Apr 01 2008
Windows 2003 Server Unstable?
After reading the first post by reuben on http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/625801, I was utterly appalled by his unprofessionalism and shallow knowledge regarding “stability” of operating systems.
In his post, he claimed that “Not hosted on Windows 2003 Server” is equivalent to “STABLE!”. As a 10-year Microsoft technology veteran, I can’t help it but feeling sorry for reuben’s naiveness.
Here’s a short entry on how wrong reuben is:
1. Windows 2003 is one of those few NOS with extremely high uptimes
Aggressive kernel and memory protection combined with the infrequently need for patches translate into higher uptime.
Prove: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
2. Microsoft.com, MSN.com, NASDAQ – Powered by Windows Server technology
If Windows 2003 Server was unstable, why would NASDAQ let it to back an entire stock market? Top 10 most visited sites like MSN.com never suffered any software glitches and world’s busiest corporate website Microsoft.com doesn’t show blue screens.
Prove: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.nasdaq.com
3. 33.56% of the world’s domain powered by IIS
Internet Information Server, the HTTP server for Windows Server, serves over 56,265,527 domains. If it really is so unstable, why would anyone be using it?
Prove: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
3. My personal server runs Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition for nearly 2 years without ever crashing
Top notched hardwares, WHQL signed drivers and Microsoft approved service applications = highest quality hardware and software match possible
Perhaps I’ve nothing to prove my server uptime, but you could get yourself a rig and try running Win2k3 on it. You will be very surprised how far it can go.
The key to stability in Windows 2003 Server is installing only quality hardwares with WHQL signed drivers and not installing dodgy software packages. My clients and companies I consulted for have struck gold running a combination of Windows-IIS-SQL Server-ASP.net technologies and it would be unfair to make a statement so general as to say Windows 2003 Server is inherently unstable.
I personally maintain several servers running Windows Server System, Linux and FreeBSD. From my 10 years of experience in the IT arena, I can safely say that all of them are mature and stable and all of them are of high performance, so stop the endless server OS flame war! It all depends on what you need!
Haha, ignore that reuben. He’s really the man of shame who does not know what he is talking
Exactly. He’s the only person who has the courage to claim he doesn’t oversell when he’s sardine packing 300 clients on one bloody server.