Help with my Server Build - Page 4

lol they really don't.

Look at super computers, and Linux obliterates the market. Linux dominates the web server market too: web servers, name servers, etc. Microsoft have a bit more of an edge with databases as MS SQL Server is actually a half decent product, but even then, a Windows licence is way over priced if you want to run any other db.

Also lets look at some of the other companies offering enterprise solutions: Oracle, IBM, HP, VMWare - they all have Linux or UNIX on their back end. Google runs Linux and UNIX on their servers, movie studios run Linux on their rendering farms, message boards, wiki's and blogs are typically written for LAMP stacks. In fact, unless you're running a domain controller, Linux is a every bit as prevalent as Windows and often more so.

In fact, the only time I've ever seen Microsoft dominate the enterprise space is in government installs - but then my experience with government IT project is they usually let morons in charge who almost always ends up buying the most expensive contracts with the worst infrastructure. So I don't know what your field of expertise is, but if you specialise in Microsoft technologies then your exposure is bound to be biased anyway

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what people choose to run as long as it works. But don't fall into the same trap of buying into FUD that MS spread about their dominance in the server market - nor underestimate just how well Linux performs on servers
Edited by Plan9 - 8/22/12 at 3:36pm

You are pointing examples of fields that use *NIX/FOSS. Show me proof, statistics...something.

I have seem market share studies from 2009 through 2011 showing Microsoft dominating ~42% of the enterprise area. Linux was around 17%, and Unix in the low 20%ish. This was an IDC study from 2010, I do believe. Yes Linux dominates in HPC and web servers. Linux lead the way in Cloud Computing, but now Microsoft is a serious competitor in the Private and Public Cloud realm.

Statistically speaking, Unix is heading out the door as it has been declining quarter after quarter for the past 3 years. Healthcare (Humana, several hospitals), automotive (Nissan Motors of NA, Toyota of NA), and retail industries (Papa Johns) are predominately Windows, at least from what I have seen personally. RIght there is 4 enterprise companies who have a large server base, that are mostly Windows. Yes they do run Linux, but it is definitely a minority. Government is big on Windows, at least at the state level around here.

Statistics are an impossible thing to collate as -aside a very small few distros, eg RHEL / SLES- Linux doesn't have any way to produce figures. ie I could download Debian today and whack it on a few dozen servers and no-one would be the wiser. Were as Microsoft definitively know how many Windows licences are bought. So any statistics you produce will be either complete guess work, or heavily biased towards Windows due to ignoring a massive number of popular server-orientated distros.

The closest thing to an accurate figure you can get is the web server market as you can probe public facing boxes to determine what OS they're running. There it's roughly 1/3 Windows 2/3 Linux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Servers
However even that's unreliable as you can hide OS signatures, have a whole plethora of additional hardware hiding behind 1 public facing IP, and it's focused on a field which is already known to be biased towards Linux (unlike, for example, domain controllers; which Windows has the majority bias)

Super computers / mainframes are also pretty easy to compile statistics for too - and there Linux dominates too (figures in the same link above). But in Microsoft's defence, Windows isn't a particularly great OS if you want a mainframe / supercomputer.
To be honest, that's only because these things are typically set up by idiots who need a dumbed down "Wizard"-based interface. I wouldn't really class those people as "enterprise" users - but I'll happily admit that's my own prejudice at play
Indeed it has. But nobody was arguing against that fact either. It's a great shame to see the like of Solaris decline though - but I guess people are switching to Linux because it's cheaper and easier.
I can't speak for what it's like over there, but the NHS's back bone is Oracle which runs on Linux
I'd already covered that


Anyway, like I said, it doesn't really matter a whole lot what you choose to run at him. I just too grievance with your "FOSS shops" remark. I'm probably being over sensitive but it just sounded derogatory; as if you didn't consider FOSS to be a significant player on servers.
Edited by Plan9 - 8/23/12 at 12:20am