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Operating Systems Software Businesses Linux Business SuSE Windows IT

SLES9 vs. Windows Server 2003 In A Windows Network 21

Posted by timothy from the up-against-it dept.
Gsurface writes "Can SLES9 be a viable server solution as an answer to using a Windows 2003 Server? This article compares these two server products in a small to medium sized Windows network environment. The comparison covers areas such as reconfigurability, basic administration tasks, server tasks, file system performance, overall cost and user/computer management. These are basic functionalities that every network server needs to provide. Overall, makes for a good Saturday read." (That's "Suse Linux Enterprise Server," if you're not up on your acronym soup.)
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SLES9 vs. Windows Server 2003 In A Windows Network More

SLES9 vs. Windows Server 2003 In A Windows Network

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  • Emulating Windows Server is the wrong approach. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Saturday October 23, 2004 @04:37PM (#10610366)
    I've set up Samba + LDAP to serve Windows clients using Debian. Unfortunately, in this case, it takes a whole lot longer because nobody thus far has seemed interested in writing a good Open Source tool to aid in making this work out of the box and to ongoing Samba administration less of a hastle. Setting up a small enterprise server with Debian feels a whole lot like building a microprocessor given a pile of sand. As a result, we have the market for SLES, RHE, and others. While there's nothing inherently wrong with this, it would be better to have one popular open source solution that everyone is familiar with instead of dozens of proprietary GUI tools packaged with the commercial distros. "Widget frosting" is not a sustainable OSS business model.

    A major issue not mentioned in this article is the prevelence of Windows-only server-side software. Besides easier administration using AD, this is another significant reason why people stick with Windows Server in real life. They absolutely need their custom departmental business apps, so the choice of operating system becomes secondary. NOTE: This is why we need a strong focus on real-world F/OSS database applications. This is without question the killer app of Open Source in the enterprise. (Hint: big money here, and think Java)

    One last thing not mentioned is the fact that the Windows server environment is not just about sharing files. Group policies, MSI, etc. are powerful tools for administering a Windows network that Samba does not provide. After all, Samba is only one piece of the puzzle. That's not to say that these solutions are ideal, but if you're stuck with a Windows environment, they become a valid factor to consider.

    All things considered, we as the Open Source community should not be focusing on emulating Windows Server as the key to the enterprise. This is an endless game of catch up to unstable, proprietary standards. We need to aim higher. We should be innovating and re-thinking the current office computing paradigm. We need to make it attractive not only to replace Windows on the server but also on the desktop as a direct result of the benefits of a purely non-Windows environment. Those benefits can only materialize if we create our *own* enterprise solutions instead of trying to just become compatible with the status quo.
    • And this is a problem that will be hard to solve untill Linux gets MUCH more popular or MS embraces (true defintion, not theirs) heterogenous environments (don't hold your breath). The fact is MS will always have some advantages (especially in ease of use) when you use Windows clients. Linux might give you advantages if you use it to serve files or mail and use Windows servers for profiles and AD. If you had Linux clients and were deciding between Windows and Linux for the server, would there even be much o
    • First let me say that I think that it is important to provide an emulation option for Windows servers in order to decrease the cost of migration.

      That being said-- Linux allows you do to things with your network that you couldn't even dream of doing on Windows. For a place to start, look up Project Athena..... And Linux allows you to mix and match these ideas to your heart's content. For example---

      Microsoft's complaint with the Athena approach is "how do you read your email when you are not in the offic
      • First let me say that I think that it is important to provide an emulation option for Windows servers in order to decrease the cost of migration.
        That being said-- Linux allows you do to things with your network that you couldn't even dream of doing on Windows.

        Yeah, I wasn't discounting the need for emulation as an aid in migration. What concerns me is that too often the focus seems to only be on emulation when there is so much more possible.
        • What concerns me is that too often the focus seems to only be on emulation when there is so much more possible.

          You have a point. The issue is that Microsoft really pushed this server/workstation model and now everyone feels compelled to fit into it. If you are going to make Linux appeal to PHB-types, you are going to have to use this model, unfortunately. This is worrysome and troubling. But there is hope.

          As Linux continues to gain marketshare, we will hope to continue to see people really start to u

  • Lack of decent LDAP single sign on UI is a mystery (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday October 23, 2004 @04:43PM (#10610399) Homepage Journal
    Why doesn't some Linux distro ship with LDAP configured with everythign it needs including the appropriate schema and a decent front end for setting up Unix and Samba logins?

    I've gone through the trouble of getting everything I needed to get LDAP sign ons working in Linux, samba and Zope, but in the end the process was ugly as sin. It turned out to be waste of time because I couldn't delegate managing this system to non-technical people without giving them a course in things like Unix UIDs, LDIF, and LDAP schema.

    With all the tremendous work being done on the Linux desktop, the lack of a cross machine/cross application sign on front end, when a robust and scalable back end already exists, is utterly mystifying to me.


    • Why doesn't some Linux distro ship with LDAP configured with everythign it needs including the appropriate schema and a decent front end for setting up Unix and Samba logins?

      Dude, if Novell can't do Directory Services, then no one can.

  • For those who want to go straight to the charts.


    SuSE vs Windows 2003 Performance [flexbeta.net]

    At 60 users SuSE has 2.5 time the performance
    of Windows 2003 server.

    • That diagram is for NetBIOS/NetBEUI/NetBT/NetWhatever file sharing, which is maybe one one-hundredth of one one-hundredth of one one-hundredth of the possible things that a Windows 2003 server can do.

      • Re:Not to sound like an M$FT apologist, but... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Not to sound like an M$FT apologist

        You sound like an M$FT apologist.
      • Like....???

        Let's see what SLES9 will do for you if you want to replace your MS2kServer box:

        Running Oracle? Check.

        Running Toy SQL Server? If you can live with upgrading to MySQL, Check.

        Running web server? Check.

        Running Apache/Tomcaet or IBM Websphere for Java Enterprise apps? Check

        Storing your roaming profiles? Check.

        Unless you are talking about some obsolete cline-tserver arch application, I can't think anything that an SLES box can't do.

    • The article was a little wonky on testing methods, but overall they seemed geared towards trying to HELP microsoft's poor showing. The article makes the point, and I reiterate it here:

      "If anyone knows how to really increase the performance of Windows 2003, let me know and I will create an addendum to this. Apparently there has to be some magic voodoo you can do to gain performance on Windows 2003 Server since Microsoft continually states that Windows 2003 outperforms Samba."

      If his experiment is repeatab

    • From the article:

      As you can see from the graphs, Novell's SLES9 pretty much more than doubles the performance of Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server on the exact same hardware in both categories. This is very, very impressive, and shows the strengths of both Samba and the Linux kernel, as well as the attention to detail Novell/Suse employees had when implementing the default settings.

      With this hardware Windows 2003 Server seems to max out on performance at approximately 30 Clients with a throughput of abou

  • One of the sources cited in the article is Wikipedia. It is cool and dynamic, but may not be the best thing to be citing in a published article which then remains unchanged. Afterall, some of the viewpoints or arguments put forth in the article are dependent on the content of what they point to. If that content changes too much, it can pull the rug out from under the article. With a static source it is nonetheless possible to link forward from the old citation to the new one. But having the content of th

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