New Linux study suggests fundamental Microsoft credibility problems

Linux Watch ^ | 11/17/2005 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[StoneGiant]

 

Opinion: New Linux study suggests fundamental Microsoft credibility problems

Nov. 17, 2005

Another day, another lame attempt by Microsoft to show that Windows is better than Linux.

This time around, Microsoft commissioned a study to show that Windows does a better job of serving e-commerce applications than Linux.

Of course, in the study, they didn't use the same e-commerce or back-engine DBMSs.

OK, right there, without saying another word, anyone who really knows anything about benchmarking knows that the study is fundamentally flawed. You're not comparing apples to apples; you're comparing apples and oranges.

It would be a different story, if you were trying to compare the transaction speed and reliability of e-commerce packages, but that's not the case here. Microsoft was trying to prove that Windows was better than Linux.

To do this "study," Microsoft hired Security Innovations Inc.. Paul Thurrott, a Windows journalist, describes the company as "highly regarded."

I prefer to use Security Innovations's own description of its relationship with Microsoft: "Security Innovation is a certified Microsoft partner for security services. We have both the Microsoft SWI and ACE certifications as an authorized professional services provider for Microsoft technologies."

What kind of idiots does Microsoft think we are, anyway?

In the, cough, study, which compared Windows Server System and Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), they simulated both the aforementioned e-commerce applications and an upgrade from Windows 2000 to Server 2003, and SLES 8 to SLES 9, and a year's worth of running, from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005.

What did Micros... oh I mean Security Innovations, find out?

Well, first, that by Microsoft's own admission the sample size of administrators was too small to provide conclusive statistical comparisons!

Is this amazing, or what? In the executive summary, Microsoft admits that they don't have real data!

So what conclusions did they reach?

They found that with Linux you could solve problems in a variety of ways, instead of one true, Microsoft way. OK, that's true enough. But, this, this is a problem?

Sorry, Microsoft, I don't buy that paying your prices for your integrated innovation solutions is any kind of real business win.

Go call me a capitalist, but I prefer open-source's competitive product approach to Microsoft's "our way or the highway" communism.

The study also found that Windows was dramatically more reliable.

Really?!

That's not the Windows I know. Server 2003 is a lot better than W2K, but in my experience, and with the companies I know, SLES still stays up longer than Server 2003.

You know, I also recall a few potential Windows security show-stoppers over that year. There was the SMB (Server Message Block) over TCP/IP exploit, and a whole slew of holes in TCP/IP -- and those are only a few of the ones that Microsoft has fixed.

Despite that, the study also found that the patch rate on Linux wasn't quite five times higher than Windows. The testers found that SuSE had 187 while Windows only had 39.

Hey, they finally got one right!

Yes, Novell, like any serious Linux vendor, fixes all its problems as fast as possible. Microsoft doesn't. Even when a problem is a potential system killer, sometimes the boys from Redmond drag their feet.

Oh, and funny this, but the SuSE patches tend to work, unlike some Microsoft patches like two recent critical Internet Explorer patches, or the infamous Windows 2000 patch that blew up ASP (Active Server Pages) pages that were running ISS (Internet Information Services).

Microsoft also claimed that Linux patches took twice as long to apply and broke applications.

What nonsense!

In my office lab, I run a W2K server, two Server 2003 servers, and a pair of SLES servers. As it happens I also, during this last year, updated a W2K server to Server 2003 and one of the SLES servers from 8 to 9.

On those systems, I've also installed a variety of server applications including SQL Server and MySQL.

You know what? First, the Linux patches always, always installed faster. And the only breakage I ever saw from either the Windows or the Linux systems was when I was working on W2K.

Do you know why I support Linux over Windows? Because I don't just write about operating systems. I actually use them, and Linux works better than Windows does.

Lest you think I'm only saying that because I know Linux better than Server 2003, think again.

I literally wrote several hundred pages on Server 2003 in an online reference guide to the operating system. You can see the most recent edition of that over at InformIT.

No, I know Linux. I know W2K and Server 2003. And the people who wrote this "independent" study of both certainly didn't know Linux well -- and I have my doubts about the Windows side, too.


--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[N3WBI3]

Liar, I already gave you a link which you still can't refute

Really where is the part specifying hundreds of kernel developers?

And all it takes is one since you claimed they didn't contribute to kernel design when in fact my other link showed they contribute more than anyone else.

Perhaps you might show me where I said they never contributed. And perhaps you might state how me being incorrect (provided you can provide what I just asked for) mitigates your own lie!

[Golden Eagle]

I'm not wasting any more of my day on you, the record is clear you're wrong, as always, and your one lame excuse for choosing Linux over Solaris just went down the flusher too.

[N3WBI3]

I like the way you make up a charge, in this case that I said Redhat did not contribute to the kernel, and then run away after your own lies are exposed...

I would say come back with proof of the hundreds of kernel developers you talked about but if its all the same to you, just don't come back..

BTW when did I ever say my only reason for using Linux over Solaris was that Oracle supported them? I did say that was a key factor but Price, Non Propriety hardware, and other factors weighed in. Now that its in I am sure not ripping up my DB architecture to please anybody but my customers..

[N3WBI3]

I hope he really means he will stop following me around.. Guess he does not like to have his lies exposed so openly on this board and to have to be held to them..

[adam_az]

"I hope he really means he will stop following me around.. Guess he does not like to have his lies exposed so openly on this board and to have to be held to them.."

What are you asking me for?

As GE said... everyone knows that I'm the idiot.

;)

[Golden Eagle]

redhat did not design the Linux Kernel

Your flat out lie from back on post 39, you've been lying doesn't exist ever since. You also further lied saying I didn't have proof, when I've given links showing they not only have hundreds of devs but actually contributed more to the kernel than anyone else. You've lied so many times on this thread I've lost track, now is about the normal time for you to call me a sinner and drop Christ's name a few times. Go ahead, we all know it's coming, part of your normal ridiculous act..

[N3WBI3]

Your flat out lie from back on post 39, you've been lying doesn't exist ever since

Your grasp of the English language is questionable, especially for someone who is the local grammar Nazi. In post 39 I said they did not design which is correct. Linux was designed by Linus and in the end he is still the only one who ok's the kernel, last I checked he did not work at redhat.

Redhat provides patches that go into the kernel, that is not designing the kernel...

You've lied so many times on this thread I've lost track

And yet the only one of who has made to directly contradicting statements on this thread is you... Liar..

[magellan]

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2005_nov/solaris10.html

Oracle Selects the Solaris 10 Operating System as Its Preferred Open Source 64-bit Development and Deployment Environment

SANTA CLARA, CALIF and REDWOOD SHORES, CALIF. 15-NOV-2005 Oracle and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced that Oracle has chosen the Solaris (TM) 10 Operating System (OS), Sun's multi-platform, open source OS, as its preferred development and deployment platform for most x64 architectures, including x64 (x86, 64-bit) AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based systems and Sun's UltraSPARC(R)-based systems. The Solaris 10 OS will be used throughout Oracle's development organization. Oracle also plans to release and ship 64-bit versions of all Oracle products on the Solaris OS prior to or simultaneous with the release of its products on other operating systems.

With the selection of the Solaris 10 OS, as well as full access to source code and support for more than 440 x86/x64 systems, Oracle will have access to key features including Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Solaris Containers and TCP/IP performance enhancements. Today's announcement also helps assure customers that Oracle technologies and applications will take full advantage of the advanced features of the Solaris OS.

"Oracle has long viewed the Solaris OS as an important foundation for Oracle applications, but this announcement takes that one step further. With Solaris 10 Sun has delivered an open source, cross-platform OS. And, it's impossible to ignore the significant market opportunity created by the incredible growth of Solaris 10 along with Sun's industry-standard x64 and UltraSPARC-based systems. Solaris was the clear choice for our development platform," said Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle.

In less than one year, Sun has distributed more than 3 million Solaris OS licenses - free of charge - and the Solaris OS currently supports more than 539 platforms, providing customers with the ability to take advantage of Solaris 10 on the broadest choice of hardware in the industry.

"For more than 20 years, Sun and Oracle have worked together to deliver unparalleled value through joint OS and application tuning and optimization," said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Our working together is a major opportunity to continue growing our joint customer base in the x64 and UltraSPARC markets and helps assure customers that our collaboration provides them virtually seamless integration between Sun and Oracle technologies."

[magellan]

Why duck, it's true. Solaris with ZFS and zones makes the rest look like buggy whips.

It's not just ZFS and zones. Another great feature is Solaris Service Management Facility which significantly increases in uptime. But it is DTrace that is the crown jewel of Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris.

DTrace is such an achievement its creator, Bryan Cantril was selected by MIT's Technology Review as one of its TR35, the top 35 innovators under the age of 35.

DTrace is most likely what drove Oracle back to Solaris from Linux as their primary UNIX development environment.

Oh, and Solaris is Open Source, as well.

[N3WBI3]

When I do move my databases it will likely be to AIX, the pserver virtualization is far more granular and tunable than solaris zones..

[Golden Eagle]

HA! How many sides of your mouth can you lie out of? You say you like lunix because it's open and Oracle, but now you're going to switch to the mother of all lockins IBM? You're nothing but a total fraud, obviously.

[adam_az]

"Oracle Selects the Solaris 10 Operating System as Its Preferred Open Source 64-bit Development and Deployment Environment"

So what? They also made a big deal about supporting it on 64 bit linux http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2005_aug/ondemand%20on%2064bit%20linux.html

What does "preferred" really mean? It doesn't mean anything to the user. Oracle had dropped Solaris as it's "preferred" platform for a while, then re-announced it. Apparently Linux is good enough for Tropicana and Unocal.

Oracle also made a big deal that they "lead on Linux." "According to Gartner's recently released relational database management system (RDBMS) market share results for 2004, Linux is the fastest growing platform with 118 percent growth and Oracle is the top database on Linux with 81 percent market share."

Oracle Powers Data Center and Oracle® On Demand with 64-bit Linux
Oracle On Demand Customers Benefit from Oracle Technology and Applications Delivered on x86-64-bit Architecture
LINUXWORLD, SAN FRANCISCO, 10-AUG-2005 Extending its leadership and longstanding commitment to Linux, Oracle today announced that its Oracle(r) On Demand services and Oracle Data Center are now powered by the x86 64-bit architecture. Oracle E- Business Suite On Demand and Oracle Technology On Demand customers, such as Thermos, Cabot Microelectronics, Tropicana and UNOCAL Corporation, benefit from the high- performance, reliability and security provided by Oracle software on a low-cost, Linux platform.

Oracle provides support for the Linux operating system, makes technical contributions to the Linux kernel, and has forged strategic partnerships with hardware vendors and Linux distributors. At Oracle's world-class Data Center, Oracle On Demand customers have mission- critical, transactional applications deployed and managed on AMD-64-based Sun back-end systems running Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). Oracle On Demand simplifies enterprise computing by eliminating the headache of handling software upgrades, patches, and day-to-day maintenance. Oracle On Demand customers have access to the latest capabilities and pay a predictable, monthly fee.

"As the leading enterprise software vendor driving adoption of the Linux platform, Oracle continues to test and deploy software on the latest architectures to give our customers all of the cost and performance advantages it delivers," said Juergen Rottler, executive vice president, Oracle On Demand and Support Services. "By building our own IT systems on Linux, we help our customers realize first-hand the business benefits as well as the lower IT costs associated with using Linux in an x86 64-bit operating environment."

Oracle Leads with Linux
Since introducing the first database to run on Linux in 1998, Oracle has been committed to furthering Linux adoption across the enterprise. According to Gartner's recently released relational database management system (RDBMS) market share results for 2004, Linux is the fastest growing platform with 118 percent growth and Oracle is the top database on Linux with 81 percent market share.1

Support has been a hallmark of the Oracle-Linux organization since June 2002 when Oracle began providing integrated support for the entire software platform, including the operating system. Currently, customers from around the globe tap into Oracle's global team for 24/7 technical support

[N3WBI3]

Hey do you have that number of kernel developers yet or do you sitll want to keep throwing up smoke screens to avoide your lies?

[magellan]

When I do move my databases it will likely be to AIX, the pserver virtualization is far more granular and tunable than solaris zones.

I don't know about that. pSeries are granular to 1/10th of a CPU core, with 1/100th CPU core increments, with an upper limit of 256 microparitions per server. Solaris zones granularity can be share based, where a share is user defineable. More than 100 shares can be defined per CPU. The upper limit for Solaris zone is 8,192 zones per Solaris instance, or 147,456 zones in a single server running 18 instances of Solaris.

This guy is the king of Solaris zones. He has run 600 zones running Apache on a four CPU core server.

Network sharing between zones is handled by Solaris' IP Quality of Service feature. Memory in the Solaris zone construct is shared, but real and virtual memory can be capped per zone.

I don't know much about how ZFS' new feature align with zones, or just how storage allocation and sharing between zones works, however storage management tools like Veritas Volume Manager and Solaris Volume manager, as well as Solaris zones' local filesystem feature should make this pretty easy.

[magellan]

In the battle of your press release vs. my press release, my press release is later and more current.

But methinks you miss the point. Yes Oracle supports Linux. Yes Oracle supports Solaris.

Here is the dirty truth: Oracle doesn't care what OS you are running as long as you are running Oracle software on top of it! And, I might add, giving Oracle lots of money for the privledge.

When Solaris was SPARC only, Oracle promoted Linux, because "free" software (RH support fees not withstanding), on cheap x86 hardware meant customers had more money left over to give to Oracle!

Once Sun started giving away Solaris and promoting it on x86, Oracle decided it still liked Sun.

Oracle is not a friend of Linux or Solaris. Oracle is a friend of Oracle and nobody else.

[N3WBI3]

Oracle doesn't care what OS you are running as long as you are running Oracle software on top of it!

Bingo! I dont know why this is a point of contention and I really dont think to adam it is either its just you walked into a flame fight between our local (linux folks are all commies) and, well, the linux folks who take issue with that.

Oracle is not a friend of Linux or Solaris. Oracle is a friend of Oracle and nobody else.

Yup there is a time, a place, and a business reason for any of those configs... Thanks for the insightful post..

[adam_az]

"Oracle is not a friend of Linux or Solaris. Oracle is a friend of Oracle and nobody else."

Agreed. That's why I thought it was silly that a certain poster on this thread made a big deal that the "premier" OS for Oracle is Slowlaris. As if "premier" meant something.

[N3WBI3]

Slowlaris

Hey I rather like Slow... I mean Solaris..

[magellan]

... Slowlaris

The Slowlaris slur was coined 5 years ago when people were comparing 400 MHz UltraSPARC processors running Solaris to 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 CPUs running Linux. Today, head to head benchmarks of Solaris 10 vs. Linux on similar hardware (i.e., AMD Opteron servers) show Solaris is on par with Linux ... slightly behind on some benchmarks and ahead on others.

Assuming performance is similar, most enterprise customers then consider reliability features, an area where Solaris is leading the industry.

You have to dig into Solaris' Service Management Facility (SMF) to understand what a sea change it is for UNIX operating systems. It is the first change to UNIX which starts to bring application availability to par with mainframe operating systems like MVS and z/OS.

SMF and DTrace are simply the biggest advances in general purpose operating systems in well over a decade. DTrace is truely revolutionary. Something like SMF could have been done years ago, but nobody considered it.

[Unicode_Wizard]

Sling insults all you want, but it's obvious who the idiot is. Didn't you just post a few posts above how name-calling is the last defense of an egomaniac?