Re: Facts About Hotmail's Production OS Environment

Robert Harley (Robert.Harley@inria.fr)
Thu, 28 May 1998 11:17:09 +0200 (MET DST)


Josh Cohen wrote:
>FACTS ABOUT HOTMAIL'S PRODUCTION OS ENVIRONMENT
>[...]

Methinks the Microsoft doth protest too much!

The usual method for quashing rumours is to make precise statements
which contradict them. Spewing feel-good platitudes that are vaguely
relevant is a sure sign of guilt!

>FACTS
>
>* Hotmail is the fastest growing e-mail service in the history of the
> industry. [...]

And it has been since long before M$ bought them. Yeah, so what?

>* Solaris is one of several operating systems in use. So is Windows NT Server.

The difference being that Solaris (and NetBSD) are running the show.

>* Hotmail was designed to be a massively scalable Web site. [...]

Which is why they chose Unix.

>* Long term, Hotmail is committed to moving to Windows NT Server. [...]

Sure. That's why they have been committed to Unix since day one.
I don't suppose M$ makes them say this in the hope that in the distant
future Windows might be up to the task?

> However, wholesale migration to Windows NT Server has not yet
> been attempted. [...]

The operative word being "wholesale". A partial migration was
attempted and failed which is why they gave up on it.

>* Significant planning and preparation are required to migrate a 24X7
> operation. [...]

So what? This applies when migrating to another system than can
handle it, which is not the case here.

>* Microsoft's e-mail servers offer scalable webbased e-mail solutions.

Not scalable enough to be a solution in this case, apparently.

>* Microsoft Commercial Internet System is a highly scalable Windows NT
> Server based platform [...]

Not scalable enough to be a solution in this case, apparently.

>* Windows NT Server is a true multipurpose operating system. [...]

Bwa ha ha! Did't they say that of DOS not long ago?

As we say in France «Il n'y a que la vérité qui blesse», "Only the
truth hurts", so if they bother to get worked up about this it's
because the "rumours" touched home.

Rob.