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I'd be interested in finding out why they chose to go with Windows-based web servers. Administering 12 production nodes would not be fun and doing so over remote desktop seems like a pain to me. I recently discovered puppet and I am just way too excited about what I can do with it.
Interesting that they've moved to Lucene.net for search - I remember hearing them say that full text search is one of the reasons they were so happy with SQL Server.
ugh, no, I can't imagine ever saying that. Full Text Search in SQL Server is very badly integrated, buggy, deeply incompetent, and I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it.
I'd be interested in finding out why they chose to go with Windows-based web servers. Administering 12 production nodes would not be fun and doing so over remote desktop seems like a pain to me. I recently discovered puppet and I am just way too excited about what I can do with it.
StackOverflow is done in ASP.NET MVC. They were one of the earliest adopters of ASP.NET MVC. It would make sense to go with Windows servers as Mono w/ Linux may not be up-to-date with latest C#/ASP.NET code. BTW, as they are part of BizSpark program, they would have got the server licences for cheap. And I am genuinely curious as to why you think 12 Windows servers are pain compared to 12 Linux boxes?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I recall, it was was Jeff Atwood knew best when he started it. It is a good example of all those stories of not being able to change technology after you become popular. It seems that they are accepting Linux where it fits best at least.
It seems odd, too, that they would use both CentOS and Ubuntu. Why not run Redis on Ubuntu?
http://blog.serverfault.com/post/stack-exchanges-architectur...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
StackOverflow is done in ASP.NET MVC. They were one of the earliest adopters of ASP.NET MVC. It would make sense to go with Windows servers as Mono w/ Linux may not be up-to-date with latest C#/ASP.NET code. BTW, as they are part of BizSpark program, they would have got the server licences for cheap. And I am genuinely curious as to why you think 12 Windows servers are pain compared to 12 Linux boxes?
He seems to think you have to log on via remote desktop to administer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I recall, it was was Jeff Atwood knew best when he started it. It is a good example of all those stories of not being able to change technology after you become popular. It seems that they are accepting Linux where it fits best at least.
Doesn't Spolsky's company live in the MS world, as well? (More significant that Atwood's familiarity, I'd guess.)
This suggests they're Windows native, but using custom tech to provide non-Windows compatibility.
I'd be interested in finding out why they chose to go with Windows-based web servers. Administering 12 production nodes would not be fun and doing so over remote desktop seems like a pain to me. I recently discovered puppet and I am just way too excited about what I can do with it.
This is at a VERY high level, but here you go: In theory I think that different stacks (LAMP, Java, and Microsoft were the big contenders at the time) are similar enough in capabilities. There are a million pros and cons to each stack. But I strongly believe that how WELL you know your stack is MUCH more important than WHICH stack you use. In other words, an experienced Java team will FAR outperform if they can use J…
Everyone should keep this in mind when they worry about server architecture - SO runs off 12 servers. As long as an app doesn't do anything crazy, it's going to scale very easily throughout the first few years. 1 server should be enough for almost anyone. 1 database, and a few frontend web app servers will take you to millions of views per day.
Unlike user software, most web apps get faster every year, and the stacks tend to get faster (due to better interpreters) not slower (due to silly 3D effects on the desktop).
pg loves to say that people who pay for server software are crazy. That might still be true for Google these days, but not for most people. You don't need many servers, and Windows is no longer slow.
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Out of honest curiousity, how do you administer them?
The same way as you administer any cluster.
The last time I had to work on windows servers SSH wasn't really an option though so we used remote desktop. This was on win2k servers though so things may have changed.
I think the question deserves a better reply than the glib "The same way as you administer any cluster." Is the answer really SSH? Or something else?