Re: NT server, pro/con

turn_at_iadfw.net (John) writes:
:
: In article <D4668H.H9K_at_world.std.com>, <shf_at_world.std.com> writes:
:
: > I'm interested in hearing people's evaluation of the merits
: > and demerits of an NT server in a server/client RDB
: > environment. Speed, reliability, security, expandability,
: > ease of learning the system administration work, ease of
: > performing it--talking here about the NT side of things,
: > not the RDB side--are obvious areas of concern. Are there
: > others? How does NT stack up, to date?
:
: I just left a company that has been a heavy SCO user, but was experimenting
: with NT. As a longtime UNIX-type also, I was particularly interested in the
: NT Systems Admin tasks and was extremely concerned when it took an NT
: technician from Microsoft over a week just to get the software installed and
: operational. Initial benchmarking of a helpdesk package on the NT system
: running dual-RISC and a UNIX server running single 486 did not seem to show the
: expected performance advantage we thought the NT server should have. I'm sure
: this will draw some fire, but I was not impressed with NT.

Well I am no fan of Microsoft and I can usually be counted on for the most negative opinion of any given MS product, but your account of the NT installation doesn't match my experience. I too am a long-time Unix weenie, and my first NT install took 30 minutes at most. The worst one since then took three of us two weeks, but that turned out to due to hardware and totally misleading (ie totally wrong) help from the hardware vendor's tech support line. I can't blame that on MS.

Speed is not what it could be, I will agree, but if market forces compel you to offer the ability to run off-the-shelf drug-store variety office automation software as well as a database, then NT towers over the alternatives.

-Roy Hann Received on Tue Feb 21 1995 - 17:54:00 CET