Microsoft on Windows NT reliability

from Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>, Wed, 4 Oct 2000 00:03:01 -0400

Replies:

Parents:

None.

I found this via someone's .sig on the hypermail mailing list:

http://microsoft.com/ntworkstation/overview/Reliability/Highest.asp

> Highest Reliability
>
> Windows NT� Workstation is the most reliable Windows� operating
> system yet, resulting in significantly lower downtime for users.
>
> The increased reliability results in part from the fact that
> Windows NT Workstation 4.0 operating system actively protects
> itself, device drivers, and applications from crashes. So if one
> application crashes, the rest of the system continues to run
> normally.
>
> How much more reliable is Windows NT Workstation 4.0? A recent
> independent study by market researcher Intersearch looked at
> business productivity users in large- and medium-sized businesses
> and concluded that:
>
> Windows NT Workstation 4.0 is more reliable than Windows 95:
> Users of Windows NT Workstation are only half as likely to lose
> productive time or data because their PC stopped working properly.
>
> [ figure: shows "only" ~15% of NT users' PCs stop working more
> than once a month, compared to ~42% of Windows 95 users ]

Wow! Now that's reliable!!

> The percentage of users running Windows NT Workstation 4.0 whose
> PCs stopped working more than once a month was less than half
> that of Windows 95 users.
>
> Windows NT Workstation keeps users productive for longer: Users
> of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 are nearly three times less likely
> than users of Windows 95 to experience their computer "freezing"
> or other serious system stoppages.
>
> Windows NT Workstation helps reduce support costs: Users of
> Windows NT Workstation 4.0--of all skill levels--are nearly half
> as likely to call the the helpdesk due to their systems not
> working properly than are users of Windows 95.
>
> [ figure: shows "only" ~8% of NT users call the helpdesk more than
> once in response to system crashes, vs. 13% for Win95 users ]
>
> The percentage of Windows NT Workstation users who called the
> helpdesk more than once a month in response to system crashes was
> significantly lower than for Windows 95.
>
> According to an independent study* from Technology Business
> Research, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can reduce support costs by
> nearly $400,000 per month at major corporations. The study found
> that the typical organization can expect to save $483 per user
> per year for the life of the product. The study attributed these
> savings to software's robustness, security, and ease of use. It
> stated that Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can help cut helpdesk
> support volume by up to 29 percent.

reminds me of this hilarious page:

http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/rants/scalability.html

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

Re: Microsoft on Windows NT reliability

from Ted Guild <[email protected]>, Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:17:32 -0400

Replies:

curtisj

Parents:

gerald

>From: Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
>
>I found this via someone's .sig on the hypermail mailing list:
>
>http://microsoft.com/ntworkstation/overview/Reliability/Highest.asp
>
>> Highest Reliability
[]
>
>reminds me of this hilarious page:
>
> http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/rants/scalability.html

This page points out MS' site crashing frequently a couple of years
back, but now they're generally stable - even before the W2K problem
was released. How did they do it? I've seen articles and also have a
tale from a major company's sysads when doing some contract work for
them. They bought into the whole MS suite of products and found their
site crashing regularly. They had install recipes (NT 4, SP4, asp
hotfix, MS Site Server, MTS, SP5,....) that had to be followed in a
particular order. In addition to MS' own consultants giving this
"proven" recipe they also had them install it and all the company's
custom apps on a number of beefy Compaqs and use a load-balancer
(pretty sure it was this one, not surprisingly there's a fairly big
market for this type of product) http://www.f5.com which determines
availability, load, etc. of machines and directs requests that way and
is the same technique MS supposedly used (perhaps changed with W2K
clustering) for themselves.

Oh, and this Fortune 500 insurance company merged with another
insurance company and there have been mass firings especially amongst
the managers and executives in the IT department. Perhaps that adage
"you can't get fired for recommending MS technologies" is gone.

--
Ted Guild <[email protected]>
http://www.guilds.net

RE: Microsoft on Windows NT reliability

from "Curtis Johnstone" <[email protected]>, Wed, 4 Oct 2000 21:48:14 -0400

Replies:

None.

Parents:

Admittedly the robustness (or lack thereof) of Microsoft's O/S really pisses
me off. What I don't understand is, with 20 billion in cash reserves, you
think MS could fund a 'crash reduction' initiative.

Having said that it is all too easy to target Microsoft for this. They have
~80% of the world's desktops. We are talking millions upon millions of every
variety of PC hardware you can possibly imagine. No other O/S comes remotely
close to being used a) in such a widely diverse hardware environment, and b)
as often, and c) with a such a wide variety of software applications.

We really have nothing to compare it to.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Ted Guild
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 8:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Microsoft on Windows NT reliability

>From: Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
>
>I found this via someone's .sig on the hypermail mailing list:
>
>http://microsoft.com/ntworkstation/overview/Reliability/Highest.asp
>
>> Highest Reliability
[]
>
>reminds me of this hilarious page:
>
> http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/rants/scalability.html

This page points out MS' site crashing frequently a couple of years
back, but now they're generally stable - even before the W2K problem
was released. How did they do it? I've seen articles and also have a
tale from a major company's sysads when doing some contract work for
them. They bought into the whole MS suite of products and found their
site crashing regularly. They had install recipes (NT 4, SP4, asp
hotfix, MS Site Server, MTS, SP5,....) that had to be followed in a
particular order. In addition to MS' own consultants giving this
"proven" recipe they also had them install it and all the company's
custom apps on a number of beefy Compaqs and use a load-balancer
(pretty sure it was this one, not surprisingly there's a fairly big
market for this type of product) http://www.f5.com which determines
availability, load, etc. of machines and directs requests that way and
is the same technique MS supposedly used (perhaps changed with W2K
clustering) for themselves.

Oh, and this Fortune 500 insurance company merged with another
insurance company and there have been mass firings especially amongst
the managers and executives in the IT department. Perhaps that adage
"you can't get fired for recommending MS technologies" is gone.

--
Ted Guild <[email protected]>
http://www.guilds.net