Windows 2000 Server

[mrCide]

Alright, my ex-supe (now just programmer) is insisting we reboot our ERP (win2k server) once a week. and every server once a week at that.

The server runs IIS for internal ERP system that he codes in asp, and SQL for a 10-20meg database or so. Now, my opinion is that windows2000 server is efficient enough not to need a reboot for performance reasons once a week, specially one doing as little as ours is.

He insists that it's the proper way to do it, that i'll learn from experience (he's 40), and that theres memory leaks (in win2k? uh..), and you don't get file system checking and memory checks unless you reboot (if it fails is it REALLY going to last long enough to get to a reboot?)..

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or is he crazy? He gets a little worked up cause i'm 22 and i'm going against him/his exp... and i feel bad, but i just think its absolutly silly to reboot a windows 2k server under our load (company is 40 machines) once a week.

Thoughts?

 

[DnetMHZ]

every week is a bit much. I'd reboot as required by updates. Or if you have an application that leaks memory for example you might reboot when you notice a slow down. (or fix the app)

 

[mrCide]

why would you not just restart the app? win2k doesnt leak memory like 98/nt4 did, am i wrong?

 

[drag]

Well one time a W2k server tool out a airport (in california, I beleive) because it wasn't rebooted.

It wasn't so much W2k's fault so much as it was the software it was using. They used a database software put up by a fairly big company that depended on a datatype or a timing service in w2k or something like that that would run out of numbers if the software was run for over a few months without being reset, and then it would loop back to zero or some such thing. I am a bit foggy on the details.

Well they rebooted it every 2 weeks or so, but one guy thought it was silly or he forgot or something and eventually the database application went down because it lost track of the time and took out the rest of the airport's system for handling flights. Costs were unimanginable and many people were delayed and inconvienced due to the foul up.

But other then that, I have no clue. If your not having problems then don't reboot, normally.

This is probably one of those situations were you do it to get along with your co-workers. It's not going to help you out to piss him off for something so stupid. Just time it so that it's as usefull as a reboot as possible.

Use it as a excuse to install updates, or to make it part of a backup sceme. You shutdown the services, back everything up, then reboot. As long as it's not screwing anybody else over then you have no real reason NOT to reboot. Maybe try to set it up so that he can only reboot during non-working hours and eventually he'll get tired of staying after everybody elses leaves to reboot the stupid thing. Something like that.

 

[Daniel]

He's totally wrong. I only reboot the win2000 servers for updates, that's it. I mean he thinks a 20 meg database causes enough strain to force weekly reboots? Err... ok.

 

[Wyck]

Agreed - He is wrong. Only reboot as needed for updates, and be bitter at MS for making you do so. It's all about the uptime.

 

[spyordie007]

Agreed that Win 2K doesnt need regular rebooting; but Drag is still correct. If you have a service running that requires restarting than it's no fault of the OS and you've got to do what you've got to do in order to keep the service running properly.

why would you not just restart the app? win2k doesnt leak memory like 98/nt4 did, am i wrong?

You are correct. If you have a service that requires restarting generally it's going to be enough to just restart the service; however if you dont know for certain if this is enough you might want to contact the application vendor.

As far as IIS and MS SQL Server there is no need whatsoever to reboot regularly. Once upon a time this was the case (think NT 3.5/FAT 16 days); but nowadays there really is no need. He doesnt know what he is talking about if he thinks 2K or SQL server require regular rebooting.

Typically I'll reboot my 2K servers every couple of months (basically whenever there are updates that need to be applied that require a reboot). There have been plenty of runs where I've had them running for 4-5 months because I dont have the need to restart (even if there are updates released, there's no need to install/reboot a server for an IE update if it's never used for web browsing).

-Erik

 

[Tarrant64]

Maybe he's still thinking that things need to be restarted every so often to keep them running sufficiently. Remind him that things don't run like they used to. His logic behind wanting to restart it once a week may be correct, but eventually maybe OS's won't even need to be restarted for updates(i can dream, right?)....

But for now, W2K can take it.

 

[spyordie007]

but eventually maybe OS's won't even need to be restarted for updates(i can dream, right?)....

Actually that's not really that big of a dream; a lot of Windows users have complained about the restart requirements for updates. Microsoft made some good changes in that direction with SP2 and they say they plan on continuing to reduce the restarts required for updates.

Of course there are inevitably going to be some updates that always require restarts; but the hopes are that we wont have to reboot quite nearly as often in the future.

 

[skyking]

I avoid the reboot on servers till it is time to blow the dust out and change filters
I would also humor the guy and reboot it. It won't hurt anything if there are no users in there.

 

[Nothinman]

win2k doesnt leak memory like 98/nt4 did, am i wrong?

NT4 was nowhere near as bad as 98 and I don't think it had any internal memory leaks that I can remember.

but eventually maybe OS's won't even need to be restarted for updates(i can dream, right?)....

dream? Run something that's not Windows and you'll see that just about every other OS can be updated without a reboot. The only thing that requires a reboot on a unix system is the kernel and even that might not be true in the future. My personal mail server has been up for 36 days (sh!tty power here) and I've installed updates multiple times since then.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or is he crazy? He gets a little worked up cause i'm 22, he hired me, and i'm going against him since he's not in charge of what i do anymore.. and i feel bad but i just think its absolutly silly to reboot a windows 2k server under our load (company is 40 machines) once a week.

If he built them and they all need rebooted weekly, I would say he did something wrong. But at least he's consistent, right? Rebooting them weekly is pretty stupid, but it's not like it would be difficult to write a small script to reboot and schedule it to run at like saturday at 3am.