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Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

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Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#141

Post by rbanffy »

johns wrote: post #124
rbanffy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? For how long do you hold off updates that fix zero-day remote exploits?

As little as possible. And again, in a high-availability infrastructure I can patch each machine without downtime. I was contending your point that the downtime was mandatory and unscheduled. Windows never forces you to update at any time. It strongly suggests, sure. By default, the option is auto-update, but that's configurable and not required.

Well... You have to factor in the cost for the added HA infrastructure when you talk Windows. Patching Linux seldom requires more than a couple seconds for downtime for the system and I can often patch and bring up machines before memcaches and varnishes start expiring. Patching Windows often takes half-an-hour of downtime following another similarly extended period of horrible performance when the patch installer is doing whatever it needs to do, per server.

It's different to design a HA cluster that can sustain a minutes-long usage peak (due to a node going down for maintenance) than one that can sustain an hour-long outage of one of the nodes.

It all depends, in the end, on how the applications are designed to run - they are the ones that will decide how many servers you can take down at once. In any case, the shorter they are down, the better.

Consider a site with 3 front-facing web servers that are affected by a 0-day. If a server can be patched in 2 minutes, it will result in 6 minutes of 150% load on the servers not being maintained. If the patch takes an hour, you will have 3 hours of 150% workload. The internet user may not see the downtime, but you have to factor in the higher load. The best solution could be to use 4 or 5 servers instead of 3, but that would also increase your vulnerability window.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#142

Post by rbanffy »

AmberShah wrote: post #118
cschep wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally hear this, "using what you know" is really powerful. Be careful here though ... > I know better than to expect to converse about our MS technology with the HN crowd, though. Lots of positive posts, even in this thread!

That's true and I think Stack Overflow actually did a lot for making it more acceptable in startupland. And for good reason - if it's good enough for them...

The Linux advantage really starts to show when you enter the dozen+ server range. Licenses add up quickly and planning gets more and more complicated.

If you run a small group of machines and you know what you are doing, Windows could be just fine for you. The worst that can happen is you succeed and need to migrate your software to another platform.

edit: actually the worst that could happen is that you hit a technical problem the closed nature of Windows prevents you from solving and you have to port before you become profitable.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#143

Post by gaius »

jeremymcanally wrote: post #8

The licensing costs are somewhat hefty upfront and get exponentially so as your business grows. So the decision (I think) isn't necessarily "Oh it's free now let's do it," it's closer to "OK, this is costly now, and may be worth it now, but down the road, as we scale in people and the app in size, the money isn't justifiable."

With BizSpark the upfront costs are negligible.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#144

Post by fragmede »

johns wrote: post #80
duck wrote: post #20

After spending almost 20 hours on the phone with Microsoft support last week I can tell you why I wouldn't use it as my technology stack - you can't dig in to understand and fix a lot of things yourself.

At least you had someone to call. Not everything in OSS can be fixed with a fork and patch.

If it's a software problem a fork and a patch can fix it. That's kind of the point.

Having the ability and technical resources necessary to generate said patch, however, is a different problem.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#145

Post by robertg »

1010011010 wrote: post #67
robertg wrote: post #13

My startup is a BizSpark startup http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark so we're going to get tied up in the Microsoft stack pretty quickly. We just started a few months back and are working on our first project. I really like developing in .NET so this was a no brainer for me. Other people would disagree with me and want to focus on open source. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. Even with BizSpark the poin…

How much do you worry about Microsoft lock-in? And about them discontinuing tools you depend on?

Well, I'm not worried about Microsoft lock-in because I am consciously choosing to get locked in to the MS stack. I want to develop with MS tools on MS systems.

With an MSDN subscription (which is free for me for 3 years through BizSpark) you can download virtually any MS software ever released. I'd be really surprised if they didn't have what you need.

I'd be more worried about a company like Oracle buying out a product like Java and screwing it up. At least you know where Microsoft stands.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#146

Post by lfnik »

johns wrote: post #89
benologist wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just grabbed the first driver and it worked although it feels really awkward to me (especially coming from years of parameterized queries / sprocs). It looks interesting though. Have you used both?

I've only tried NoRM and I liked it. I liked that they were working on full LINQ support, but I'm not sure where that ended up since Conery no longer contributes to the project and that was his thing.

The LINQ support in the original driver is great.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#147

Post by jmcentire »

I think most avoid Microsoft because of two main factors: cost and source.

You might think Microsoft is stable and that things tend to just work; but, if they stop supporting something you need -- you're SOL. If there is a bug that affects your software and it's low on their priority list -- you're SOL.

With FOSS, you can branch the project and not update and everything should continue to work as you'd expect. You can fix a bug yourself if the community doesn't think it's a priority.

What's more, with the new anti-IP laws in NZ and having the PirateBay being hosted by the Pirate Party, I imagine there will be a lot of very interesting changes in the FOSS community.

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