Unix vs Microsoft

[Tim J. Arland]

I'm looking for any comparison information of the two OS types in the following criteria:

Price
Performance
Scalability
Availability
Extensibility
Time to Operational Readiness

Thanks

[S.K. Chan]

I like this article, realistic comparison and if cost is your major driver, I would recommend this reading.

http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1018.tco.html

[harry d brown jr]

Tim,

That's like comparing apples to rocks. It really depends on what problem you are trying to solve.

unix will beat any M$ OS in all of these categories:

Price
Performance
Scalability
Availability
Extensibility
Time to Operational Readiness

And you should add the category "Security" to the above list.

A start could be:
http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_results.asp?orderby=hardware

But it's not a comparison of apples to apples.


live free or die
harry

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

The 'total cost of ownership' should also be taken into account.

Who will install, configure and maintain/manage the systems... are there engineers available with a lot of free time?

Secondly.. what about support-contracts. Do you need a servicecontract of the supplier and if so, for what: HW maintanance, OS and/or applications ??

Regards,
Ceesjan

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Tim

No comparison:-

Unix is the most stable and therefore most cost effective platform.

It was designed for the ground up to be a multi user platform.

Example my main server which is very very busy 24/7 ??? Travel related, 650 plus users (telnet) 14000 Plus x25 connections per day, was up for 169 days with no problems ??? I stopped it to fit more memory.

I have another server that I log into once in a blue moon and has been up for over 2 years.

If you like the colour ???blue??? then windoze is for you.
I am a poet and did not know it.

Servers can be expensive, but uptime of +99.5% / annum is not unusual on a unix server.

So availability vs cost comes into play.

Yes most guys/gals on this forum are biased ??? but for a very good reason ??? We have to keep our businesses going more uptime/reliability = more money to business.

Happy business = Happy and well paid sysadmins. (I wish).

Just a few ideas.

Paula

[Justo Exposito]

Hi Tim,

Is very difficult to answer your question, this is because as you know all the people that works with IBM/390 systems tell you that this is the best computer and software, the people that works with M$ tell you that this is the best, then in this forum all the people will tell you that Unix Forever.

Perhaps you must to look for a third party opinion and the decision depends on costs, availabilty performance etc, like this parameters are known by you the right person to evaluate are only you.

Hope this help,

Justo.

[Sachin Patel]

You also have to consider what kind of application you are going to run?
For example if you are going to use Citrix better use M$ then hpux.

Justo I am all for unix but some applications are bulit for M$. It might run on unix but management will be hard.

Sachin

[Jeff Schussele]

Tim,

Please don't overlook security issues. M$ products generally have as many holes as swiss cheese - some large enough to drive trucks through. Even after COMPLETE "patching" within several months there will be holes again. As a rule M$ uses you, the user, to beta their security.
UNIX, almost all flavors, can be locked down relatively easily & STAYS that way.
As a rule, if its MISSION CRITICAL and accessible to the internet, don't use M$! If you don't believe me ask the Gardner Group - they make their living consulting to the business community.
If you want to use M$ products solely internally - that's safer. And may yield lower admin costs. Just be prepared for more unscheduled downtime - period.

My 2 cents,
Jeff

[Mark Vollmers]

Tim-

One other thing to remember is users and applications. While UNIX may be a stabler and better system, windows does have a larger array of applications, and many do not run on UNIX. Also, most people are familiar with a windows environment, while not everyone knows unix (I know, a shocker). You really have to weigh pros and cons of both sides, although I would have to say that unix is probably stabler and a good choice for web or heavy duty apps like CAD.

Mark

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

You should also have a look at http://www.netcraft.com which shows a breakdown of OS and Webserver.

The graph nicely shows reliability and server uptime.

You need to be careful on clustered environments when looking at tpc.. kindof cheats on the hardware results..

Later,
Bill