Re: NT server, pro/con

In <3ifhhk$rfi_at_ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> Capstead_at_ix.netcom.com (Tracey Brown) writes:

>
>G'Day All
>
>In <D4668H.H9K_at_world.std.com> shf_at_world.std.com (Stephen H Fick) writes:
>
>>
>>While working on an assignment to choose a database product,
>>I've just been asked to look into using an NT server
>>rather than a Sun Solaris 2.x server.
>>
>>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?
>>
>
>Steve,
>
>Here is my 2 cents worth <g>.
>
>We currently have six NT/SQL Servers that we are running. These are
>mainly Compaq boxes, with one on an AST Box. In my experience (I'm the
>DBA) these machines have been fairly easy to support both from the SQL
>Side and the NT side.
>
>IMHO NT is definitely easier to support, install, etc than say Unix and
>the such. The speed, reliability, security of NT are all very good.
>System administration is pretty easier both to learn and administer.
>
>We have been running NT and SQL Server since October of 1993 in a
>production environment and in that time we have had one server hang
>twice for no apparent reason and it has been almost a year since the
>last freeze. We have found NT to be a very, very stable environment.
>
>Only two areas of concern. Firstly, I don't believe that NT is as
>scalable as say Unix can be i.e. able to support as wide a range of
>hardware as Unix does today. However, that is changing. Secondly, the
>only real area of difficulty that we have had is in the initial
>installation of NT on machines that were just a tad<g> non-standard.
>However, to be fair to NT some of the hardware we originally used was
>not on the Hardware compatability list.
>
>Any way hope this helps.
>
>Dennis Littlewood.
>
>
>

Steve/Dennis,

   Hi! Here's my 3 cents worth:

   My company is in the middle of an enterprise management system implementation. We are currently running with 5 servers. Config is as follows:

   Server #1: Pentium Clone, Windows NT Server 3.5,

               Primary Domain Server only.    Server #2: Pentium Clone, Windows NT Server 3.5,

               Backup Domain Server, file services.    Server #3: 486 66 MHZ (clone), NT Server 3.5,

               Backup Domain Server, print/email services.    Server #4: DEC Alpha 2100 (1 cpu), NT Server 3.5,

               Backup Domain Server, MS SQL Server.    Server #5: DEC Alpha 2100 (1 cpu), OPENVMS 6.0, running MFG apps.

   We have been running in this config for approximately 8 months. It was pretty rough in the early months just because our system guy was fairly new to NT (like the rest of us in this world). We found that it began to stabilize when we started to offload services to separate servers. This doesn't mean that NT is unstable if loaded only on 1 server, however. Our sys admin just decided to do it this way because we were experimenting a lot with our new client/server apps ( and because we had to reboot a lot, users are always affected ). Also, most of our problems were directly related to the hardware we were using initially for all services: DEC Alpha 2100. It has gone a long ways from 8 months ago, however! Ever since we went to this config, however, it has been extremely stable, with minimal overhead. Anyway, to make a long story short:

      NT Strong points:
         - Ease of use.  Network services, user-id maintenace, hard disk
           config (i.e. shadowing/mirroring, striping, etc.) has never been so
           damn simple!  You can probably get it up and going just from reading
           the manuals!  Try doing that with UNIX or VMS!  

         - Ability to run entire company off CHEAP servers!  I never thought    
           that I would ever be in a shop that uses 2 regular Pentium clones and 
           a bloody 486 as servers!  (Of course, getting a DEC Alpha 2100 to run
           the main apps helps a lot, too!)  Seriously, though, can you honestly
           think that you can run your Enterprise Management System off as cheap
           a system if you were running UNIX?  OPENVMS?  We looked before we    
           dived in.....not even close.

         - Very low overhead.  You don't need an entire football team to        
           maintain this sucker.  I came from a VMS/Unix shop....I know.

       NT Weak points:

         - Limited software/hardware compatibility......for now ( is there a 
           comm server out there that runs on NT? )  Moved pretty
           damn fast in the past 8 months, though.

         - Support sucks!  This I blame entirely on Microsoft.  The level 
           of support they're providing is the same as if you purchased Word or 
           Excel.  This is ridiculous!  There are more than a few companies 
           running enterprise-wide solutions on NT, and it's about time         
           Microsoft stops treating NT like it was sold through Fry's!
           (Thank god the damn thing's so easy to use!)

         - NO JOB LAUNCHER!  How in the hell can you schedule jobs in NT?  
           (Fortunately, there's a job scheduler called ASHWIN for NT that we're
            currently evaluating.  Works perfect on Intel machines, but we've
            had to experiment running it on DEC Alpha.  Bleeding edge...)

     Anyway, hope this helps......

p.s. Dennis, since you've been on NT/SQL since '93, I would be VERY insterested in talking with you about several points. That ok with you?

Chris Phoa
ROHM Corporation
San Jose, CA Received on Thu Feb 23 1995 - 08:42:27 CET