sos

Michael Austin wrote:

> Erwin Moller wrote:
>
> <a whole bunch of stuff snipped>
>
> The Biggest problem with open source/freeware is that there is no or very
> little
> support. If you can bet your business on open source, then have at it, I
> wouldn't. I have used a "closed/proprietary" OS for almost 20 years now -
> OpenVMS. Like most BSD variants there are few patches that need to be
> installed and but, there are NO security issuses to deal with. M$ is
> great as a
> desktop - but really stinks as a server. At most sites, OpenVMS uptimes
> are
> calculated in months or years rather than days as is the case for M$. I
> have not been in a shop in the last 5 years where the servers were not
> rebooted at least weekly to "clear it's brains" aka memory leaks.
>
> When companies look at buying mission critical systems and applications,
> they want a product they "paid" for because it implies "vendor supported"
> OpenSource has a LOT of really good people, but can you reach them at a
> moments notice --
> not bloody likely - as the Brits would say :) When your downtime rate is
> $500.00/minute or more do you really want "best effort" service?? I
> seriously
> doubt it. ( I know of several instances where downtime cost are in the
> millions per hour...) There are some sites where downtime costs are
> measured by whether or not humans live... do you "realllllyyyy???" want to
> trust "free" or M$$$? I didn't think so...
>
>

Hi Michael,

You are talking about a whole different ballgame.
I guess you are right about it.
500$/minute downtime?
If I was at the receiving end of that deal my monthly hostingcost would be
so high that I can cover the downtime costs.
Now I am hosting for a very reasonable price. Of course without 500$/minute
claims.
I am in a different ballgame. :-)

I have been running my servers on *nix for a few years, and had less than 1%
downtime over that period. That 1% is mainly because of a broken SCSI-card
last month, taking us 2 days to figure that out and repair it. :-(
I mean, it was not an OS-issue.

I personally have no experience with OpenVMS, but I heard before it is
rocksteady, so I take your word for it that it is a better choice in your
situation than any *nix.

Bottomline: You don't pick W$ for serious OS for servers either.

Thanks for your response.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

Michael Austin wrote:
> Erwin Moller wrote:
>
> <a whole bunch of stuff snipped>
>
> The Biggest problem with open source/freeware is that there is no or
> very little support. If you can bet your business on open source, then
> have at it, I wouldn't. I have used a "closed/proprietary" OS for almost
> 20 years now - OpenVMS.


And there is support for OpenVMS? Heheee! A handful of people who are
even available to support it.

> Like most BSD variants there are few patches
> that need to be installed and but, there are NO security issuses to deal
> with.

Excellent point, hardly anyone knows what it is, so how could they
hack it?

> M$ is great as a desktop - but really stinks as a server. At
> most sites, OpenVMS uptimes are calculated in months or years rather
> than days as is the case for M$. I have not been in a shop in the last
> 5 years where the servers were not rebooted at least weekly to "clear
> it's brains" aka memory leaks.
>
> When companies look at buying mission critical systems and applications,
> they want a product they "paid" for because it implies "vendor
> supported" OpenSource has a LOT of really good people, but can you reach
> them at a moments notice -- not bloody likely - as the Brits would say
> :) When your downtime rate is $500.00/minute or more do you really want
> "best effort" service?? I seriously doubt it. ( I know of several
> instances where downtime cost are in the millions per hour...) There are
> some sites where downtime costs are measured by whether or not humans
> live... do you "realllllyyyy???" want to trust "free" or M$$$? I didn't
> think so...
>
>
Interesting that VMS lives on. It is also interesting that you would
expect people to buy into VMS when there are probably zero people out
there in the population to support it or even get their hands on it.
Where's the download? Right. I remember All-In-One, it made it to Linux
distros a few years ago, but don't see it around these days. I even
programmed VAX COBOL, RDB, VAX Fortan, and VAX C with curses. Fun
environment, yet we spent most of our time creating aliases of UNIX
commands because of the retarded VMS environment. It sucked. It still
sucks. Like using PC-DOS only worse.

While you may be passionate about VMS, you fall into the niche, not the
mainstream. Your arguments for VMS are the same as they were 20 years
ago, but don't expect people to get excited about a retarded OS. Digital
thought they would conquer the world with VMS and where is it today?
Nowhere. HP needs something to make its company look interesting and
exciting since they can't come up with anything else besides a good
color printer. Enjoy your VMS, but don't expect anyone else to come
running to it.

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 16:07:49 +0000, Ian.H wrote:

> IIRC.. even m$ doesn't use windoze to host things like Hotmail.

I think that was true a few years ago, prior to Win2k's maturity.

see?:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=hotmail.com

--
Jeffrey D. Silverman | jeffreyPANTS@jhu.edu **
Website | http://www.newtnotes.com

(** Drop "pants" to reply by email)