In this article I will analyze the features and costs to select which is the best operating system for servers as well as the services that each one of them brings to us.Note: I am not an english native, please excuse poor grammar and syntax.
They are groups of people in the world that defend free versions of OS (Operating Systems) like Linux and FreeBSD and hate Windows. But those that love Windows and Microsoft also exist and they hate the free software. Each one of these parts has very strong reasons to affirm their approach... but... Who are better?
Here we will demonstrate that none of the two groups is right because Windows and UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD) have advantages and disadvantages. The best solution is one that adapts to the necessities and each client's scenario. Let us begin to characterize each OS and for that reason we will make it a chart of features. We will give values from 0 to 5 (worse - better). This table has been made with values gathered from a series of tests done with two kind of hardware: 1 - Professional Server Hardware (Server with Intel Xeon 2 Processors 1.0Ghz, 40GB Disks SCSI, 1GB RAM, 100MBits Network Card). 2 - Standard PC (Pentium 4 1.6Ghz, 40GB IDE Disks, 512MB DDR266 RAM, 10MBits Network Card). And we do that with Network Load. Of course, we fist use Hardware type 1 with FreeBSD and Windows 2003 and later we try with Hardware type 2 with the same Operating Systems. Optimization has not been made to any Operating System. We use standard installation and with proceed with minimal configuration options. We use standard PC hardware because we were curios about the behavior of the OS in that kind of hardware (there were rumors that Windows does run with low performance and a lot of errors in PC Hardware. In our tests that didn't happen). Well, let's begin
| Feature | Linux,Freebsd | Windows 2003 SBS |
| Easy Deployment on a Network (Clients) | 3 | 5 |
|
- Installation and configuration of Windows on the Network was very easy. We use
a preconfigured version of this OS (using the Wizard that comes with the
Support Tools) and use Remote Installation. later with Active Directory, Group
Policy and Remote Configuration we did the final configuration. |
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| Easy Administration | 3 | 5 |
|
- Windows 2003: It has a lot of Wizards that guide you trough the process of
Installation, Configuration and Administration. Windows use MMC (Microsoft
Management Console) and has many technologies like Remote Desktop, Remote
Administrative Tools, and also has a lot of command tools that an expert can
use. |
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| Easy Adaptation to Changes | 3 | 5 |
|
- Active Directory: Is the key of the adaptation. Suppose that we want to merge
companies and we want to make a centralized control. With Active
Directory we can make it. We can distribute Policies and we can manage every
aspect of the clients. |
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| Easy Client-Server Integration and Flexibility | 3 | 5 |
| - Windows: Microsoft build XP and 2003, this OS communicates
perfectly using technologies like Active Directory, GPO, Exchange
Server-Outlook, Windows SharePoint-Office 2003, and so. (Remember that Exchange
and SharePoint comes with SBS version) - FreeBSD: This OS has the problem that has other UNIX OSes. There is not Integrability. It has a lot of tools and a lot of applications but there is a mess. There is not Version Control (Each tool controls it's version separately) and there is a lot of version of the same thing. Of course the network administrator can make a line of software and can force clients to use it, but there is a "Easy" tool that do that Automatically? |
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| Easy administration of LAN Networks | 3 | 5 |
|
- Windows: We have Active Directory to manage users, we have Group Policy
Objects to control all aspects of the Client OS (XP), we have Software
Update Services to patch Client OS, WMI, and other technologies. Behold, GPO is
the great feature of Windows also we can distribute software and force to use
it using GPO.
|
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| Consumption of Resources | 5 | 0 |
| Microsoft has made a very good job with Windows 2003 comparing with
NT and 2000, but FreeBSD won this battle. Windows loads some unnecesary services and FreeBSD only loads those things that you want to. Windows has a constant graphical interface and FreeBSD not. Windows loads All Hardware in memory (You can deactivate someones) and FreeBSD only loads there ones that you want to use. FreeBSD has a better (and configurable) memory management than Windows. To corroborate that last idea, we did this test: We build a script that uses the "cp" command on FreeBSD and the "copy" command on Windows (Bash vs Cmd). We create a file of 10GB and we begin to copy it from one location to other. Windows and FreeBSD handled this (Performance in FreeBSD diminished a little). The Problem was here: we create 15 000 files of one byte each one and guess what... We begin to copy it from one location to other and Windows Performance diminished a lot (You opened Explorer and it doest open, the mouse was blocked in intervals, and the processors was 100% each one). How could it be possible? |
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| Best performance (OS) in the same Hardware | 5 | 4 |
| This is relative because performance has many aspects. There are
Official Comparisons between Samba vs Windows SMB, Apache vs IIS, PHP
vs ASP, Java vs .NET, Postfix vs Exchange and there are many others. I gave one point more to FreeBSD because in my own scenario FreeBSD worked a bit more quickly than Windows. I evaluate these protocols SMTP, POP3, DNS, DHCP, SMB, HTTP (Using Postfix, Exchange, Apache, Samba, IIS) and the behavior of System's Performance in general, using benchmarking software available on Internet. I didn't keep in mind how fast Apache vs IIS ran, i only saw the load of the system. Of course this is a polemic thing so, i recommend that if you are interested to know what is better (Apache vs IIS or other comparison) i recommend you that remit you to the Official comparison available on Internet. |
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| Cost of Licenses | 5 | 0 |
| Windows costs, FreeBSD is Free. | ||
| Secure system | 5 | 3 |
| The security is Relative. Windows has more holes than other
operating systems because most of the hackers attacks windows more that other
OSes. But perfectly, undiscovered holes of security can still exist in UNIX.
Let us also keep in mind that Windows has the best Technical Support, and when
being discovered a flaw they corrects it quickly.
However we give 5 to FreeBSD and 3 to Windows because historically FreeBSD resists more attacks than Windows and of course there is a time that windows is vulnerable, i refer to the time between the hole is discovered and the Support corrects it. And we must notice something to... The is more software, virus, programs, trojans, etc that runs in Windows than FreeBSD, so this is a good thing for FreeBSD and something against Windows Security that will exist ever. We must declare too that Windows 2003 own many prizes of Security and there are official sites that declares that Windows is the most secure operating system in the world. I respect that. So if you have another opinion you can remit to these official sites of security. |
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- "Head to Head, Page 1/2"
- "Head to Head, Page 2/2"
