Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 versus UNIX

Introduction

The purpose of this page is to provide corporate managers with the information they need to make intelligent purchasing decisions relating to server hardware and software. This information is based on the experience of seasoned MIS professionals. The intent is to compare and contrast the implications of choosing one operating system over another in non-technical terms, or at least with as little technical jargon as possible. Due to the urgent need for the information presented here, this page is being released prematurely and should be considered a work in progress. Anyone wishing to contribute to this project is welcome to send me e-mail. Please confine your e-mail to constructive comments or criticism.

Operating Systems

Product costs and licensing issues

Most managers will agree that the mere cost of an operating system is trivial when looking at the big picture. Although Windows NT Server 4.0 can be more expensive than some commercial UNIX operating systems (NT 4.0 Server five-User version - $809; 10-User version $1129; Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition 4.0 25-User Version - $3,999; Enterprise Edition 4.0 50-User Version - $4,799; NT Server 4.0 Documentation Kit - $69.95; Source: Microsoft), it can be had for trivial amounts at trade shows. If a cost-effective commercial solution is being sought, then BSD (Berkeley Software Design) offers a UNIX operating system with considerably more functionality than Windows NT for only $995. In order to match the functionality of the BSD installation, additional Microsoft products and third-party solutions would bring the final price of a comparable NT solution to around $4,000, according to BSDI. Maggie Biggs, a senior analyst in the InfoWorld who specializes in database technology and application design, development, and deployment via intranets and other networks, estimates a price of $4,636 for a comparable Windows NT 4.0 solution in her article which compares NT 4.0 to Red Hat's commercial Linux (for only $49.95). Here one sees that successful marketing can often distract customers from considering their need for functionality.

For the most cost-conscious customer, Linux or FreeBSD would be the obvious choices. They cost nothing, yet they are just as stable and offer as much functionality as, if not more than, the commercial UNIX operating systems. One reader informed me that mentioning Linux would detract from the credibility of this article. I beg to differ. The existence of such alliances as mentioned in the article Andreessen Sees Mozilla-Linux Upset of Windows clearly shows that Linux is strengthening its presence in commerical environments. (For newcomers to this arena, Mozilla is the name of the Netscape/Communicator code and Marc Andreessen is the Cofounder and Executive VP of Netscape.) Historically, large corporations have steered clear of free software due to the unfounded assumption that anything free can't be worthwhile. The recent trend among some corporations is to use these cost-effective operating systems. Hewlett-Packard used Linux instead of its own HP-UX UNIX operating system while developing its new PA-RISC processor architecture. Schlumberger will be marketing a remote telephony solution that incorporates Linux. It is interesting to note that SunWorld On-Line gives Linux positive press in one of its articles, Linux lines up for the enterprise. Since these operating systems are free for use even in commercial environments, many ISPs run on Linux or FreeBSD. Of the two, Linux is more popular since it will run on practically any hardware imaginable: Sun, Intel, DEC Alpha, PowerPC, PowerMac, etc. Currently, Linux is perhaps the fastest growing operating system on the market. For more information, see Linux Resources or Red Hat Software.

Functionality

NT is often considered to be a "multi-user" operating system, but this is very misleading. An NT server will validate an authorized user, but once the user is logged on to the NT network, all he/she can do is access files and printers. The NT user cannot just run any application on the NT server (in order to take advantage of the superior processing power of server hardware). An NT user can only run special applications that have been written in two pieces, i.e. client/server applications. When a user logs in to a UNIX server, he/she can then run any application (provided the user is authorized to do so), thus taking the processing load off his/her workstation. This also includes graphics-based applications since X-server software is standard issue on all UNIX operating systems.

For most businesses, e-mail has become an indispensable tool for communication, and most companies run their own internal/external e-mail systems. With Windows NT, you will have to buy a separate software package in order to set up an e-mail server. UNIX operating systems come with a program called Sendmail. There are other mail server software packages (or MTA, Mail Transport Agent) available for UNIX, but this one is the most widely used, and it is free. Some UNIX administrators feel that exim or qmail are better choices since they are not as difficult to configure as sendmail. Both exim and qmail, like sendmail as well, are free for use even in a commercial environment. Many NT-based companies use Microsoft Exchange Server as their MTA. This is an expensive solution with limited success in an enterprise environment. Later on in this article, the section entitled Mail Servers (MTAs), provides a basis for comparing and contrasting these two mail server software packages.

Since Microsoft sees NT as a viable alternative to all other network-capable operating systems on the market, UNIX and Novell included, one would assume that NT would come with all the tools necessary to accomplish the most basic tasks required: file and printer services. Any systems/network administrator knows from experience that there are two important issues to be considered when setting up a file server or adding a new network user: security, i.e. passwords and file permissions; and quotas for limiting disk usage of any new or existing users or groups. Although NT provides basic password security, it only provides file-level security if you choose to use its proprietary file system called NTFS. Some MIS departments are reluctant to implement this file system (at least on users' machines), because they feel that recovering from disk problems is hindered by the use of NTFS. It is a common belief that NTFS formatted drives cannot be read by DOS, an important OS in the recovery from such problems. Rune Knapstad informed me of a DOS utiltiy called NTFSDOS which can mount NTFS partitions. It is interesting to note that this is a third-party product and not a Microsoft one. More important than this issue, however, is that NT does not provide any mechanism for limiting a user's disk usage! UNIX and Novell, on the other hand, provide software for performing this seemingly elementary control. Microsoft has announced, however, that its not yet released NT Server 5.0 will provide "new storage management features such as disk quotas . . ." (see their press release, Windows NT 5.0 Beta Delivered to Over 200,000 Developers).

To summarize, once you logon to an NT network, all you can do is read files and print. In a UNIX environment, once you log in to a UNIX server, you can be on that machine and do anything on it that you could do if you were sitting at its keyboard. With NT, don't plan on being able to set up an e-mail server with the software at hand. You will need to buy expensive mail server software like Microsoft Exchange Server separately. If your NT server should function as a file server - what else can you do with it really? - don't plan on being able to prevent users from crashing the server by filling up the disk(s) with their data.

When it comes to more sophisticated networking functionality, it seems that Microsoft's NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition can't hold a candle to the more mature commercial UNIX operating systems. Although not essential to network performance, 64-bit computing is here today with these Unix operating systems (as opposed to NT's 32-bit operating system). D.H. Brown Associates Inc. reports the results of their analysis as follows (the following quotation along with the table and the three graphs immediately following the table are excerpts from a Web page on Digital Equipment Corporation's site entitled AIX 4.3 Leaps To 64-Bits In Dead Heat With Digital UNIX 4.0):

AIX 4.3 takes the lead in Internet/intranet networking features by providing the broadest set of TCP/IP extensions and adding value with a bundled Notes server. Digital UNIX comes in second place with strong network security capabilities, bundling not only Web-browsing capabilities but also Web-authoring tools, with Navigator Gold, and a solid set of TCP/IP extensions. However, Digital UNIX lacks advanced NFS features such as CacheFS and AutoFS. IRIX 6.4 places third, bundling CacheFS and AutoFS, and network security features almost as strong as Digital's. But IRIX lacks network time facilities (NTP) and TCP/IP capabilities such as IPv6 and IPSec. Sun follows, with good support for NFS functions and the second-place array of TCP/IP extensions. However, Sun relies on its own Web server, rather than Netscape, Microsoft or Apache, and lacks authoring tools as well as important services such as Novell's NDS directory service. HP provides strong Internet support within HP-UX, bolstered by its good showing in advanced Internet protocol function and network security, while lagging behind in support for advanced NFS capability. HP-UX, along with AIX, has also established a lead in supporting NDS. While Microsoft NT 4.0 provides Internet/intranet support that overall rates as "Good," NT lags behind the leading UNIX vendors due to poor support for directory services, network security, NFS, and few TCP/IP extensions. Microsoft has largely focused adding value to its bundled Web server product and to tuning its Java Virtual Machine.

Internet/Intranet Networking Features

Reliability

In today's world, reliability is often more important than speed. Although performance is largely a function of hardware platform (see the next section), it is in the area of reliability that the choice of operating systems has the most influence. Even if one operating system offers more functionality, is more scalable, and offers greater ease of system management, what good are these advantages when a server processing real-time financial transactions is plagued by frequent crashes resulting in unacceptable downtimes? The analogy of a fast, economical automobile with lots of gadgets, and sporty appearance that frequently stalls in traffic despite repeated visits to the authorized service center is actually quite representative of Windows NT.

One often hears about Windows NT Server being referred to as a "stable" operating systen, but this is not entirely accurate. Were it so, then we wouldn't be reading articles like Corporate IT needs an engine that never quits (Peter Coffee, PC Week 3-30-98). Indeed, Windows NT is a great improvement over Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, but it still has a long way to go before it can reach the level of stability offered by even the freeware UNIX operating systems. Any IS professional who has worked in a Windows NT environment has intimate knowledge of the infamous "Blue Screen of Death," a situation in which the normal desktop windowing system disappears completely and is replaced by a full screen of hexadecimal numbers on a blue background. The only method of recovery in this situation is powering the machine off and rebooting. What causes "blue screens" in NT varies. In my own experience, the following can induce this state of failure:

• When both IPX/SPX and TCP/IP protocols are used and technicians put a machine with a static IP address on a different subnet;
• When some 16-bit Visual Basic applications are not being run in "separate memory space." NT does not run them in separate memory space by default. This is a manual configuration which should be set for each and every 16-bit application on the machine;
• Certain brands of memory modules or cache will induce this, even though the same hardware runs fine under other operating sytems, such as Windows 95.

This list is by no means complete. As a matter of fact, Tim Newsham, a software developer for both Windows and UNIX platforms, found this short list very misleading:

In the BSOD section you mention a few ways that a BSOD can be caused. I think this (small) list is misleading to the reader. There are so many ways that an NT system can crash, that by listing a small number you are likely to give the wrong impression. More dangerous yet is the fact that your cases mostly involve a person who is on the console doing something BAD to cause a crash. Many of the ways to crash an NT system happen inadvertantly in the day-to-day operation of the system (indeed, leaving the system on too long while running a myriad of applications can cause bizarre crashes with little clue to their cause). Additionally malicious users can trigger crashes due to shoddy implementation in software modules such as the login program (LSA) or the tcp/ip stack.

One real-life situation involving NT's reliability is reported by the University of Nebraska Press's Information Systems Department manager, Quinn P. Coldiron, who writes,

Life after moving Cats [an order fulfillment and inventory system] to NT was a nightmare. The system was crashing two to three times a day with no reason that I could find. I was on the phone with Microsoft and Cats constantly, but nobody could figure it out. Microsoft had me apply Service Packs one through three and a few HotFixes, which helped, but it still was crashing at least twice a week with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". After many weeks and about $1500.00 in phone support from Microsoft, the technical support rep told me that I should find a better software package than The Cat's Pajamas. This is was not the solution I was looking for, since this is the package that a sizeable percentage of presses our size nationwide are running, so I was forced to bring the old Novell server back into production until I could figure something out. . . . Fourteen months later, we are running Linux as our server.

The UNIX equivalent of the "Blue Screen of Death" would be called "kernel panic." It obviously exists, since I have heard and read about it, but I've never been witness to it in my professsional career. Although I am sure that UNIX servers do crash on occasion, these are extremely rare events. If and when a UNIX server crashes, it is almost always due to a hardware failure of some sort. Any software induced problems in a UNIX environment generally make themselves known over a period of time, sometimes in the form of overall gradual performance degradation of the system, giving the administrator ample time to track down the source of the problem, correct it, and stop/restart the process (very rarely the entire machine!) causing the problem. In general, a UNIX server is halted only in the following situations:

• Due to a hardware failure, for instance, a hard drive fails;
• A hardware upgrade needs to be performed;
• A lengthy power outage has occured and the backup power supply resources have been exhausted;
• The kernel is being upgraded.

System Management

The argument that Windows NT is easier to manage due to its GUI (point-and-click graphical user interface) is unfounded. The advantage, if any, of GUI over CLI (command line interface, i.e. having manually to type commands from a keyboard) is questionable. The first assumption is that Windows NT has an advantage over UNIX because of its GUI. This is wrong. UNIX operating systems have a GUI as well (see this graphic example).

"NT has long enjoyed an intuitive user interface for managing single systems, largely benefiting from the exceptional familiarity of the Windows look-and-feel adopted by the NT GUI. However, as users begin to deploy large numbers of servers, and geographically-dispersed servers, some of NT's architectural shortcomings for system management have become more apparent, deriving primarily from its design as a single-user system. The multi-user design of Unix supports remote access at multiple levels, including the ability to login with a character session, via telnet, to edit configuration files, running GUI tools over the network-enabled X Window System, and now through Java versions of system management tools. NT currently enjoys none of these features. Rather, remote NT management typically involves either installing a local expert which Microsoft hopes will be easier due to NT's larger volumes and similarity to mainstream Windows versions or relying on layered system management products from Microsoft or third parties. Neither option, though, quite matches the efficiency of managing distributed Unix systems."
-- Quoted from: An In-Depth Analysis of Five Commercial UNIX Operating Systems and Windows NT Server 4.0 (Enterprise Edition) by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc.

Performance

Processing power is largely a function of computer hardware rather than of operating system. Since most commercial UNIX operating systems run only on high-end workstations or servers, it would be ridiculous to compare an IBM SP2 or a Sun Enterprise 10000 to anything Compaq or Dell produces. UNIX has been historically an operating system for high-end hardware. To say that UNIX outperforms NT based on the results of differing hardware would be unfair to Microsoft. On the other hand, Microsoft has reduced, rather than increased, the number of hardware architectures it supports. NT for MIPS has been discontinued due to lack of customers and PowerPC support is only marginal. NT, now reduced to only x86 and Alpha architectures will remain "a poor man's server" as it is commonly referred to in the IT business.

To be fair, one should compare NT Server's performance to that of Linux or FreeBSD, since all three operating systems run on the same hardware. Unfortunately, a truly objective analysis of performance would have to based on benchmarks, and these, to the best of my knowledge, do not exist for comparing Linux or FreeBSD to NT. The general consensus among IT professionals is, however, that Linux and FreeBSD greatly outperform NT. Considering that these UNIX kernels are custom-compiled to contain only the software actually required by the administrator, Linux and FreeBSD can function more efficiently than NT. Inherently, any operating system requiring fewer resources will outperform a more bloated operating system like NT. UNIX does not require a graphical user interface to function. NT does. Anyone knows that graphics require incredible amounts of disk space and memory. The same holds true for sound files, which seem to be so important to the Microsoft operating systems.

Benchmarks performed on similar UNIX operating systems using the same hardware are more meaningful. Net Express, an Internet retailer of x86-based hardware, whose systems are "designed for scientists, engineers and the telecommunications industry," shows what results can be achieved with the proper operating system:

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Byte UNIX Benchmark 3.2 for OS Comparison:

In addition we are presenting these Byte UNIX Benchmark 3.2 results for comparing the relative speeds of three popular UNIX/UNIX-Clone OS's. Tests were conducted on Pentium 133MHz machines with 32MB's of RAM, the Triton-II 430HX chip set and a BusLogic SCSI controller:

System	Bytemarks
Linux on a Pentium 133MHz	12.2
BSD on a Pentium 133MHz	9.8
Solaris 2.5 on a Pentium 133MHz	6.2
Solaris on a Sun Sparc-II Ultra 167MHz System	13.7
Solaris 2.5 on an Orion Pentium Pro 200MHz	13.5

From these results we can see that Linux is a very efficient OS. Scores for Linux on the Pentium 133 were nearly as fast as Solaris 2.5 on a 167MHz Sparc Ultra or a 200MHz Pentium Pro!!!

Copyright © 1996 Net Express All Rights Reserved.

Perhaps an example of the performance advantage one could expect to find when choosing a Unix operating system coupled with the freeware Apache Web Server can be found in an article by Sean Fulton that appeared in INTERNETWEEK on May 5, 1997, Towers of Power -- We test five muscular Web servers aimed at high-end intranet applications. For NT, the test results were pretty devastating:

"Telenet System Solutions produced the most surprises during our tests, with a BSDi-powered, single-CPU system that kept up with-and in some cases outperformed-twin-CPU machines running Windows NT.

"The differentiating factor here was the BSDi 3.0 OS loaded on the machine and its Apache HTTP server software. All of the twin-CPU machines were running Windows NT 4.0 with Microsoft's Internet Information Server 2.0.

Admittedly, the following example might not be the most scientific test of performance difference between Linux and NT, but Richard Betel's information does give one an idea of what one can expect in real-life situations:

I've been running the distributed.net RC5 cracking client for about 2 months now... It's installed on every server that has a significant amount of idle time. This includes two identical machines: Both are Dual-Pentium II at 300MHz, 128MB RAM. One is running NT, and has an idle exchange server (we're planning to offer a service on it, but at the moment, its totally idle), and the other is running Linux (we're putting that one through its paces. Its a Samba server, and we're recompiling all kinds of things on it). The Linux box is trying keys at 1.8 times the speed of the NT box.

Internet/Some Common Misconceptions

NT is a toy operating system

For an operating system that has evolved from a toy operating system, it offers some professional functionality. Although it does not scale very well -- performance goes down with more than 4 CPUs per server -- it has come a long way. Although I would not recommend it as the primary operating system in an enterprise environment, it should yield satisfactory performance for small businesses with fewer than 250 user accounts that do not run mission critical processes.

By converting everything to Windows NT a company can eliminate the problems of a heterogeneous networking environment.

The first assumption here is that a heterogeneous networking environment is a problem. I once worked at a company where NT and Novell coexisted with very little conflict. As a matter of fact, the very reason for this coexistence was because Novell outperformed NT in the area of file and printer sharing services. With UNIX, one can create Microsoft-compatible file and printer sharing without the users ever knowing that these services emanate from a UNIX server. For all they know, it's an NT server. This functionality is provided for in Sun's UNIX operating system, Solaris. Linux can use a software package called Samba that ships with most distributions to achieve this. And, once again, it's free.

UNIX is this outdated, cryptic, command-line based operating system.

Wrong! CDE (Common Desktop Environment) is a GUI desktop (Graphical User Interface: you use a mouse to point and click, or drag and drop on a colorful "desktop"; this is the basis for Microsoft's success.). CDE ships with most commercial UNIX operating systems: Sun's Solaris, IBM's AIX Hewlett Packard's HP-UX, DEC's Digital UNIX, to name a few. For around $90 you can get CDE for Linux if you happen to be dissatisfied with your choice of four GUI systems that ship with Linux: OpenLook, the GUI that Solaris used to use; FVWM, a freeware GUI that has many similarities to the Windows 3.1 GUI; or FVWM-95, another freeware GUI that mimics the Windows 95 GUI (when looking at a single window, one can't distinguish between FVWM-95 and Windows 95). TWM is the predecessor of the various FVWM window managers which also ships with Linux. If you've never had the opportunity to sit at a computer running UNIX, here are some SCREENSHOTS of these window managers: CDE, TED (TriTeal's CDE for Linux), KDE, FVWM 1.24, FVWM 2.x, FVWM-95, olvwm(OpenLook Virtual Window Manger). These are only some of the GUI interfaces available to UNIX users. Matt Chapman's Guide to Window Managers for The X Window System is an excellent resource on this topic. You will find many more screenshots on his site than I am able to list here. Keep in mind that almost all of these window managers are highly configurable; you shouldn't be surprised to see screenshots made of the same window manager which look completely different. As Matt states on his page, "Let's face it, people are different, and those that use computers use them in different ways for different tasks. So why do some think we should all use (suffer?) the same interface?" Ironically, it is Microsoft's graphical user interface that is lacking the features of customization.

As for the claim that UNIX is behind the times, it is still the operating system of choice for science, engineering, research, and higher education. Most engineers would choose UNIX over NT without hesitation. They are fully aware of its ability to be customized and its tuning capabilities for the optimization of specialized computing tasks.

Everyone is converting to NT anyway, we might as well gradually replace our UNIX servers with NT servers. It's the way of the future.

If you talk to MIS managers of some large corporations who had UNIX and Novell two years ago, and then replaced their Novell servers with NT servers, you'll find that none of them can manage without their UNIX servers. It seems that heavy processing is still better accomplished with UNIX servers. So far in my career, every Oracle server I've ever seen was running on a UNIX server. One IT professional, however, did send me e-mail saying, "I support several installations of ORACLE on NT. There are performance and functional issues that I encounter which I have never seen on UNIX (Pyramid)."

View of Other MIS Professionals

Tim Newsham writes in response to this article:

"I develop software in NT and in UNIX. I despise NT. It is a horrid beast, it performs very very poorly and it is way too unstable. Some parts of NT are so broken that the majority of time porting software to the system involves working around microsoft bugs. It bothers me that so many people are migrating away from unix to NT. I can only imagine that eventually there will be a large anti-NT backlash as management types realize how much NT has hurt their organizations.

Joseph Day, a consultant in Chicago, replies to Jessie Berst:

"I do a lot of software development on both NT, and 95. I can't seem to understand why people are hyping up these platforms as being so great. . . . The support you get in the Linux community through netnews is far superior to anything that you will ever see with Microsoft products. . . . NT has a ways to go before it will reach the level of stability that Linux has.
-- Excerpts from a letter by Joseph Day entitled, How did Microsoft pay you to write this article?, Source: Jesse Berst's Anchor Desk. February 16, 1998, ZDNet.

Torsten Holvak, a systems administrator in Laramie, WY, replies to Jessie Berst:

"Jesse: I'm sure Microsoft, like IBM in the 60s, would love to have people believe that choosing something other than their products would be a career-limiting move. But it just ain't so! I'd fire an employee for putting mission-critical e-mail or Web server applications on an NT machine rather than a UNIX box. We use FreeBSD for everything and there is nothing more stable. Not only are free UNIX servers faster, more powerful, and more stable than NT, but the support is better, too. Just try to get an answer from a Microsoft tech without paying big bucks and/or waiting on hold. And consider yourself lucky if it actually solves your problem. I find it hard to believe that this story appeared on your front page. It's embarrassing. I sure didn't THINK you were into spreading Microsoft FUD.
-- Excerpts from a letter by Torsten Holvak entitled, I'd fire someone for using NT, Source: Jesse Berst's Anchor Desk. February 16, 1998, ZDNet.

Quinn P. Coldiron, Information Systems Department manager for the University of Nebraska Press, writes about his experiences with Novell, Windows NT, and Linux:

"After completing the morning duties, we normally run a complete Cats [an order fulfillment and inventory system] backup before we continue with closing which usually would take two hours to complete on the Netware server. The Linux machine was able to do the entire backup in 45 minutes, cutting a little over an hour off our closing time. This increase in speed came from a decrease in hardware because the Linux server was running only 32 MB in RAM and IDE hard drives where the Netware server had 64 MB in RAM and SCSI drives. The speed increase has been noticed in daily work also. I get almost daily remarks that the system seems to be running faster and more reliable.

"We have recently upgraded the CPU to a 200Mhz Pentium and have upgraded the Memory to 64 MB to handle the newest plans of making this server replace our Windows NT file/printer server, which still crashes about twice a month for no reason, even after an additional $1,500 in tech support with Microsoft. This single computer running RedHat Linux will replace both our Novell Netware 3.11 server and our Windows NT 4.0 server, while decreasing total hardware requirements. With the recent advances from the Samba team in supporting the NT domain structure and the December 1997 release of RedHat 5.0, I expect to have a very efficient and inexpensive server for our Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh clients.
-- Quoted from: Replacing Windows NT Server with Linux

On September 29, 1997 Nick Johnson writes in a Byte Forum:

"From an administrator perspective, I have a very difficult time taking an operating system seriously when it needs 128 megs of RAM, two 200-Mhz processors and 8 gigs of hard drive space just to run a small intranet web server, especially when the OS crashes and reboots from a simple, standard TCP packet. NT is just impossible to consider when reliability and speed are required. You could perform the same task I mentioned above on a 386 with 16 megs of RAM running FreeBSD, without paying the high Microsoft price tag.

Mike Hucka, a UNIX administrator and programmer in Michigan, writes:

"What boggles my mind is why people are investing so much in NT solutions when there is so much evidence that the UNIX solutions are more mature, stable, less expensive, and perform so much better? Why? What is wrong with people?

"Do people simply not know about the capabilities of UNIX?"

"Do people think that UNIX systems are too difficult to use? I may be biased, but when I look at desktop environments such as CDE on a Sun, or KDE, I think that's pretty close to what you find on a PC or Mac. And there is a TREMENDOUS amount of documentation for UNIX now available -- just consider all the books published by O'Reilly & Associates, or the online manuals available at Sun's site http: //docs.sun.com, or any of hundreds of sites with information about every imaginable aspect of UNIX.

"And not only that, but you can get free versions of UNIX that are comparable in stability and scalability to Solaris, and will run quite well on PC class hardware if you so choose.

"And to top it all off, you can get source code."

"Why, in god's name, do people persist in trying to use NT?"

Web Servers

The life-blood of the Internet is the Web. This is the face that the public sees. If your site is slow, plagued with technical problems, or inaccessible, this will surely have adverse effects. Since most large corporations are UNIX-oriented, they normally go with Web server software like Apache or Netscape-Enterprise. Apache was conceived with UNIX in mind. It is free and currently rules the Internet. Roughly half the Web servers on the Internet are running Apache (see the Netcraft Web Server Survey). Microsoft's IIS Web server software does not even amount to one-quarter of all Internet-connected Web servers. Apache is currently being used by Javasoft, The FBI, Financial Times, The Movies Database, W3 Consortium, The Royal Family, Oxford University Libraries Automation Service, M.I.T., Harvard University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Netcraft also mentions that "Virtual hosting company Rapidsite is now the fifth placed server in the survey. Their hosting system, running a personalised version of Apache, supports 44,280 domain names on 39,905 distinct ip addresses. An achievement, and probably the world's largest hosting system." You will recall that in the performance section of this article the Unix-Apache marriage put the NT-IIS one to shame. Not only is Apache fast, it's freeware.

For the most robust Web server a corporation could ever need, Netscape-Enterprise is a great choice. Although it is not freeware like Apache, it will meet the most demanding needs. Netscape-Enterprise is used by such companies as BMW, Dilbert, Silicon Graphics, Shell, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Ferrari and The Vatican.

Microsoft's IIS is one of the few things that actually comes with Windows NT. It does not possess any special or unique qualities not already found in other Web server software. It excels neither in speed, nor in popularity, nor in the number of concurrent hits it can handle. It is currently being used by Compaq, Nasdaq, The National Football League, Exxon, and Tesco. Given the fact that Microsoft owes much of its success to lower priced PC hardware, i.e. Intel-based machines, you would think that this great Microsoft partner would be running IIS. Well, guess again! www.intel.com runs Netscape FastTrack Server.

For Windows 95 and NT users, one of the most popular places on the Web to get freeware and shareware is a site called www.windows95.com. Due to the immense popularity of the site it requires a robust operating system and performance oriented Web server software. Since all the software offered at this site is exclusively for Windows 95 or NT, and the overall flavor tends to be very pro-Microsoft, one would assume that NT servers running IIS would be the logical choice for their Internet solution. Well, here's a quote from one of their own Web pages:

What hardware and software is Windows95.com running on?

We use Pentium Pro computers running the BSDI UNIX operating system with Apache Web server software. Our servers are connected to the Internet via multi-homed T3 connections.

Another View on Apache versus Microsoft's IIS

"Ed Frankenberg, product manager for PSIWeb -- the corporate hosting service arm of PSINet Inc. -- isn't buying into the Microsoft solution. He says PSIWeb, one of the leaders in corporate hosting with more than 2,000 customers, uses the free UNIX-based Apache Web server because it is faster than NT."

Source: John Evan Frook, "Windows NT Bids to Oust UNIX at ISPs (9/4)," Interactive Age, 1996.

Mail Servers

Views of Other MIS Professionals:

Billy Bob Thornton writes:

Exchange also has the "advantage" of requiring you to pay Microsoft for every connection to the server (per-seat charge). You can put together a system using, say a Sun Ultra 1 ($7K ballpark) and the Solaris Internet Mail Server (comes bundled with Solaris 2.6) and serve POP and IMAP to a couple of thousand people. I have yet to have anyone who wasn't a complete marketing droid tell me you can do that for twice the price with NT servers and Exchange.

Brad Van Orden, System/Network Consultant, writes:

. . . As I stated before, even putting aside the up-front costs, Exchange will cost you much more to operate. You have to have someone actively manage the application. If you are using Unix mail, as long as your sendmail.cf is set up correctly, the only thing you normally have to do to administer mail is add and remove aliases. This is a huge difference in on-going costs.

Tom Moore of Dayton, Ohio writes:

The trend seems to be to have the "dummies" be the administrators. I just read an article about web servers which stated that even though Apache was the predominant server in the Internet today, it was "probably not suitable" for corporate use partly because it did not have a GUI for administration and therefore needed an experienced administrator to configure it. The inference seems to be that having a GUI means that anyone can simply point and click and set it up right.

The same "logic" would probably be applied to sendmail vs MS Exchange. Since sendmail has a text configuration file, it needs an experienced administrator. Exchange has a GUI so it does not. Having worked with both, I do not believe this. Both set up quite easily in their default configuration. Both require administrative experience to do more sophisticated things. When you get to really complicated things like SPAM filtering, you cannot get there with Exchange.

Conclusion

Ironically, it seems from the observations of experienced system administrators that UNIX would be the operating system of choice either for installations on a tight budget or huge corporations with a demand for high-powered multi-processor servers requiring a scalable operating system. Washington Post Staff Writer, Elizabeth Corcoran, provides us with a real-world example:

Cincinnati Bell Information Systems, for instance, has used Sun workstations and servers to process checks for several years. It recently bought several top-of-the-line Sun servers to handle the demands of a million bills a day. The choices, said James Holtman, CBIS vice president, were either Sun servers or IBM mainframes. Microsoft's technology "isn't quite there yet. It has a ways to grow to match those-size systems," he said.
(The Washington Post, Sunday, February 8, 1998; Page H01)

NT is also an excellent choice for managers who need to show that they used up their fiscal year budget for hardware/software expenditures. Perhaps this is why it requires no prior purchase approval within federal agencies; "NT has become the 'unofficial' standard operating system for the federal government. Federal employees whose responsibilities include the acquisition of computer hardware/software require prior written approval from above before ordering a UNIX operating system or hardware which cannot run Windows NT. For Intel-based hardware or Windows NT, no prior approval is required." (as reported by a vendor of Sun solutions who wishes to remain anonymous)

For small shops or power users on a budget, or even medium to large businesses who are beginning to escape the antiquated mind-set that performance is best gauged by the last figure on the sales receipt, Linux or FreeBSD can easily exceed the performance and functionality of an NT solution, do it with inexpensive Intel-based hardware, and do it for $0.00, a price Bill Gates will find difficult to beat. Why invest in an operating system that will require expensive training and re-training with each new NT release? UNIX/Linux administrators are plentiful and generally more technically capable than their NT counterparts (most UNIX administrators have some coding/scripting skills seldom found among the new generation of "NT admins"). Why spend hundreds for MS Exchange Server that, in some companies, seems to only be able to handle the e-mail of a few hundred employees when you can use the built-in "Sendmail" mail server software that ships with Linux, a tried and proven application capable of supporting the e-mail demands of thousands of employees?

As to the actual overall features and performance of the two operating systems, it seems that UNIX wins hands down. It offers a variety of vendors (no threat of a monopoly), scalability, more efficient use of system resources, remote administration, remote computing, multi-user capabilities, large palette of (professional) software resources, vendor independent standards (POSIX), control of users' disk usage (unlike NT), and can't be crashed by viruses written 10 years ago for DOS computers. But the most important thing of all to remember from this article when trying to choose between Windows NT and one of the many UNIX operating systems is this:

A UNIX operating system will give you choices: any type of hardware, CLI or GUI, commercial or GNU, diverse choice of vendors;

Windows NT will give you restrictions: only Intel or Alpha; no CLI, only GUI (try booting NT into CLI-only mode) and then only one GUI (no wide choice of windowing systems as can be found under X); only commercial MTAs, only Microsoft (ever heard of another company marketing "NT Server clone" operating systems?), etc.

Although Microsoft is not the only "restrictions-oriented" software vendor promoting its own closed, proprietary solutions, one would hope that organizations promoting open systems and solutions would prevail. Netscape is one vendor that promotes diversity and points out Microsoft's pro-restriction, anti-choice stance regarding various products:

[Our] strategy is in sharp contrast to that of vendors like Microsoft, whose business model depends on customers upgrading to the most recent version of each operating system. Consider the following: Netscape's premier messaging client runs on Windows 3.1, Macintosh, and Unix; Microsoft's runs on none of these. Netscape's premier Internet servers run on Windows NT 3.51 and Unix; Microsoft's run on neither. Netscape offers native access to Informix, Oracle, Sybase, DB/2, and ODBC; Microsoft offers native access only for its own database, running only on Windows NT. Netscape ONE offers cross-platform application development; Microsoft's platform is tied to recent versions of Windows.
-- Netscape, The Networked Enterprise: The Netscape Advantage

It would seem that the question of which operating system to choose would be academic at this point based on the information I have provided here, yet every day some highly-capable systems/ network administrator somewhere is told by his/her manager that the company is switching over to NT. The administrator is left stunned and confused, for he/she already knows the information contained in this article. It is the management of your company who should be reading this. If you are a manager, try to use this information wisely to enhance the computing environment at your facility. Talk to your technical people and ask them what works. Make the right decision. Don't be fooled by salespeople who use buzz words but can't explain them, let alone explain their pertinence to your company's computing goals. Seek out companies who have implemented both Microsoft and UNIX servers for the type of solution you are considering. Try meeting with their technical people to get objective, first-hand reports on the feasibility, difficulty of implementation, and initial+ongoing maintenance costs associated with your proposed solution.

Table: Linux and NT Server 4.0 at a Glance

Since NT is often chosen on the basis of cost-effective hardware solutions, Linux will be the UNIX system in this comparison, for it thrives on Intel hardware.

Note: Only the items/features that actually ship with each operating system are listed here. Perl 5.0, for instance, is available for all platforms, but Microsoft does not provide this with its operating systems. On the same note, most distributions of Linux ship with only about four GUIs (window managers) to choose from, yet you'll note from a previous section in this article, that this is only a small number of what is available for Linux, or any other UNIX operating system for that matter.

What are Major Companies Deploying

Amazon.com

Amazon.com Books, the world's largest on-line bookstore, relies on DIGITAL UNIX AlphaServer 2000 systems to keep its Internet business open around the clock. DIGITAL VLM64 technology keeps data highly available to customers. "The extensive Web server capabilities of the DIGITAL AlphaServer series, coupled with its smooth upgrade path, provided the perfect solution for our rapid growth curve."

The Dallas Cowboys

Operating systems: IRIX (Silicon Graphics UNIX Operating System) and UNIX System V Release 4.0
MTA: Netscape Messaging Server 3.01
Web: Netscape-Enterprise 3.0

Dow Corning

"We're a global operation and have always used mainframes. Choosing Sun was a higher risk than other choices, but they really impressed us with their technology and commitment. Now that we've worked with Sun, if we had to do it over again, we wouldn't even consider making a different decision. Sun is doing an outstanding job."
-- Mark Smith, Manager of Information Technology Systems, Dow Corning

Yahoo!

". . . A couple of days later we added a FreeBSD box to our cluster of Web servers. Not only did it out-perform the rest of our machines, but it was more stable. A few weeks into this experiment and we were sold. Although the price was certainly attractive, it was the stability, performance, and access to the source code that sold us. Ever since then we've used FreeBSD almost exclusively for production as well as our development environment."
-- David Filo, Co-founder of Yahoo! (FreeBSD News, Issue 1)

This list of businesses using Linux in their day-to-day operations seeks to inform the public about the reality of Linux as a viable alternative to commerical UNIX operating systems. Companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Sony WorldWide Networks, Mercedes-Benz, and Yellow Cab Service Corporation are mentioned. A description of the capacitity in which Linux is being deployed accompanies each company's listing.

Related Links

OnSite - Case Study: Migration Migraines
by The AberdeenGroup, 1997.

Windows NT no match for Unix, IDC says
by Rob Guth, Computerworld, 7-24-97.

1997 Product of the Year Award: Operating Systems - Network Operating System
by Eric Hammond, InfoWorld Test Center.

1997 Product of the Year Award: Best Technical Support Award
by Ed Foster, InfoWorld Test Center.

Linux Reviews and Articles by Christopher Blizzard.
This page lists 65 articles or reviews of Linux.

Linux Grows Up: Red Hat's commercial Linux beats NT at its own game, by Maggie Briggs.
The author is a senior analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center. She specializes in database technology and application design, development, and deployment via intranets and other networks.

Linux lines up for the enterprise: Is there a place in your shop for this inexpensive Unix?
by Rick Cook, in: SunWorld - January 1998.

Doing the math to resolve the NT vs. Unix debate
by Wayne Spivak, Network World, August 18, 1997

The advantages of using BSDI BSD/OS over Windows NT Server
iServer - Verio Web Hosting Inc. - Virutal Servers

Linux: Not Just For Geeks And College Kids Anymore, by Jason Perlow, ZDNet, February 11, 1998.

Leaning Toward Linux: Powerful, robust, and free, Linux is worth investigating, especially if you plan to set up an Internet domain by Neil Randall, ZDNet - PC Magazine Online, July 1997, Vol 16, No. 13.

Replacing Windows NT Server with Linux by Quinn P. Coldiron, Information Systems Department manager for the University of Nebraska Press.

An In-Depth Analysis of Five Commercial UNIX Operating Systems and Windows NT Server 4.0 (Enterprise Edition) by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc.

Comparing BSDI and NT: Building Intranet and Internet Servers with BSDI and Windows NT

The Standish Group - SUN Also Rises: Solaris Vs. NT

BitWizard B.V. "UNIX vs. NT"

THE H-REPORT: Which Operating System For Your 'Intranet'?

Why Did You Write This Article? What is your vested interest?

As a person who works in this industry, it has come to my attention that an ever-increasing number of NT-only solutions are being implemented in situations for which they are ill suited. Actually, the phrase "NT solutions" is a bad choice of words since this implies that they work to the satisfaction of the customer.

I have written this article as a public service to the enterprise, corporate, and small business entities of the world. Monopolies do not serve the customer. Microsoft is slowly becoming a monopoly, not a standard, as they would have you believe. Java is a standard. There is nothing open about Microsoft APIs. They are, and will remain, proprietary. Java applications run everywhere, Microsoft applications don't.

My income is derived from supporting commercial software that runs on all platforms. If all UNIX operating systems were to dry up and disappear tomorrow, I would not be affected in any manner. As you can see, I have no vested interest in any one single operating system. I have not received, do not receive, and probably never will receive any financial support from any source whatsoever in promoting this article.