Re: why need a server version?

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On 8/19/2005 13:56, Manny Borges wrote:
> I didn't know Apache ran SharePoint. And thats built into XP right?
> Easy to install and configure?

No, but runs plenty of packages that offer similar features. No. Why
yes, it is as easy as configuring IIS :)

> We are talking "out of the box" here. Try and keep that in mind as we
> go down the list.

I didn't see the OP talking out-of-box only.

> I have no idea what you are talking about here. daemons = unix.

Sorry about that: s/daemons/services

> My personal opinion is that FTP should be wiped out and replaced with
> SSH. I just have no use for the service, so perhaps my personal
> feelings have colored my answer.

I agree, and SSH/SCP is available on any windows

>>> Now lets talk about a few of the things that serve does that XP pro
>>> does not do at all:
>>>
>>> Fault tolerant software RAID.

Hmm, our argument is moot. My suspicions were correct that XP does
support software RAID (I just haven't used SW raid in that long).
Specifically, it supports type JBOD, 0, 1, and 5.

> And all those are built into XP? Come on, you must realize how much
> time would be involved in setting up an XP machine to do all that. You
> would be better served at that point with using a Linux box since you
> are always going to come back to the issue of 10 concurrent sessions.

The time spent setting up third party products is comparable to setting up
the MS equivalents. Add on to that the fact that many of the third party
products are more stable, have more features, and cost less (agreed no,
those things aren't always the case in every situation). No, I don't
think Linux would be better for most.

The 10 connection limit you and others are talking about is kind of a fear
mongering thing from MS. It exists only for MS based file, print, and
auth services. Raw network connections are not limited in any way prior
to XP SP2 and the inane "anti worm replication" limit imposed since then
is easily worked around.

For example, on my machine (sharing some things via bit torrent at the
moment) I can count the number of separate connections like this:

C:\>netstat -a -p TCP | awk {"print $3"} | grep -v "jay" | wc -l
119

Subtract about 5 connections to localhost and you're still looking at over
a hundred TCP connections outbound. Http, ftp, ssh, smtp, or virtually
any other common protocol is not affected by the artificial 10 conn. limit.

>> Bottom line is that server licensing is a $ making exercise. There's
>> really not too much difference other than a few odd bits.
>>
> Of course it is. Should MS not charge more for something they spent a
> whole lot more time developing and that has a load of built in tools
> and services

Yes, they should charge more. :) But those $ are not for substantially
different code! It's for support really, and mostly because the market
will bear it. Think about it, the amount of time spent coding and testing
server is not really *that* much more. The client and server OS are
virtually the same throughout the kernel, drivers, shell, and core
services--a vast majority of the total code in the OS. There are only a
very few components, such as you mentioned WINS, DFS and active directory
related, that are not available on the client version of the OS. In fact,
the AD (and before that the legacy SMB Domain) and related LDAP and
Kerberos server code is probably the biggest single difference between
Server and Client. Also, the "strings" command reveals that not a small
amount of code came from BSD which would cost only some porting effort.
Trust me, things have not changed that much since NT4 when the
Sysinternals paper was written (did you read that paper before replying?).
Even the add-on MS server products that are only supposed to run on
server versions of windows will actually run on a client version with a
few trivial changes. Those limits are entirely artificial.

Obviously, a company would be foolish to resort to such hackery and legal
exposure but isn't it revealing to know that windows "server" is pretty
much just the same client version of windows with all the limits and baby
sitting removed? It's the same idea as those cheaper versions of
graphics cards that can be "upgraded" to the "Pro" model for nothing more
than a quick flash of the firmware and a couple setting changes.

There are many reasons for running the server version of windows. Saying
that it's drastically different than the client version is not one of
them. If all one needs is a simple web server (or even a complex database
driven one!) for a few hundred or thousand clients WinXP will work just fine.

~Jason

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