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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

#181

Post by hapless »

twistedpair wrote: post #94
hapless wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MySQL is possibly the single hardest database to port to/from, because it supports nothing .

In that case porting FROM it should be simple. TO it would be hard if you're using all those fancy features of your current DB. That's why I eschew all the sirens from Oracle DBA's of "oh... but Oracle can do that too!" Keep database activities in the database and application activities in the app.

The problem is that MySQL deviates from the standards (all of them) in surprising and uncomfortable ways. porting from MySQL is fun, when, for example, your target database actually ENFORCES the constraints that MySQL accepted but silently ignored. MySQL doesn't have that feature, but it won't bother to tell you.

Postgres, Oracle, MS SQL all support a (very large) common subset of features, so if you avoid stored procedures and db-specific features, you can port among them easily. This is not true for MySQL.

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

#182

Post by pjmlp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #102
soundgecko wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile millions of businesses are able to get it to work quite well. Ever use StackOverflow? NewEgg? Their server and tools revenue continues to increase by double digits. You think that's all media manipulation? Go search Dice for for the number of openings. Just because someone was not able use the right tool for the right job in your instance doesn't prove anything. One of my friends used Windows Server to stre…

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.

> Large Hadron Collider? All. Linux.

True if you are speaking about the custom built machines doing real time data analysis.

However, many users have Mac OS X and Windows as their desktop machines.

When I was there (2003-2004), quite a few researchers were even moving away from LaTeX to Word and FrameMaker.

There are a few ASP.NET servers at CERN.

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

#183

Post by ebbv »

tommis wrote: post #155
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…

I'm curious, why would you disqualify a SaaS product solely because it's based on MS?

Read again:

> Customers may not care when they're using your SaaS product, but my company is in the market for new support software and we looked at yours but because yours is Microsoft based, it's disqualified. We are looking for a self hosted solution.

OP offers a self hosted solution as well.

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

#185

Post by adventured »

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…

As another commenter noted, you do not get hammered on cost when you exit BizSpark -

"When you exit the program you get to keep all licenses free with all future patches. We exited the program 2 years ago and have yet to buy a MS license for IIS or SQL."

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

#186

Post by panderon »

mjn wrote: post #23
jasonkester wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that BizSpark "runs out" when you pass a million dollars per year in revenue. At which point you can presumably afford a thousand dollars for a SQL Server license.

There's also a cap of 3 years, even if you haven't hit $1m revenue yet: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/faqs.aspx#16

As a graduate of the BizSpark program, $100 gets you full license to the software you were using. Software licenses are then transferred to your organization. You don't suddenly incur $1000s of expenses.

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

#187

Post by beagle3 »

mpu wrote: post #53
Toshio wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like relying on the kindness of strangers to me.

Isn't it what you do when you use a free software stack?

No. Free software doesn't suddenly require payment 3 years down the line to remain legal to use

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

#188

Post by Retric »

seanc722 wrote: post #176
Retric wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Have any resources that explain Views and the efficiency vs a query..? I thought views had the same performance of the underlying SQL statements.

In SQL server normal Views are basically just a select statent but indexed views can have large performance advantages. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc917715.aspx Other DB's have there own optimizations for the same idea.

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

#189

Post by sljd »

regularfry wrote: post #173
twistedpair wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case porting FROM it should be simple. TO it would be hard if you're using all those fancy features of your current DB. That's why I eschew all the sirens from Oracle DBA's of "oh... but Oracle can do that too!" Keep database activities in the database and application activities in the app.

In my experience, MySQL lets you get into a state where questions like "hang, on - what's the difference between a DATE of '0000-00-00' and NULL?" are commonplace. This makes porting from it... not simple.

Although I have no experience with MySQL, this kind of problems have to be resolved by using LINQ to SQL since every db type is automatically mapped to its .NET counterpart. The DateTime .NET type then has only one representation of null.

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

#190

Post by toomuchtodo »

adventured wrote: post #174
toomuchtodo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm curious what the specs were on those 6,000 CMS boxes? Do you happen to recall?

I don't, but I could probably check my email. I was responsible for benchmarking boxes from major manufacturers for the selection process (which ended up being a waste of time, because only one of the vendors met our price criteria).
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