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My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

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Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#131

Post by TheAnimus »

spamizbad wrote: post #121
codeulike wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux has nothing to do with whatever reasons they had for such expensive server costs. It might do. The point is that Node/Ruby etc aren't particularly efficient compared to C# and the CLR, so you need more Server power for a given application. For example StackOverflow ran from a single windows server in the early days, they didn't add a second one till Oct 2008 http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/10/adde-a-second-s…

Techempower's benchmark's paint a different story than you describe. Node.js seems to be the fastest. ASP.NET MVC shows some strong performance in a handful of database tests but when it comes things like json serialization etc it falls behind the competition. http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5&f=ug-... Edit: FWIW it doesn't test Microsoft SQL Server. Still, for most simple-ish web applications I…

>Edit: FWIW it doesn't test Microsoft SQL Server. Still, for most simple-ish web applications I can't imagine MSSQL server being significantly faster than Postgres or MySQL. Its selling point is really its feature set as opposed to its performance anyway.

More than just that, they tested mono, which sadly is often very slow, and didn't test on IIS.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#132

Post by etherael »

jf22 wrote: post #128
etherael wrote: post #116

2 SP3's from OVH would be both cheaper (89*2) and have way, way more bang for the buck than a single weak amazon instance. (E3 1245v2 8 ht cores @ 3.4ghz , 2 x 120GB SSD in soft raid and 32gb memory) If you wanted to run windows on those, you'd need to buy two licenses pushing an extra 50$ a month onto the price. You also wouldn't need to screw around with spawned instances in failover, and you could actually use the…

>"On the other hand, if you build your apps around a horizontally scalable storage solution" I'm assuming you're talking specifically about Sql Server because there is no technical reason you can't use MS tech with Node, Mongo or MySql. What about Sql Server doesn't scale horizontally? Sql Server was scaling horizontally in the enterprise space since 2005. And also, all the fancy middleware ( memcache, lucene, whatev…

SQL databases in general don't scale well once they've maxed out a single machine, cross server joins are never going to be pretty and there's a pretty good reason why denormalising data and the adoption of NoSQL solutions with baked in clustering is taking off in a big way.

Re NoSQL solutions on windows, theoretically possible, sure, but which NoSQL solution targets windows as its primary platform rather than an afterthought? If you file a bug report, will they notice or care?

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#133

Post by jmj42 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #75
jasonkester wrote: post #19

I'll pluralize this anecdote. Every bit of my little software empire runs on a single Windows box. That includes my 3 main money-making products, a couple dozen smaller sites being hosted for consulting clients and my partner's businesses, and the Expat blog. Lots of steady-state traffic to lots of sites, several Techcrunch, Reddit and HN poundings, nothing to write home about as far as downtime or drama in the 6 yea…

I've worked in IT for 12 years. Microsoft server stuff never just works . I'm in the process of replacing a $1 MM video asset management system that sits on top of Windows Server with OpenStack/Debian precisely because of this. Microsoft server just works . Hah!

I've worked in IT for more than 15 years. More often than not, Microsoft's enterprise products do "just work." In fact, due do volume pricing (making server 2008/2012 licenses very cheap), around here I recommend Server 2012 w/ standalone LDAP role when people need an LDAP server. Why? Because it just works.

An a related note, I, too, am in the process of building a new video management system based on windows (why anyone would want to sit and stare at solar PV panels all day is beyond me). Install and set up has been a breeze.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more likely to use linux for things. Most of my development is done on linux, our video wall display management, AMI emulation platform, any many other tools and utilities, but MS does have its place, and where it fits, it usually beats everything else in set up configuration and management.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#134

Post by manojlds »

etherael wrote: post #116

2 SP3's from OVH would be both cheaper (89*2) and have way, way more bang for the buck than a single weak amazon instance. (E3 1245v2 8 ht cores @ 3.4ghz , 2 x 120GB SSD in soft raid and 32gb memory) If you wanted to run windows on those, you'd need to buy two licenses pushing an extra 50$ a month onto the price. You also wouldn't need to screw around with spawned instances in failover, and you could actually use the…

> Git not so great.

Um,what? Please try out latest msysgit and tell me what's not great about it.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#135

Post by toomuchtodo »

mattmanser wrote: post #117
toomuchtodo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, great. Stackoverflow and Newegg. Amazon? Linux. Google? Linux. Apple? Linux. Large Hadron Collider? All. Linux. Using Microsoft server in a production environment? Gonna have a bad time. There's a reason most sane people don't use it in important places. I don't hate on Microsoft server products because its in fashion. Its because I like to sleep at night.

It would be more enlightening and people might agree with you if you told us what was going wrong to cause you such pain? I have had many windows servers and often you can almost just forget about them entirely once they're setup, which takes all of like 2 hours even if you're using a whole new stack.

Excellent point. I apologize for my brevity in my previous posts.

I agree that you can't color Microsoft's server offerings by their older products (Server 2000, 2003). I do agree that 2008/2012 are much more solid products comparitively speaking, but I still would not use them in a production environment for several reasons:

Debugging: Have you ever attempted to debug edge case issues in a Windows server environment? I don't mean ASP/.Net issues, but I mean issues within Server itself (random reboots, OS hang, etc). Sometimes, your only answer is "Windows does that occasionally". I have Linux servers with uptime measured in thousands of days, almost as stable as the solid state networking gear.

Cost: I worked on the CMS detector for data taking at the LHC. We had over 6000 servers, not only doing data crunching but also providing REST services, database services (for both data and parallel file system metadata). Everything was Linux. The licensing cost alone for just the Windows OS on all of those machines would have been massive.

Patching/Upgrades: The only time you need to reboot a Linux box is when you're upgrading/patching the Kernel. Windows boxes? Patch Tuesday. Rarely have software updates broken a Linux box, and if they do, its much easier to revert back to a previously known good config.

I can go into greater detail if necessary. I agree, 12 years of experience is just a drop in the bucket, and my experiences are anecdotal in nature. I just rarely see (if ever) someone using Microsoft software in missions critical environments.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#136

Post by pplante »

TillE wrote: post #60
victorlin wrote: post #37

You're rich man, dude :/

Yeah I really don't understand how anyone can justify paying for a constantly-running EC2 instance. Amazon's prices are absurd; even Linode is better value. For $200/month I could rent three dedicated servers with vastly better hardware specs.

i am curious which datacenter you're looking at. mind sharing?

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#137

Post by etherael »

manojlds wrote: post #134
etherael wrote: post #116

2 SP3's from OVH would be both cheaper (89*2) and have way, way more bang for the buck than a single weak amazon instance. (E3 1245v2 8 ht cores @ 3.4ghz , 2 x 120GB SSD in soft raid and 32gb memory) If you wanted to run windows on those, you'd need to buy two licenses pushing an extra 50$ a month onto the price. You also wouldn't need to screw around with spawned instances in failover, and you could actually use the…

> Git not so great. Um,what? Please try out latest msysgit and tell me what's not great about it.

If this is just terribly out of date I'm glad to hear that and sorry to cast dispersions based on out of date information, I can't test it out anymore though as I don't actually even have any more windows systems, anywhere.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#138

Post by Retric »

etherael wrote: post #132
jf22 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"On the other hand, if you build your apps around a horizontally scalable storage solution" I'm assuming you're talking specifically about Sql Server because there is no technical reason you can't use MS tech with Node, Mongo or MySql. What about Sql Server doesn't scale horizontally? Sql Server was scaling horizontally in the enterprise space since 2005. And also, all the fancy middleware ( memcache, lucene, whatev…

SQL databases in general don't scale well once they've maxed out a single machine, cross server joins are never going to be pretty and there's a pretty good reason why denormalising data and the adoption of NoSQL solutions with baked in clustering is taking off in a big way. Re NoSQL solutions on windows, theoretically possible, sure, but which NoSQL solution targets windows as its primary platform rather than an aft…

In our tests NoSQL was far slower than SQL solutions the advantage was it dealt with hardware failures more easily, but if you use 5% as much hardware it's far less of an issue.

Edit: I think one of the largest probmems is most developers doin't understand SQL or databases that well. Indexed Views for example are an incredibly efficient tools that allow you to avoid a lot of expensive joins without the normal risks of denormalizing your data. However, try and think of the last time a developer mentioned them.

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#139

Post by toomuchtodo »

jmj42 wrote: post #133
toomuchtodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in IT for 12 years. Microsoft server stuff never just works . I'm in the process of replacing a $1 MM video asset management system that sits on top of Windows Server with OpenStack/Debian precisely because of this. Microsoft server just works . Hah!

I've worked in IT for more than 15 years. More often than not, Microsoft's enterprise products do "just work." In fact, due do volume pricing (making server 2008/2012 licenses very cheap), around here I recommend Server 2012 w/ standalone LDAP role when people need an LDAP server. Why? Because it just works. An a related note, I, too, am in the process of building a new video management system based on windows (why a…

Have you ever had Active Directory go sideways? I mean, really badly? In a large (100+ employee) setting? If not, please don't say "it just works", especially when you're calling to get "enterprise support" from Microsoft and not even the engineer you're on the phone with can explain why your configuration is failing.

Microsoft might have had its place. On the desktop. 5-10 years ago. But for environments where you need uptime? No. No. No.

EDIT: With regards to your video management system, does it have to be broadcast grade? Mine does. The FCC doesn't let you explain away fines for not being on the air "because the Windows box crashed".

Re: My startup is Microsoft-based, here's why

#140

Post by ebbv »

codeulike wrote: post #105
ebbv wrote: post #91

I don't see what the anecdote about the other person has to do with your story. It seems like you're citing it to try to imply that Linux can be expensive, but that's not really a valid point based on that anecdote. Their software costs were $0/mo of that $3000/mo. Linux has nothing to do with whatever reasons they had for such expensive server costs. There is no question that whatever their server costs, they would…

Linux has nothing to do with whatever reasons they had for such expensive server costs. It might do. The point is that Node/Ruby etc aren't particularly efficient compared to C# and the CLR, so you need more Server power for a given application. For example StackOverflow ran from a single windows server in the early days, they didn't add a second one till Oct 2008 http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/10/adde-a-second-s…

I'm not going to argue efficiency of node vs. C# here, it's too complicated and I don't have a good set of benchmarks on hand.

But I guarantee you that the traffic that the article describes could be handled by Node and MySQL or MariaDB on a single server too.

Just because someone is inefficient with certain tools doesn't mean those tools are themselves inefficient.

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