MS in mission critical ?
Best laugh I've had all day - stick to the desktop, it's what windaz cement was designed for and leave the serious stuff such as stock markets to 'nix.
Microsoft is targeting mission-critical customers who need a response ASAP with a fresh support option that's only available with customized pricing. The company has announced its Premier Mission Critical package, which promises a dedicated team of people to handle your problems within 30 minutes of contact. As part of the …
...if there is no 'nix equivalent?
No I'm off to reboot that windows box that's been up for 3.5 years. oh no hold, no need still ticking along fine. (PS we had a NT4 box that stayed up for 6 years without a boot).
Ver often it's not the platform thats the issue, it's the poorly written software that goes on it. You can have the most stable platform in the world, but if the software craps out once a day, it doesn't matter does it?
Horses for courses dear child.
Shame on you for not properly updating that box !
Because if you were following proper MS patching schedules, it would be rebooting at least twice a week - or more when the patches were faulty.
6 years without a patch ? That box probably accounts for .01% of worldwide spam.
Congrats !
I hope it will cost an arm and a leg.
That way, when the inevitable screw-up occurs, MS will have heavyweight, top-dollar-paying customers screaming down their ears and the true, appalling cost of MS software will become apparent.
After one or two of those, management will have a chance to become desensitized with MS and maybe finally switch over to another platform that was built for security and robustness.
Mission-critical used to exclude MS as a matter of course, back when true IT engineers were still listened to, but that was before the rise of PowerPoint management. Now, you have Windows for Warships. If that does not send a shiver up your spine, then you are part of the sheep.
Mission critical used to exclude Unix, it used to exclude Minicomputers, mission critical used to only run on Mainframe. Times change, new but unreliable or unproven systems, over time, become mature and reliable. Windows NT 3.1 server is not Windows 2008 server, having said that, we still have mainframe guys at work who bleat on about anything critical being run "off host".
Businesses tend to create their own problems. If they just stuck with the same software instead of being tricked into upgrading because someone told them they needed "support", they'd hardly ever need support.
Do not run newer MS software, let them debug it over several years and a large knowledge base has been built and by that I mean in the community, not merely a few webpages on a MS' site. Be our beta-testers on your own dime, I'm all for that!