What was Managing a Network like Pre-Active Directory?

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: stash

You cannot risk your busniess or mission critical systems to MS (payroll is hardly mission critical BTW.). Can't. Do at your own peril. You won't convince experienced people in the business and you won't convince me.

This is laughable. There are thousands of organizations that 'risk' their business to MS every single day.

If they consider patching the crap out of the systems and rebooting them a considerable risk then so be it. You already know that the total cost of ownership for windows systems is much higher than real computing. Face it - you have a long time to overcome the "It's windows, it isn't reliable." mentatlity that permeates modern IT.

Well, they are where they are in the industry because of that decision to choose MS.

Read your own link.

Seriously though. When do you predict that MS will offer the kind of always on/high performance type of services that the other players do? why does a server ever need to be rebooted? Why do you think this is accectible? Because it isn't. Current client nees an act of god to reboot the mainframe/real systems. the lowly windows systems don't need such an act, it's just shrugged off as "oh, well....it's windows" You guys need to fix that image.

When? Because you know full and well what is out there and what is crippling your platform and the bad taste MS has left it's customers.

When will MS offer that? When? I want them to.

when? You guys are close, but you suffer from youth. You're nipping at the heels of the big players, so when are you going to offer the kinds of computing that is desired?

 

[Rilex]

spidey, why are you such an ignorant troll? You clearly are just pulling crap out of your ass. I'm still waiting for your response on how many databases in the Top 10 for size it takes to be a "big player".

Are you going to keep avoiding the question like a troll would do?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Rilex
spidey, why are you such an ignorant troll? You clearly are just pulling crap out of your ass. I'm still waiting for your response on how many databases in the Top 10 for size it takes to be a "big player".

Are you going to keep avoiding the question like a troll would do?

Rilex,

Performance, reliability are what I'm after. It's OK. I can tell that you are young and don't fully understand that perception is reality. It's OK, you'll learn this skill as time goes on.

Maybe I come from a different world (as referenced earlier, the 8th layer).

MS may very well be a superior solution, but just like other shifts in the industry you can't wave a magic wand to overcome what is a pretty new player to the market. But time and time again people who push MS don't have experience in the industry. They don't know the history. And that history is what causes the apprehension.

Some very talented people remember SQL server in the late 90s/early 2000 and the mere mention of that causes programmers/DBAs, and just about anybody associated with it to cringe.

-edit-
I just searched some of your posts.

You are probably 26 years old and have no idea what you are talking about and have no idea what the big players are.

You are a PC monkey. I doubt you have any idea of the market and the forces behind it beyond "what video card is best"

Sorry to bite back. but please don't insult me and make your point.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: Rilex
spidey, why are you such an ignorant troll? You clearly are just pulling crap out of your ass. I'm still waiting for your response on how many databases in the Top 10 for size it takes to be a "big player".

Are you going to keep avoiding the question like a troll would do?

do what he just did, search Spidey's old posts. His is far from an ignorant troll, and a kid. Just because he offers a different point of view then you means nothing. Spidey is a very well respected member of this community. Bashing him gets you nowhere. It's the same thing with personal bashing of any long standing members who don't get lifer status by never leaving ot.

 

[alent1234]

my company runs mission critical apps on windows 2000/SQL 2000

we can buy better hardware/software but the cost is too much. The 5 9's deal with Unix/Linux is not just the software but a lot of redundant hardware as well and it costs a ton of cash. For a lot of companies the cost is too much and the new deal with LAMPS is a way to overcome it, but the software can still cost a lot of money. I priced out Oracle a week ago and it's twice as much as SQL 2005 if you buy all the options, many of which you get with SQL 2005 in the box.

Active Directory is LDAP, but it's a customized schema to run Microsoft's software. It's a pre-made ldap environment to run a user/ application settings database for authentication and application settings for Exchange and whatever other MS software you may be using. It's not a system to run a user database for a website. Microsoft doesn't sell it for this purpose and there are better products out there. And all the LDAP software sellers out there have their own API's for their implementations, so I don't know why MS gets so much grief for putting one in.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: stash

And I have never heard of anybody using SQL for any real databases. It's alwasy oracle on unix.

This may come as an incredible shock to you, but you don't know everything about everything. Your anecdotal evidence repesents a tiny percentage of reality,

SQL 2005 already runs 25% of the worlds largest databases, and it's only been on the market for about a year. If you look at other DBs, a total of 35% of the largest DBs are running on Windows.

http://www.wintercorp.com/VLDB/2005_TopTen_Survey/2005TopTenWinners.pdf
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/03/microsoft_sql_s.html

This is in a year.

Oracle is still the big dog, but they are kidding themselves if they don't know they are vulnerable. Up until this week, when they finally admitted they have a problem with security, their stance was as arrogant as Microsoft's was a few years ago.

Then there are the things that you never even hear about. I wish I could show you some of the organizations that are using SQL, and what they are using it for. It would blow your condesending remarks about 'MS's little niche taking care of PCs and printers' out of the water.

Stash,

Not to be nasty (you know I've got a very pro-Microsoft stance on most things), but the link you posted mostly says "If someone's running Windows, they usually run SQL on it, not Oracle". Well, yes, of course. But when you look at the overall market, and who's running the really big databases, they're on a flavor of Unix, typically running Oracle - the size of the databases running on MS SQL makes it pretty clear they're quite a bit smaller and lower end.

I too am noticing a move to server consolidation - frequently on Unix big iron. Can you get someone from the MS SQL group to comment?

 

[stash]

But when you look at the overall market, and who's running the really big databases, they're on a flavor of Unix, typically running Oracle - the size of the databases running on MS SQL makes it pretty clear they're quite a bit smaller and lower end.

I never said otherwise. The article clearly states that 51% of the databases in the list are running on Unix, and 35% run on Windows. I was simply pointing out that MS SQL has made incredible progress since its release, and has proved it can finally compete against the big guys. I don't expect Amazon to switch over to MS SQL or anything.

And size of a database does not necessarily dictate its criticality. That all has to do with what the 'mission' in mission-critical is.

 

[Rilex]

Performance, reliability are what I'm after.

Which Microsoft delivers, or do you miss the TCP-C tests? Microsoft has the second cheapest tested solution there (3rd place); Oracle taking the most expensive (and insecure) solution while DB2 is the cheapest of the bunch at 6th place.

I can tell that you are young and don't fully understand that perception is reality. It's OK, you'll learn this skill as time goes on.

Crap in your posts like this makes it clear you're trolling, spidey.

Some very talented people remember SQL server in the late 90s/early 2000 and the mere mention of that causes programmers/DBAs, and just about anybody associated with it to cringe.

Who are the programmers/DBAs, and what are the problems that make them "cringe"? Stop throwing ****** out there hoping it will stick to someone who doesn't know better.

You are probably 26 years old and have no idea what you are talking about and have no idea what the big players are.

Wrong on both accounts. Nice try.

You are a PC monkey.

Since when is a Systems Engineer a "PC monkey"? Spidey, don't pretend you know me, because you certainly are starting to sound more and more like some "Linux R0X" high school troll. At the very least, you're employing the same tactics.

Sorry to bite back. but please don't insult me and make your point.

You have no bite.

Just because he offers a different point of view then you means nothing.

I have no problems with different POV, but his "POV" is created out of pure ignorance and unfortunately that may stick to some readers who don't know any better. The guy can't even answer a simple question -- how many databases in the Top 10 does it take to be a big player? He is just out to troll this thread, nothing more.

 

[alent1234]

don't pay too much attention to the TPC tests since the hardware is always different and they use something like 250 different HD spindles for the tests.

 

[spidey07]

Rilex,

Please get some experience in the industry. You may understand my POV if you would. It really does show in your posts.

After being an IT consultant for about 15 years now I think I have a good amount of exposure. The thing is I'm not really an OS guy at all nor do I really care about it. I'm just posting what I'm seeing in the industry. It isn't a myoptic view, just an experience one. MS is getting there, but they are far from competing with the big players.

A move away from distributed computing and more towards large centralized computing. Specifically virtualization and partitioning is what we're seeing. Does MS offer the kind of reliability and performance to support this?

I still say you have no idea what you are talking about. If you did you could explain the history or netware, unix, MS and what started this entire thread. I've seen your posts, I've read them. You don't know crap about IT, you're a PC monkey - that's what a systems engineer is. If you did you'd understand the perception of MS for large scale databases/computing. Just look at the article posted by Stash. That should say it all.

 

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: alent1234
for all the grief that MS gets, at my company our windoze boxen have uptimes for many months and in a few cases over a year. and this is without updates and patches since we have a pretty good system to keep out viruses.

I don't want to be at work the day this house of cards comes down...

I really hope you have layers upon layers between not just the internet and your production network, but also from your internal PC's and your production network..

I'd be willing to bet that someone quietly has control over at least 1 of those unpatched insecure servers, and it's quietly being shared in the dark corners of the internet.

 

[alent1234]

there is enough perimeter level security to keep almost everything out

we install updates, just very careful about it since I've seen them break a lot of things. especially last month's batch. it's actually been a long time since we had a virus outbreak. we usually get a minor one once a year or so.

 

[dclive]

It isn't just keeping people out anymore.

It just takes one person with an unpatched virtual machine or laptop on the same subnet as your data center PCs, and you can easily be screwed.

Patching is important.

 

[RebateMonger]

Unfortunately, it's still common for companies to turn OFF their internal firewalls. Somebody clicks on the wrong link, opens the wrong email, brings in a contaminated laptop, or VPNs in from a contaminated remote PC, and worms spread like the Plague.

 

[alent1234]

patching is important, but in a large environment you have to be careful

i know someone that used to work for a large insurance company back around the turn of the century when NT was on SP6a. the company was officially on SP4 and you had to get special permission to install anything other 4 since later sp's had to get tested and it's a long process to test every application on different languages. A lot of companies have ancient software that at first glance no one seems to care about, but if you break it there will screaming and gnashing of teeth.

 

[Brazen]

Yeah, spidey, we have a MSSQL that runs a couple of small-time apps, mostly stuff that just makes the trivial paperwork stuff easier. All our mission-critical stuff runs on a mainframe. I shudder every time the higher-ups mention moving our mainframe apps to MS SQL. We also have a MySQL server backending equally trivial apps running on much slower and older hardware but has been much more reliable and responds much faster (and is much easier to manage IMO) but our IT director is distrustfull of open source apps.

I'll tell yeah, as someone who has to manage big iron, MS SQL, and MySQL, MS SQL is easily my last choice.

 

[Genx87]

I too am noticing a move to server consolidation - frequently on Unix big iron. Can you get someone from the MS SQL group to comment?

Is this really happening? Big Iron sales have been flat to slightly down the last few years with an ever decreasing share of market in terms of product shipments and revenue.

I thought the big thing now was clustering for unlimited uptime?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: alent1234
patching is important, but in a large environment you have to be careful

Yeah, it can be a problem. There are really only two choices:
1) NEVER patch
2) Constantly patch

The problem with NEVER patching is that, eventually, you HAVE to do something. OS's become obsolete and upgrades have to be done. Not to mention that unpatched systems and applications are, doubtless, the number one way that servers get hacked (along with short passwords). All the big, newsmaking, exploits happen to companies that haven't patched their servers in months, or years.

So that leaves the "constantly patch" route. At least when you do it that way, you have current support from your OS vendor and from your application vendor in case of problems. If you don't, then you need to consider changing vendors.

 

[alent1234]

changing app vendors means rewriting thousands of lines of code in a lot of applications and months of R&D effort in deploying a new application

with the constant patch route you risk breaking something and then having to spend hours restoring. like if you install a SP for MSSQL, find out it breaks applications and then have to go back.

 

[stash]

That's why you test. Nobody is recommending rolling a patch or other new code into your production environment without thorough testing.

 

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: stash
That's why you test. Nobody is recommending rolling a patch or other new code into your production environment without thorough testing.

hence

development -> test -> pre-prod -> prod

patch cycle should always be moving.

 

[cmetz]

Remember, folks. If Microsoft didn't do it, it doesn't count!