of the Linux support team, the Linux environment (limited to some Web server farms, SMTP servers and a few SAMBA servers), the uptime is around 99.0%. The Windows environment, which is a lot larger, over 1000 servers in total (a mix of 2000 and 2003 but mostly 2003) has a current uptime of 99.95%.
No viruses internally, no spyware/malware internally, inexpensive (compared to what IBM wanted to charge us for Linux support across three years), and reliable.

Yes, sometimes Windows works quite well. For some of us it's cheaper and easier than any Linux distro. People sometimes seem to forget while a linux distro may be free, support for it, from both the admin side, and the overall support at higher levels, is far from it.

Windows Server is nice.....

[ShyGuy91284]

I don't know about uptime, but I used to be a Linux-Only person when it came to servers. After recently falling into a job where I have had to administer Windows servers, I'll admit they are slick...... I picked up workiing with them a hell of a lot easier then I would have a Linux server (if I was new to it). Good LAN support features, ISA, Exchange, license management, fairly easy remote user/computer maintenance..... I'm probably going to give it a shot for my next home server once I get the parts. Although the software is costly if you want to learn it as a hobby (I'm getting it for my home server through MSDNAA).

Re:Windows Server is nice.....

[pl1ght]

I'm glad you admitted it first. I work with about 300 Linux(slackware, redhat flavor) webservers. Which are great, no problems for the most part, but we also run about 45 Win2k/2k3 IIS/MSSQL/AD/Exchange servers for our Intranet apps and i must also admit that we have no problems with these guys. They are very very easy to manage and setup and ive yet to have a "crashing" problem that wasnt hardware related on either OS. To each his own. Both have their strengths.

Re:Same as last year = more BS

[moeinvt]

What the hell kind of shops/businesses/people are they surveying? People that have their servers running for a couple of days a year??

"According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey . . . Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime."

I would think that most businesses want to have their servers up 24/7/365 minus a few hours of scheduled reboots and upgrades, and unless something breaks or crashes. So, assume a Windows 2003 server had PERFECT uptime record for the year.

365/1.2 = 304.17. So, in order for Windows to beat Linux with 20% more uptime, they're trying to say that a server running RHEL is down more than SIXTY DAYS a year? My BS meter just crashed.

The thing is, it SOUNDS plausible.

[Theovon]

See, I know far too little about system administration. If I were to try to run a Linux server without help, it would be down all the time. If _I_ wanted a server, I'd pay someone a service feel to maintain it for me, and it would be up all the time.

So, it seems to me that ON AVERAGE, Linux servers would be down more than others, because so many people would be trying to admin themselves. The lack of documentation would definitely be a problem. (Actually, there's plenty of documentation. FINDING it is the problem. I don't know enough to come up with the right Google search terms! And posting to usenet is hit or miss.)

The question is what the uptime is like for Linux distros where you're paying out the ass for support (like you would for Windows or UNIX anyway). That's got to be such a small portion of Linux servers that it's not dragging the percentages up.

The real metric should be UPTIME / ($$ spent on support).

Be careful about those divides by zero.

Re:WxP Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

If your windows box has been up for 1 and almost 2 years, respectively, it means that they haven't had security updates applied (which require a reboot). And if your 911 center doesn't keep it's servers patched, you should all be fired.

Wrong assumptions.

[alexfromspace]

If you carefully read the quote:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said.

It does not sound right. Every IT professinal I know (including myself) whose company runs both Windows and Linux agrees that Windows breaks all the time while Linux does not. But this statement is not based on the same assumptions as those under which most people operate under. Why this is so becomes apparent when you read the next part of the statement:

The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.

It is apparent that the author considers any server designated to run Linux but not yet installed (whether partially or at all), to be a downtime server. In other words, this study can easily include hundreds of unused machines that should or could have been running Linux. This is completely laughable because only people on crack could possibly agree that a system that has not yet been setup causes downtime. This assumption would not agree with the definition of the word "downtime".

I generally find that whenever Linux is being attacked, it is only through a model with serious logical fallacies that are carefully covered over by seemingly innocent mistakes. In reality these are carefully engineered FUDs designed to sound valid to most common people but failing under any serious scrutiny.

I can conclude from these quotes that the author may feel that Window's point and click interface should somehow justify its inefficiencies compared to Linux. However, Linux's lack of point-and-click gui tools is very old news that got washed away several years ago when tools like Mandrake's free setup tools for Red Hat and SuSE's YAST came about. And besides, it is better to have to learn to setup systems using text config files and then have it run problem free for a year, than to point and click for a day and end up with a system that needs constant attention just to be kept running.

Re:WxP Pro

[Mancat]

Why not?

Systems like these used in call centers often:

1) Have no route to the internet.
2) Have both external storage drives and USB ports disabled.
3) Do not allow users to log in with administrative accounts.
4) Have proper group policy restrictions in place.

More often then not, even without the latest patches from Microsoft, machines in this state are perfectly secure and stable. Argue if you'd like, but there are plenty of offices I've worked in where the Windows machines aren't even up to SP2, and because they are properly locked down, they're solid as a rock and still running.

ridiculous assertions

[sloanster]

The assertions are ridiculous on the face of it, obviously prepared by someone with an agenda, and not even a bit subtle.

As an IT professional, I can tell you that if any of our linux servers were to go down, there would be people screaming bloody murder all over the place within a few moments. Downtime is unacceptable for infrastructure services, and linux has performed flawlessly for the fortune 100 company where I am employed.

I think as other posters have noted, the key piece of information that was unwittingly leaked, was that the survey was only open to windoze shops, and most likely included some mcse's linux test boxes in the downtime data figues. That's really the only thing that makes sense, as downtime simply wouldn't be tolerated in a normal production environment.

Anyone who is works with linux professionally and is aware of the fact that it's been running 24x7 for years at amazon.com and other firms such as my own employer, will find it quite odd to read about all this extended downtime and the nonsensical reasons given for it.

Bad examples for a bad result.

[Oriumpor]

As far as TFM it's qualifications draw my suspision. Did they include "devices" running linux as well or just full blown rigs? I can tell you *nix based appliances (unless they're really bad) have very few problems, and don't typically require the constant reboots for system updates that drives down your 99.99..999999 uptime.

Whatever happened to limiting exploitable processes? Windows method of protecting the services is all based around their firewall. Ever try and configure a windows box to run slimmed down? It's a pain in the ass. How about hardened? Good luck, apply the NIST standard lockdown SecPol to a 2k3 box and you'll see what I mean.

Take a *BSD/Trustix(+SELINUX)/Debian(+SELINUX) box install with 3 services AND a firewall in a 100meg footprint, and call it a day. Windows can't compete with the kinda uptime you get out of a stripped down OS. Oh they try with XP-Embedded and the likes but it's certainly not within the same realm of ease to create and deploy the OS that the *nixes give you. Not to mention, how many times have you had to troubleshoot a problem in Windows that ended up being caused by some unrelated service? I can tell you from my experience, it doesn't happen very often on a machine running single digit numbers of services.

On top of which they nicely avoided shops smart enough not to run Windows devices in their nocs, who probably have much better trained staff on the unix hardware and would throw their numbers with nearly 0 downtime figures. How many untrained people new to unix reboot when they could have just restarted a service? etc. This whole thing smells fishy.