[ale] Re: One app per machine (was: uptime)

[Wandered Inn]

djinn at djinnspace.com wrote:

> What do ya'll think about the one-app-per-machine philosophy?  Is this
> overkill?  What about if you've got some sort of HA clustering or other automatic
> failover going on...does that reduce the need for a setup like this?

I think it is a good philosophy, particularily from a security
standpoint with respect to  your firewall, web, db, (can we say
EggHead??).

The issue is that Microsoft all but admits that their own apps "don't
play well together."  I should relate the specific situation.  We had a
single web server running NT and I wanted to have better control over my
email, that is, I wanted to pop it rather than Outlook it from the
corporate boys who wouldn't turn pop on on their exchange servers.  We
couldn't purchase more hardware, so I suggested the web server provide
email services as well, realizing, this stuff was inside the corporate
network.  The NT guy says no can do.  His boss who pretty much talks the
corporate/M$ line, is an old UNIX hack.  When the NT guy says you don't
want to do this, alluding to the reference that the apps "don't play
well together,"  I told him that you would never have a problem running,
say Apache and sendmail on the same UNIX box.  (I know, never say
never..).  Anyway, his boss chimes in and agrees that yes, you probably
don't want to run web services and mail services from the same NT box,
and that UNIX would most definitely not have a problem.


That being said, my overall experience with Linux/NT dual boot systems
is that I can keep adding the hardware to the system and NT is finally
going to crap out.

Okay, so maybe it is unusual to have a scsi scanner, scsi syjet drive,
printer, internal isdn card, pcmcia nic and modem, serial port fax
receiving device, hanging off a docking station on a laptop.  BUT, Linux
never had a problem, NT, routinely trashed itself.

> 
> jenn
> 
> Wandered Inn wrote:
> 
> >
> > I still disagree.  Everyone that has posted problems with Linux uptimes,
> > have added various caveats, as you noted, running an unstable version.
> > Other's mentioned hardware issues.
> >
> > I'll tell you this, if you stick enough hardware and software on NT
> > you'll bring it down.  I tried to convince one of the NT admins to
> > install mail server on our NT web server.  He told me that Microsoft
> > recommends not to run two 'mission critical' apps on a single machine.
> > Now whether this is because they want to sell another NT license or
> > because they know it can't deal with it I don't know.
> >
> > My personal experience with NT servers and desktop machines (over the
> > past 5 years) has been, as noted, if you add enough software/hardware,
> > NT will go brain dead.
> >
> > Regarding your web services noted above, # of web sites is not
> > benchmark, hits/day and complexity of the services (cgi?) would be more
> > useful.
> >
> >

--
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at denali.atlnet.com

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.
The
latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to
hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
intelligence."
- Albert Einstein
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