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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."
"Windows Servers Beat Linux Servers"
I think they're using this definition of beat.
Long story short, Windows came out on top by a huge margin in every field - ease, usability, intuitiveness, support, everything. In fact, the only topic where Linux came even close to Windows was in community support, and even that was only 50% of Windows' score.
If your so-called linux 'expert' did not find and fix any bugs in the system during this study, then they were not a real expert. If they did fix bugs but your study mysteriously failed to account for the effects of system bugs on administration then it was not an impartial study. If you try to tell me that windows was better than linux at getting bugs fixed then we'll know you're lying.
I don't know which of the above is true but I'm pretty sure that at least one of them is. My bet is that your expert wasn't very expert. This is common; when working at that level, linux admins can get by with less knowledge than windows admins, because windows admins have to spend every day fighting the system to make it work. Linux admins *can* spend their time improving the system to reduce their workload, but they can also get away with just cruising. (If your linux admin was fighting his system, he wasn't very expert; the whole point of free software is that people with sufficient expertise can take all the fight out of the system).
Why was this piece of crap published, and why was it put on /.? It's 97% content-free. It asserts that Yankee group did a survey, and purports to tell us what some of the conclusions are. As mentioned by previous commenters, the statements cited (from the survey, in the article) are nonsense. There's also no mention of how to find the original report, or a clue as to the methods and procedures used, size of the sample, how measurements were made, or how they reached the conclusions.
It should also be mentioned that surveys are generally for getting a handle on opinions. If you want to determine facts, then you would typically run some controlled tests. Smells like a pile of horseshit to me.
Here's the entire article:
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb.com Mon Jun 5, 8:21 PM ET
Windows 2003 Server is a more reliable server operating system than
Linux, a research firm said Monday.
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According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey, only
Unix-based operating systems such as HP-UX and Sun Solaris 10 beat Windows on uptime. Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime.
On a broader note, said Yankee analyst Laura DiDio, the major server operating systems all have a "high degree of reliability," and have showed marked improvement in the last 3 to 5 years.
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.
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.
The Yankee Group made a point of stressing that the survey was not sponsored or supported by any server OS maker.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
look at all the flames !! man who approved this story ... it's one of those story that could even /. /. :S
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
Also, giraffes aren't pink.
What are you driving at?
-Peter