back to article Windows Server 2012 kicks ass: discuss

A little experiment from us: we are rounding up comments on a couple of articles - and turning them into articles. Some might call this stretching the material - social media types might call it amplification. But we think that not all of our readers are mad - and many have very interesting insights to share. Yesterday we mined …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All very well for the non-windoze admins but

    there are a lot of commercial apps that are designed and built on the platform so we are stuck with it, and without the luxury of a change of OS.

    Server 2012 seems to have grasped what it means to be an enterprise OS, albeit with flaws.

    Problem is, System Center, which is a big beast that manages the environment. This is a big change for some shops.

    Doing things differently is usually the hard bit, regardless of Server 2012, or some UNIX/LINUX flavour replacement.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: All very well for the non-windoze admins but

      Server 2012 is one of the very few options if you want a commercially supported NFS 4.1 filesystem...

      Not as good as NTFS / SMB3, but if you are running a legacy UNIX estate, or VMware and want a remote mounted filesystem then its about the best option on the market....

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And yes

    Blatant content stretching etc....

    1. Harvey Trowell
      Thumb Up

      Re: And yes

      Quite. Whilst one can well believe that "social media types might call it amplification", personally I would suggest that regurgitation would be a better word. It's the internet equivalent of all the tedious clips-and-c***s talking-heads shows on the idiot box these days. Frankly, I'm surprised the apologetic intro isn't paired with a footer explaining that Simon Travaglia is on holiday. More please.

      1. Steve Foster
        Joke

        @Harvey Trowell

        Of course, the logical next step is to articulise[1] these comments too!

        [1] new verb for the process of converting commentard input into ElReg articles that I just invented, patented, trade marked, etc.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Lets rehash the same old crap.

    Once again, for effect

    Perfectly suited to solving probems that are already solved...

    permalink from original post: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/01/10/10_best_server12/#c_1687636

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oik, you lot there!

    Bring me some popcorn. Ermagerd, new things are being tried! Have a bagel and chill out.

    You'd think that trying new things was like to rile the masses or something.

    Forward!

  5. Juillen 1

    I'm still wondering

    What "Bronze Badger" is a euphemism for. Something scurrilous, no doubt..

    Bunch of bronze badgers!

    And where's the bronze coloured badger icon when you need it?

  6. W. Anderson

    greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

    Windows Server 2012 maybe great in comparison to older Windows OS, but still remains significantly behind newer Linux and FreeBSD Server iterations that retain more advanced and unique functions against the new Windows, and is a fraction of the costs to deploy, maintain and upgrade.

    For example, latest Windows Server failed in all three critical tests for minimum reliability, flexibility, scalability and security for US and foreign Stock Exchanges "expansions and consolidations". The OS also failed evaluations at Cern, the famed Swiss research institute that very recently discovered the "God Particle". These entities chose RedHat Enterprise Linux.

    Much more recently, in 2013 Netflix deployed FreeBSD Server OS based appliances to all the major Internet Service Providers to serve their tens of millions of movie downloads per week. Windows Server 2012 "literally died" under testd loads, and was considerably more flaky in regard reliability during the tests, not to mention security or scalability comparisons.

    Why does 94% of the Top 500 most powerful super computers in the world (meaning 220 plus countries) - see www.top500.org info - run Linux and/or UNIX? One supercomputer on the list out of Japan was submitted for list inclusion with Linux test results, even thought the University/corporate project was financed and sponsored by Microsoft? The super computer also ran highly configured Windows - with Microsoft expertise involved - and could not achieve near equal results as Linux configuration.

    Cisco chose Linux as Operating System foundation for their "Unified Computing" server families. So does Google, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, IBM, Fujitsu and almost everybody else who wants only the best.

    We use the "exact same" features/functionality super powerful Linux and FreeBSD capability in our very small organization, at absolutely minimal costs and easy to use/administer.

    So much for "greatness" of Windows Server 2012 - compared to Linux or FreeBSD super power!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

      Linux is cheap. That's why.

      The end.

      1. TheVogon
        Mushroom

        Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

        Linux is only cheap if your time has no value.

      2. hplasm
        Linux

        Re: Linux is cheap. That's why.

        Therefore Windows is a waste of money?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      @Anderson

      "Why does 94% of the Top 500 most powerful super computers in the world (meaning 220 plus countries) - see www.top500.org info - run Linux and/or UNIX?".

      Most likely because these platforms provide those companies with the source code to the OS itself thus allowing them to tweak the OS any way they deem required so that it'll be capable to run as efficient as possible on those supercomputers.

      Who knows; maybe to get virtualization more optimized so that it can run several Windows VPS's.

      However, I think you're comparing apples and oranges. Because in general the goals for Windows Server lie on a completely different level. Sure, raw computing power counts too, but here there's more. When looking at the TechNet page of 2k8 (because its homepage has been replaced with 2012) you'll see traces of this: "With these operating systems you can develop, deliver, and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a highly secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within your organization.".

      There's more than raw computing power alone; management, efficiency, networking...

      Now, whether they do or don't do a good job on those terrains is a bit irrelevant here; point is that Windows Server targets a lot more besides computing power. Most of all it doesn't provide features which allow a company to completely re-define the OS. You can tune and tweak it, sure, but all within the confines of the OS environment itself.

      All of those are elements which you won't find addressed in top 500 lists such as these. So basically it doesn't really tell us anything about how great or bad an OS is. IMO it simply tells us that Linux and Unix variants allow for much more indepth tweaking.

      Which I doubt anyone would deny.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

      You must have just got out of a Delorian.

      These days Windows Server is way ahead of Linux in terms of functionality (for instance NFS 4.1, thin provisioning, dedupe, a hypervisor that supports a million IOPS in a single VM, a file server way faster than anything yet possible on Linux, dynamic access control (claims based and compound authentication), VM Replication, direct access, a much more powerful shell, etc, etc.

      Plus of course Windows Server has ~ an order of magnitude fewer security vulnerabilities than commercial Linux distributions and a lower TCO in the vast majority of scenarios.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

        "You must have just got out of a Delorian."

        Hello again RICHTO

      2. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

        "These days Windows Server is way ahead of Linux in terms of functionality (for instance NFS 4.1, thin provisioning, dedupe, a hypervisor that supports a million IOPS"

        Hypervisors arn't part of the operating system numbnuts - the OS runs on top of them!

        "Plus of course Windows Server has ~ an order of magnitude fewer security vulnerabilities"

        Now you're just trolling.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: greatness?? of Windows Server 2012

          The Hyper-V Hypervisor is an installable option for Windows Server 2012 - and runs as part of the host OS in that scenario, as well as being available as a free standalone product.

  7. Christian Berger

    How does one update a Windows server?

    I mean on Debian there's apt-get dist-upgrade. There is no packet manager on Windows, you'd have to upgrade every package manually.

    1. dogged

      Re: How does one update a Windows server?

      All the MS software gets updated through Windows Update. Some of the rest notifies you, if you're lucky.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How does one update a Windows server?

      I guess you must be running Windows 3.11 if you are happy with Debian...

      On any Windows version from ~ the last decade, you can just run wuauclt /DetectNow to update it.

      1. eulampios

        @AC, the apt dpkg

        So will update my Oracle server, vmware, php, perl any other 3d party stuff?

        If yes, than you're right.

        PS on a Debian system you do much more than just simply run "aptitude update &&aptitude safe-upgrade" or "aptitude install"

        You can also do ,e.g., things like these

        dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-size}\t${Package}\n' | awk '

        /(postfix|postgre|mutt-pa|emacs)/{s+=$1;print $0}

        END{

        printf "---------------------\nTotal installed size: " s/1024 " MB\n"

        }'

        Output:[1]

        52 emacs

        4336 emacs-goodies-el

        584 emacs22-bin-common

        57892 emacs22-common

        8328 emacs22-nox

        13268 emacs23

        524 emacs23-bin-common

        62384 emacs23-common

        152 emacsen-common

        620 maxima-emacs

        948 mutt-patched

        752 pariemacs

        3488 postfix

        14080 postgresql-8.3

        15628 postgresql-8.4

        188 postgresql-autodoc

        4692 postgresql-client-8.3

        4860 postgresql-client-8.4

        176 postgresql-client-common

        492 postgresql-common

        64 postgresql-contrib

        1692 postgresql-contrib-8.4

        3820 postgresql-server-dev-8.3

        ---------------------

        Total installed size: 194.355 MB

        ============================

        [1]The code and pre are not implemented correctly

  8. W. Anderson

    expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

    The response to my comment from Anonymous Coward, saying "Linux is cheap. That's why." does not address, nor could that person or any other Microsofty address the Unix/Linux adoptions reasons over Microsoft indicated in my comment.

    For example - Anonymous Coward, how do you address "facts" of Cern, and NASDAQ, NY Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, Cern, Top 500 testing results that "officially" have reported Windows Server less reliably, less scalable, Les Secure and less powerful than their ultimate preference of Linux or *BSD (UNIX)?

    Another tidbit of technical information for Anonymous Coward:

    Microsoft wished at one pointto "license" the ZFS file system from Oracle for their new "resilient" ResFS Windows 2012 . Why? Because ZFS (and Linux "BtrFS" file system) have functionality not available in Windows software - like very robust large Data Files "storage pools", drive hot swapping and backup, very sophisticated Cyclic Redundancy Data File Checking and other advanced modern features that are either completely absent in new Windows ResFile system and/or are severely limited or not robust as compared to Oracle ZFS. In the end, they could not license and therefore use these technologies since ZFS license Open Source which restricts or prohibits use by software license and policies of companies like Microsoft.

    This, and other facts quoted in my comment have absolutely nothing what-so-ever to do with "cheap" or low cost or free, but everything to do with world class functionality, great performance (a la Top500), exceptional stability (a la Cern Particle Pysics laboratories) of UNIX/Linux.

    Cloud services like Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus and OpenStack Cloud (collectively comprising about 90 plus percent of major Public and hybrid Cloud Services) have been "tested" to provide greater reliability, security and scalability than Windows 2012 based V-sphere Cloud serviices.

    Please provide a sane, "factual" (very important) and technically accurate response if posting.

    Those that cannot face or accept reality are doomed to live in confusion and ignorance.

    1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

      I notice that, like most *nix zealots, you ignored the detailed post which addresses your points and chose to focus on the troll.

      BTW, I'm not sure what FUDD is. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt; FUDD is presumably Elmer Fudd's XBox gamertag, and I'm not sure how that's relevant.

    2. MisterBombastic
      FAIL

      Re: expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

      All of your examples are based on Windows 2003 and none of them even close to 2012. Next up, recompiling your kernel every time you change background wallpaper still sucks in 2012....oh wait...

      1. eulampios

        @RMisterBombastic

        Next up, recompiling your kernel... still sucks in 2012

        No, what really sucks is when you cannot recompile your kernel. Or can you on Windows Server 2012? My apologies, if you can.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @RMisterBombastic

          You have no need to recompile the kernel on Windows Server as is a modern hybrid microkernel architecture and can dynamically load and unload modules / drivers as required - unlike with legacy monolithic kernels.

          1. t.est

            Re: @RMisterBombastic

            Hmm, isn't even OSX capable of that?

            How long is it for systemd (the imitation of launchd) get's deployed to all linux flavors?

          2. eulampios

            @AC

            You have no need to recompile the kernel...

            Of course, psychologically this is right: "I can't, therefore I don't need to"

            Ok, can you compile any of the modules you load dynamically in that microkernel of yours? Can you compile the microkernel(s) itself? What piece of MS code at all can you compile from source?

            The term "hybrid microkernel" is more of an ad term. Here, any monolithic kernels like Linux or *BSD can dynamically load and unload modules.

            Moreover, you can compile a module against the headers of a given kernel, install it afterwards. So what's the difference? The difference, e.g., is that only .4% of top 500 supercomputers can afford to run this Windows microkernel.

        2. t.est
          Meh

          Re: @RMisterBombastic

          And why would anyone want to?

          Actually I don't care what server os they choose and if they recompile kernel or not as long as they would allow me to run OSX on the client. But I guess FreeBSD then would be the best choice.

          Hmm, those who recompile their kernel, I don't trust them, to me it seams those always take the cheap shortcut to solve a problem. And if you use the term hackers correctly that is what they are.

          1. eulampios

            @t.est

            And why would anyone want to?

            Why would you need a personal automobile, take a train, trolley, bus, sub/tube, bike.... Why? You might wanna test some new features that are not in the generic kernel yet, turn off a module, make a kernel smaller and faster, so it wouldn't probe for some hardware. Tons of reasons.

            But I guess FreeBSD then would be the best choice.

            FreeBSD is a wonderful OS, you can recompile it. However, its development is not as active as Linux'. As a consequence, it usually not a choice on the top 500 supercomputers.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

        ReFS is a Server 2012 feature. It can't be used on a desktop or as a boot filesystem and is seriously crippled in functionality compared to straight NTFS.

        All examples? I think not

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

          ReFS is a preview of the future filesystem - and is not yet a feature complete product. Microsoft has stated that the features of NTFS are coming.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: expect FUDD from Microsoft dupes

      Those that matter disagree. Windows Server market share is growing and UNIX market share is shrinking...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re - not all of our commentards are mad

    gee, guys, that's the kindest thing anyone's said about me all year

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Powershell is the single biggest step back in all of this. Would you like to double click an icon and open up a GUI control app or manually type a 472 character command string that if mistyped can bugger up your server?

    Windows server should provide me with a stable base core OS that I can add or remove any program I want (Including IE, IIS and the rest). Instead it comes loaded with all sorts of crap that many people will never use and cannot remove. All of this extra unused code needs to be patched and maintained and because we cannot take it out there is always potential vulnerability vectors.

    Elegance is always on the opposite side of the room from any Microsoft Product.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Almost nothing comes installed by default on Server 2012 other than the bare OS. The default install doesn't even have a GUI.

      nb - Power shell is significantly more powerful than any UNIX shell option. All common commands have abbreviations

  11. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Pint

    To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft corporate web servers still run on UNIX. If Microsoft cannot trust their own OS using IIS to run their own public facing web site, then why should I?

    Gentlemen, it is now Pub O'clock. Have a decent weekend.

    1. MisterBombastic
      FAIL

      You are mistaken

      Microsoft.com HTTP Header Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.0.

      Nice try though.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Hmm...

    When reading my comment again (nice to be addressed) I do think I should check on the length of my posts. I have to admit that I sometimes allow myself to get carried away a bit ;-)

    Even so, not much to discuss here IMO; all has been said already, I do wish to stress out that I don't dislike PowerShell in any way, quite the opposite in fact. IMO PowerShell is one of the best admin tools Microsoft has come up with in the past few years. My main gripe sits with 3.0 (WinRM).

    But I finally came to my senses and realized that it came with an update, an optional one at that. So; after uninstalling KB2506143 from Windows 7 all is right with my PowerShell again and I can finally get some decent work done once more.

    When I check my 3 Windows boxes (Win7 & 2 Win2k3 servers) for errors in the eventlog I merely use:

    gel -ComputerName win7,magi,macron -LogName system -EntryType Error -Newest 10

    (that's -com<tab>, -lo<tab>, -en<tab> and -new<tab>)

    And the best thing about PowerShell aliases; they are aliases in every way.

    SO using help (get-help, man, whatever) on that 'gel' alias will also get you the full help for the command it symbolizes. In this case Get-EventLog.

    ...on my box that is. If you want the same: "New-Alias -Name gel -Value Get-EventLog".

    "notepad $profile" and put it in there ;-)

  13. asdf

    server 2012

    WS 2012 proves if you swing the club enough times on the range you are bound to catch one square eventually. The last 4+ months have been a disaster for Microsoft product wise but it does sound like they hit it out of the park with this product.

  14. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    Stop

    Enough, already

    I haven't used Server 2012, but I have used 2008 R2, and I've found it to be robust and stable, and much easier to configure and use than any version of *nix, so I'm guessing that Microsoft has done some good work enhancing those qualities with 2012.

    Note that I say this as someone who has deployed various flavors of Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris over the years. I recall very well Microsoft's dirty tricks. Nonetheless, I'm willing to sing the praises of Windows as it now runs because it meets my needs and the needs of the business I support.

    Finally, I'm entirely fed up with this knee-jerk fanboy mentality in the technology. Maybe you should try judging technology on its actual merits instead of engaging in childish my-sideism. Eadon, I'm looking at you.

    1. BlueGreen

      Re: Enough, already

      > Maybe you should try judging technology on its actual merits instead of engaging in childish my-sideism.

      To be fair, many who post here do, although...

      > Eadon, I'm looking at you.

      ...word.

      Congrats to the reg on quoting (feeding) this sodding troll - twice - in an article. Nice one.

      Slow Tony Blair/Womens Institute handclap.

    2. eulampios

      Re: Enough, already

      ...and much easier to configure and use than any version of *nix

      Note that I say this as someone who has deployed various flavors of Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris over the years.

      You forgot to add NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, AIX and HP-UX for completeness, anyways, hearing these two phrases together makes me remember a story. When D. Hilbert, a greatly revered mathematician, learned that one of his students have dropped Math to become a poet, he allegedly said: "Good..he didn't have enough imagination for Mathematics."

  15. W. Anderson

    Madness with Windows supporters

    Have you Microsoft folfs gone mad? Why is that not one of the commenters: ShelLuser, Anonymous Coward Tom Maddox and misterbombastic.

    I gave a list of (repeat for last time) "all" the Stock Exchanges in USA and Internationally, Cern Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland the God Particle folk, IBM with Watson Computer - won Jeopardy game Winner, Top500 Super computers, Cisco Unified Computing, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter. They all have reported and documented superiority of RedHat Enterprise Linux, Suse Enterprise Linux and FreeBSD in categories of reliability, flexibility, performance, scalability, security (very critical area) and lower Total Cost of Ownership than any, repeat any iteration of Windows, including Windows Server 2003, 2008/2008R2 and very recently for Financial Services firms evaluations of 2012.

    In all those areas, not just HPC in regard Top500, all. Look up London Stock Exchange statements about "getting a divorce from Microsoft Windows" and why. Look up Netflix's decision to use FreeBSD apliances over any consideration of Windows for streaming millions of movies each week. Look up IBM decision to not consider Windows under any corcumstances for the Watson Super Computer Project Jeopardy Game challenge, Look up NASA's decision to use Linux over Windows for Mars Curiosity Mission, Look up why Cern never considered Windows over Linux for ther Particle Physics "God Particle" project. Look up if you can, reasons the US Department of Energy laboratories - Lawrence Livermore, Brookhaven Labs, Fermi Labs and others have only considered Linux and *BSD against Windows for major research even up to today. Look up why Cisco chose Linux over Windows for standard OS of their "Unified Computing" servers.

    I could provide many more references from all over the USA and all over the world on selection of UNIX/Linux over Windows for all types of technical reasons, but if you cannot absorb

    and accept the truth and reality, what's the point.

    You guys are living in la la land.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Madness with Windows supporters

      Facts being what they are... New York Stock Exchange uses SQL which runs on... da da daaaa. Windows Server. Look it up on that interweb of yours.

      1. Chemist

        Re: Madness with Windows supporters

        "New York Stock Exchange uses SQL........"

        First hit on Google !

        How Linux Mastered Wall Street

        www.pcworld.com/article/.../how_linux_mastered_wall_street.html

        "NYSE Does Linux

        The largest exchange, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Euronext, is run on a Linux system that can generate 1,500,000 quotes and process 250,000 orders every second, offering acknowledgments of each transaction within two milliseconds. "

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Madness with Windows supporters

          Yes they moved to Linux... in 2007. They moved back to Windows.

          Stop using slashdot as a source.

          1. Chemist

            Re: Madness with Windows supporters

            NYSE Trading Platform

            "Unparalleled Price-Performance

            The Universal Trading Platform for International Markets runs on commodity

            Linux hardware and standards-based communication protocols."

            http://nysetechnologies.nyx.com/sites/technologies.nyx.com/files/L5756_NYSE%20Tech%20UTP_IM_OST_100105b.pdf

    2. JaimieV
      Pint

      Re: Madness with Windows supporters

      You're frothing at the mouth W. Have a beer and settle down, as per my comment on the main page.

      I will point out that Server 2012 is a remarkably different product to 2008 and earlier (unlike Win8 which isn't much different from Vista/7), and only one of your references even evaluates it. Yes, Windows is vanishingly rare in the HPC world, no news there. It has a bucketload of useful corporate/enterprise features though, which are a different thing entirely that you're cheerfully ignoring. Perhaps by Server2012r2 or so it'll be more generally useful; perhaps not. It'll have to earn its position, anyway.

      I can't find that "Financial Services firms evaluations of 2012" you mention, btw - can you cite? Ta.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Madness with Windows supporters

      So your examples are a) internet companies - the one area where windows is known to have a higher TCO, b) several bitter Microsoft rivals, and c) research / science - where the collaborative and accessable nature of open source is hardly a surprise to be popular.

      How about most of the military that run Windows for pretty much everything including command and control systems - that's what you call mission critical! Or the thousands of ERP, SAP, datawarehouse and midrange migrations from UNIX to WIndows over the past few years - and the many many migrations from UNIX based databases to SQL server?

      To claim that RedHat Enterprise Linux and Suse Enterprise Linux have better security is simple laughable. They have more holes than Swiss cheese - an order of magnitude more security holes than Windows Server - and are several times more likely to be hacked:

      http://www.zone-h.org/news/id/4737

      For instance Twitter that you mention - only this week got hacked to shreds.

      As per a number of studies, the TCO of Windows is historically lower for pretty much anything other than webhosting. However even that now likely is cheaper on Server 2012 as some attention has been given to that area.

      People better qualified than you are chosing Windows server on a daily basis - hence why Windows Server market share is growing and UNIX is shrinking:

      Q4, 2012:

      "Quarterly Windows server hardware revenue totalled $6.2 billion representing 51.1% of overall quarterly factory revenue, up 1.6 points over the prior year's quarter. This is the second time in the past three quarters that Windows has been responsible for driving more than half of all server spending worldwide."

      "Unix servers experienced a revenue decline of 14.2% year over year to $2.1 billion representing 17.3% of quarterly server revenue for the quarter, the lowest percentage of server spending in more than 10 years."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Madness with Windows supporters

        "So your examples are a) internet companies - ....."

        Morning RICHTO

      2. Chemist

        Re: Madness with Windows supporters

        "People better qualified than you are chosing Windows server on a daily basis"

        People better than you are chosing Linux servers on a daily basis .... Fixed.

      3. Chemist

        Re: Madness with Windows supporters

        "Unix servers experienced a revenue decline of 14.2% year over year "

        Yes but Linux != Unix !

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Madness with Windows supporters

      Chuckle! Don't fret too much - it's obvious that Microsoft are spending an awful lot of money for paid trolls on El-reg! If their products were so good they wouldn't need to do this. Also - ever wondered why they are so greedy and need to put their prices up?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: Madness with Windows supporters

        The statement that Microsoft pays some commentards to troll on their behalf is... very silly.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    To sum up

    Windows Server can do some cool things Linux can't do easily.

    Linux can so some cool things that Windows Server can't do easily.

    Vive la difference!

  17. Mentalfloss-1966

    HP G8 2012 server vs. P4 Linux server, fail!

    A headhunter client of mine uses an app that stores all resumes in one folder for indexing, and pulls them up from there after searching. He's been a client of mine since the mid-90's on NetWare. He has 40,000 Word, txt and PDF files in there. Went to Windoze early 2000's with Win2k3. Windows server fell on its face. Tuned file system dropping 8.3 support, increased MFT size, etc. Opening folder went from 1:15 to 45 seconds. Pathetic. Placed files on old PC running Linux and Samba share, folder opens in 5 seconds. New HP G8 server with Windows 2012 server. Same thing...Old P4 PC with 512MB of RAM, 40-pin IDE drive, runs circles around new HP G8 with Windows 2012. Windows servers can not even perform the most basic of file server anywhere near other OS's. Fail. We won't even go in to Exchange vs. Kerio or Zimbra on Linux where 100GB of mail can be managed, searched, etc on an old P4 PC faster than a new G8 server from HP running Windows. Comments? I can be reached at microsoft.kiss@my-anus.com, yes that is my email address.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: HP G8 2012 server vs. P4 Linux server, fail!

      Thats just bullshit. Server 2012 is the fastest NFS and SMB server that there is:

      http://tech4b.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/mellanox-releases-infiniband-benchmark.html#!/2012/06/mellanox-releases-infiniband-benchmark.html

      We have some folders that have over a million files in on NTFS / Windows Server.

  18. W. Anderson

    linux choice list

    I owe an apology to readers of The Register in my last comments on article about “Windows Server 2012 kicks ass”, which came across as incoherent and convoluted.

    This was a result of my extreme frustration with several obviously Microsoft partisan commenters, responded to my comment with totally illogical , devious and flat out technically false statements that would turn any calm person blue.

    In my initial comment, I indicated that the entities listed below had selected Enterprise Linux over “any” iteration of Microsoft Windows - from 2003 through 2008/2008R2 to 2012 for very high priority major projects and/or for their general Operation System (OS) infrastructure as well.

    Not one of the dissenters challenged these entities as their reasons for choice of Linux or *BSD/UNIX over Windows OS, or could they, only rushing to attack me personally as a “UNIX Zealot”. Shooting the messenger without addressing the message seems to be a serious affliction in the American society.

    .

    Criteria most always cited included by those in list - Reliability, Flexibility, Performance, Scalability, Security and to to a much less degree better Return on Investment (ROI)/Total cost of Ownership, or some combination thereof.

    IBM - Watson Super computer – winner of the Jeopardy Game Ultimate Challenge

    Z-series Mainframe Computers

    PowerLinux and Power 7 Servers

    Cisco - “Unified Computing” Servers, plus all medium and some higher range Routers

    NASA - Mars Curiosity Mars Mission, costing over $400 million, as well previous Mars and Last Mon rover Missions.

    Stock Exchanges - NASDAQ, NY Stock Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, London Stock exchange, Singapore Exchange, National Stock Exchange of India, Deutsche Borse, Tokyo Stock Exchange and others. The London Stock Exchange made unflattering statements after several very high profile failures of Microsoft technologies (and OS) in 2010.

    Top500 - The top 500 most powerful Supercomputers in existence, of which approximately 94% run Linux or UNIX/BSD.

    Cern - World renown Swiss Particle Physics Laboratory that recently discovered the “Higgs Boson” or “God Particle”.

    Amazon - All of Amazon On-line Services infrastructure and EC2 Cloud Services. Windows customer cloud services are run in Virtualization.

    Facebook - The entire foundation of Facebook technology is Linux OS based.

    Netflix - FreeBSD based appliances stream millions of movies to customers per week.

    Google - The entire infrastructure of Google is Linux OS based.

    Oracle - Runs Solaris and their own “Unbreakable Linux” for the entire company.

    Yahoo - Yahoo has for many years run it's network on FreeBSD and Linux OS.

    Twitter - The complete back end operation of Twitter is Linux OS based.

    Linked-In - Similar arrangement as Twitter above.

    US Dept. of Energy

    National Research Laboratories - Oakridge National Labs, Lawrence Livermore and others.

    Airlines - Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, others.

    Boeing - Linux and UNIX for advanced Aircraft design and development.

    Animation studious - Pixar, Disney Studios, Industrial Light & Magic, DreamWorks and others.

    Most all of the Animation movies since Toy Story were created with Linux design and rendering.

    US Dept. of Defense & DARPA - weapons design and testing, Naval vessels, Artillary. Satellite and Space equipment and technology, Cyber Security.

    A portion of the many dozens, even hundreds of companies relying on Linux OS for major projects and in many cases all of their infrastructure: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members

    There are probably two hundred plus more bug guys and many hundreds of small entities that could be mentioned.

    They all can't be wrong

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. eulampios

      top 500

      94% run Linux or UNIX/BSD

      it follows that about 6% of them run Windows HPC. Doesn't seem to be true, since as of summer 2012 it was only 2 machines, .4%. There might also be some mixed systems.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: top 500

        And over 90% of PCs run Windows. So What.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: linux choice list

      Well most of your list are .COM entities, and Microsoft have historically not been great in the webserver space. (I understand that has changed in Server 2012, but it's early days yet.)

      And another large set are calc farms - again another niche market where linux has historically been popular - primarily due to the toolset availability on Open Source platforms.

      Relatively few of your examples are for standard enterprise server use - where Windows has a growing and much larger market share than Linux.

      One of your statements is definately wrong "US Dept. of Defense & DARPA - weapons design and testing, Naval vessels, Artillary. Satellite and Space equipment and technology, Cyber Security." - actually they mostly use Windows - as do the UK military - especially for Command and Control and other critical systems - such as the well known 'Windows for Warships' - where Linux was evaluated and specifically rejected for security and cost reasons.

      If I were to give a similar list i would simply say "Everyone Else".

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about HOME users??

    Windows HOME Server cost only £40. They expect me to upgrade to this!?

  20. W. Anderson

    technical knowledge and clarity

    Note to Microsoft know-nothings

    The New York Stck Exchange and "all" the other major stock exchanges in USA and Internationally run on Linux.

    Quote:

    "The conversion to Linux followed the acquisition of the Euronext exchange in 2007, and the open source operating system is now powering the NYSE's mission-critical trading systems."

    See here:

    "http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/02/01/windows_server_2012_reader_reaction/

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/238068/how_linux_mastered_wall_street.html

    http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/new-york-stock-exchange-moves-to-linux.html

    http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/1254860/NYSE-undertakes-IBM-mainframe-migration-to-Unix-and-Linux

    This information is for the moro that thinks the word SQL stands for Microsoft SQLServer, thus N Stock exchane runs on Windows (sic)

    It stands for "Structured Query Language" that was developed by IBM and is a sandard in all SQL databases, not just Microsoft's "rip off" from Sybase.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: technical knowledge and clarity

      Posted: 11/29/2010

      Rate This Evidence:

      Direct Edge Stock Exchange Chooses Windows over Linux; Reduces Latency by 83 Percent

      Among stock exchanges, low latency—the speed at which a stock trade can be processed—is supreme. Direct Edge wanted to reduce the already low latency of its system, while supporting vastly larger trading volumes. It accomplished those goals and more by rejecting Linux or UNIX choices, instead building its new exchange on technology from Microsoft and Informatica. Since deploying Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Informatica Ultra Messaging, Direct Edge has reduced latency by 83 percent, to just 340 microseconds, enabling a 580 percent increase in throughput, and it envisions further cuts in latency. Uptime is 100 percent to date. Since implementation, the company’s market share has increased based in part on its choice of platform. A 50 percent reduction in time to market meant a savings of U.S.$14 million in reduced operational costs. And a 25 percent smaller hardware footprint saved another $1 million.

      .

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: technical knowledge and clarity

      NASDAQ, which became the world’s first electronic stock market in 1971, and remains the largest U.S. electronic stock market, is constantly looking for more-efficient ways to serve its members. As the organization prepared to retire its aging large mainframe computers, it deployed Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 on two 4-node clusters to support its Market Data Dissemination System (MDDS). Every trade that is processed in the NASDAQ marketplace goes through the MDDS system, with SQL Server 2005 handling some 5,000 transactions per second at market open. SQL Server 2005 simultaneously handles about 100,000 queries a day, using SQL Server 2005 Snapshot Isolation to support real-time queries against the data without slowing the database. NASDAQ is enjoying a lower total cost of ownership compared to the large mainframe computer system that the SQL Server 2005 deployment has replaced.

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