Re: Avoid Windows NT for database server - says the White paper!!

["Shulzhenko Vasyl" <vasilis@softline.kiev.ua>]

    I used to use NT as a database server.  I didn't have unreliability
problems.  It still is my development environment.  At first, the other
environments scared me off because I didn't know how to use them.  In my
case I played around with the NLM of SA one day.  To make a long story
short, the a 100 Mhz Pentium on NetWare 3.11, was 4 to 10 times faster,
usually 10 times faster, than the new NT box that I had just bought, which
was a PRO 200, with 384 Megs of ram and fast drives.  Bottom line is the NT
machine couldn't come close with four times the CPU power, and a 1/3 again
as much RAM.  Worse still, the NetWare server was a very busy server,
servicing at that time, 70 users.  At first I was so embarrassed, I put it
back on NT.  Then I felt guilty, so I gave to their CAD person.  Later we
upgraded their LAN to 4.11, and it was a lot faster yet.  We tried 5.0, but
it was slower, but also used half the CPU power.  I learned last night via
study, that with NetWare 5, you can adjust the max each NLM gets.  I haven't
gotten around to going back to 5 yet.

I like NT for development though because it is slow.  If you're missing an
index, it's no secret.  With Novell, the thing will do a table scan as fast
as some NT queries using a key, so you don't realize that you have a
problem.  I don't use NT in production anymore except for very small
organizations.  There is nothing fast or scalable about NT.

I've used UNIX before too.  UNIX, depending on the implementation, can be
very fast.  The last time I did it it was with Progress.  I'll say this,
UNIX is not only fast, it's the most boring computer you will ever find.  It
just sits there and runs.  You'll have great grandchildren while waiting for
it to crash.  UNIX has one achillies heal.  It has a sophisticated file
system, but it is also fragile.  You need a battery backup.  TCP/IP is
getting pretty standard now, so there really isn't much of a reason not to
hang a UNIX box on a LAN anymore.  For someone not familiar with UNIX, it
seems a little spooky.  When you start playing with it, you realize that you
wish they had put some of that stuff in DOS or Windows.  I was difficult to
expand my thinking in that if you could think it, you could probably do it,
and it didn't require any special program to do it.  Getting used to that
kind of flexiblility using switches didn't come easy.  On the first install,
if you follow the directions, you'll have a server.  You may not know how
you did it, but you'll have a server.<g>  There is no DLL hell.
Installation and removal of programs is built into the OS.  The technology
built into the OS is amazing.  It has a 10 year technlogy advantage on NT.

It's really too bad the UNIX vendors "locked in"  and "held up" their
customers like the mainframe people always have.  The truth is UNIX would
have been simpler for people than DOS/NT.  Autoexec, config, optimize
memory, separate commands all over the place.  It takes a lot more knowlege
to make DOS work properly.  A PC MSDOS/Windows hacker has to be smart just
to keep his machine running.  Now UNIX is unfamiliar.  Linux may change all
that.  We buy apps for what UNIX can do on a command line with a couple of
switches.  If you watch what's happening, the Windows is very slowly
following UNIX.  Today Windows can talk TCP/IP.  It's on the WEB.  Windows
is trying to add a network file system.  My prediction is Windows will ditch
their GUI while maintaining backwards compatability.  The XWindows GUI is
vector based.  It is far more efficient and useful when it comes to
distributed computing.  CITRIX/Terminal Server uses it.  UNIX has had it
available for years.

Sometimes I wonder what we're doing.  It seems like we're standing in line
on the sands of Kitty Hawk, waiting for a ride in the Wright brothers first
airplane, while the Concorde is flying to Paris every day in less than 4
hours.  I think the answer again is, people will not be "locked in" and
"held up".  That's my take as to why Linux has caught on.  Maybe Linux can
be a ISO Standard OS, just as the is SQL 92, and several other language
standards.  The only reason the PC has become popular, is the failure of IBM
to protect the ISA bus.  IBM tried to regain control with the MCA bus.  It
didn't work.  EISA ran it over.  The Apple, IBM, mainframe, and UNIX lesson
is, you won't be successful long term if you "lock in" and "hold up" the
users.

Jack Toering