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

    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 Received on Fri Dec 04 1998 - 00:00:00 CST