Re: NT vs Unix

fse wrote in message ...

>Unix is more secure because it has been around a lot longer than NT and has
>had most of its holes fixed. <snipped>

But this has nothing to do with Oracle, does it? Especially if you're not using operating system security. So, MS domain authentication problems aside, what is the problem with regards to security when running Oracle on NT? I can not see any. As long as you stick to the Oracle tools for administration, the operating system security does not come into play.

Hell, Unix is a lot -less- secure than NT Domain securty in many ways as a result of the telnet protocol. We've run a Linux sniffer in realtime and saw letter for letter, command for command, what the Oracle DBA was doing.

The problem is not the operating system per se, but HOW IT IS USED.

>been allowed in the first place (a good number of the attacks on NT are
based
>on similar attacks to Unix years before).

Agree. MS should have paid attention in class. But most of these are DoS attacks and can not really compromise your Oracle database. Sure, having the operating system knock out under of you is a Bad Thing (tm) no denying it. But once again, there are DoS attacks that work against Unix too. And what about the DoS attacks (like ping floods) that can be triggered via older Cisco routers? Nothing you do with the o/s will save you in this case.

>>Disagree. I have seen rock steady NT systems. And I have seen Unix systems
>>that crash a lot.

>NO way! Even with tuning and care, NT is just not up to the stability that
>can be provided by Unix. <snipped>

I simply call it the way I've seen it personally. It's not the o/s that's unstable. It's what you're trying to do with it. Sure, IMHO NT can not carry the same load that Unix can on the same platform. But that has nothing to do with robustness. With the right hardware, proper installation and proper sysadmin NT can be as robust as any Unix server.

>One of our mainframe systems has been ruuning for last 8 years
> with only 2 outages, totaling 15 minutes! Now that is stable.
><snipped> Would you put NT in that class.

No. But then neither would I put Unix in that class either. Mainframes are usually so rock hard it takes a -real- stuffup to crash them.

>MS has stated the following at
>http://www.microsoft.com/technet/topics/year2k/product/user_view14889EN.htm
<snipped>

Thanks for the info about MS's Y2K problems. Interesting. Would have thought that they would have addressed all the o/s Y2K issues some time ago.

The bottomline is that too often problems are blamed on the product. Lack of performance. Lack of robustness. And whatever. This IMO is (to put it bluntly) rather lack of INTELLIGENCE on the side of sysadmins. Treat NT (of for that matter something like Linux) like a mickey mouse o/s, and it will behave like one. Which team win races? The one with the fastest car, or the ones with best drivers and best pit teams? (not saying that car is not important, but hope you get what I'm trying to say with his analogy)

regards,
Billy Received on Mon Jan 11 1999 - 07:07:52 CST