Does the server operating system choose Windows or Linux?

Which server operating system do you think is better, is it Microsoft's Windows or open source Linux? There have been countless controversies about this issue, but an IT consultant who has used Windows and Linux for a long time said that it is difficult to answer which server operating system is most suitable for work, because when choosing a server operating system, we need to combine Cost, performance, security and application considerations.

Reasons for choosing Linux operating system

Phil Cox, Principal Consultant of SystemExperts, said: "When using Linux, the operating system can be used without spending money, but if you choose Windows, you need to pay license fees to Microsoft. Therefore, from the perspective of cost, Linux is the best choice, and on any physical hardware platform, Linux performance is always about 25% faster." However, which server operating system is better, it needs to be determined by the actual situation.

Using Linux is also more flexible, free, and even the kernel can be modified by itself. Many custom settings can't be experienced on Windows, so there are too many people who praise Linux, but things always have Two-sidedness, Cox pointed out that it is precisely because of the flexibility of Linux that the maintenance difficulty is increased, resulting in many enterprise users discouraged.

For example, the Linux kernel can be modified and highly customized, so the IT staff's skill requirements are higher. In addition, there are many versions of Linux, and application compatibility often has various weird problems.

Reasons for choosing a Windows operating system

The appeal of Windows is stable, although not flexible enough, Windows is often the easiest when integrating applications. And Microsoft executives revealed that the future server operating system will have a big move.

In addition, Windows itself comes with a good access control mechanism, you can achieve effective access control without installing any plug-ins or patches.

There are system patches for both Windows and Linux, but it is much easier to patch Windows, and all patches come from Microsoft. The patching mechanism under Linux is much more complicated. There are patches for software development organizations for single software distribution, and patches for Linux distribution vendors. In addition, patching under Linux is a high-risk thing. Although it is somewhat difficult to patch in Linux, there are several fairly powerful patch management tools in the powerful open source software. In short, patching the Linux system is a very complicated matter. Without a bit of guts and grasp, it is not easy to install patches. In Windows, even a newcomer who has just entered the line can install patches to the system with no worries.

Cox said: "There is no TechNet in the Linux world. Linux users must seek help from the community. Because of this, the Linux community will be so prosperous." In fact, this is the relationship between Linux people and Linux culture. A good culture can make more people pursue it.

Perhaps it is for these reasons that everyone is saying that Linux is good, but they are afraid to use it, or why is Windows still occupying most enterprise servers? However, some vertical industries are now favoring Linux, such as the financial industry has become the largest user of Linux. Not to mention foreign countries, the development of Linux in China is becoming more and more mature, and has formed a certain scale.

Cox said that Linux and open source software are still very common in enterprise extranet applications. In addition, Linux is very popular in industrial technology. We can see the shadow of Linux in many products and services, such as Amazon's EC2 cloud computing data center is built on top of Xen-based Linux servers.