commodore.ca | Modern PC News For the week Ending Dec 14 2003

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

Wired.com | Microsoft Knows Best
By Lauren Weinstein - Thanx to Victor for this one

Microsoft Senior Vice President Craig Mundie recently suggested that in the name of security, it may be appropriate to force you to install Microsoft patches or updates, and if that breaks your existing applications, well, it's for your own good...

...Some users just don't care. They may not understand security at all, their systems seem to work OK, and they don't want to bother changing anything. Are they at risk? Yep.

Other users (usually more experienced) have a different concern. They're the ones who have handled Microsoft updates and patches in the past, so now they're simply terrified at the thought of installing new ones. They've seen too many Microsoft updates that broke applications, opened up new security holes or totally hosed their systems.

Even relatively simple Microsoft patches -- many of which are impossible to undo effectively -- have been known to have major side effects and in some cases create catastrophic results on system stability. Users so burned are likely to view new Microsoft patches and service packs with the same enthusiasm they normally reserve for root canals.

Concerned persons running critical applications in businesses, hospitals and government agencies often think long and hard before installing Microsoft upgrades. They can't afford to have their production systems disrupted, even at the risk of some security exposure. After all, they're in the best positions to determine what's appropriate for their own operations.

...If Microsoft appoints itself our security guardian, declaring that forced patches, broken applications and potentially trashed systems are acceptable, it will be the height of arrogance and irresponsibility.

By proceeding with such a plan, Microsoft would not only be shooting itself in the foot, but might well be shooting many of its customers' systems right between the eyes.

The future is anything but bright for proprietary Unix operating systems. According to a new report, flavors of Unix from the main vendors--hardware heavyweights HP, IBM and Sun--will lose out to Linux, and even Microsoft's emerging .Net.

In its Server Operating Systems--Winners and Losers in the Open/Proprietary OS Market report, Butler Group backs the two-pronged Linux and Microsoft market. Linux is "the long-term winner by a knockout", with .Net "outperforming between 2005 and 2008".

Over the next three years Linux will rapidly penetrate file and print servers, typically replacing Windows NT, low-end servers will move to Linux, and high-end servers will eventually move to .Net and Linux.

...Butler Group concluded: "In the long term, 2009 onwards, Linux is the winner with .Net runner-up."

theregister.co.uk | MS Paper Touts Unix
By Thomas C Greene in Washington - Thanx to Victor for this one.

An older MS internal whitepaper from August 2000 on switching Hotmail, which MS acquired in 1997, from front-end servers running FreeBSD and back-end database servers running Solaris to a whole farm running Win2K, reads like a veritable sales brochure for UNIX, but concludes that the company ought to set the right example by ensuring that each division "should eat its own dogfood."

The whitepaper, by MS Windows 2000 Server Product Group member David Brooks, has been posted on the Web by Security Office, which says it discovered the item and numerous other confidential MS documents on a poorly protected server. There are a number of other fascinating documents posted, in which the careful reader will find a veritable treasure map for hacking the citadel, but the one I enjoyed best was the comparison between Win2K and UNIX.

Among the observations is a very basic one about security: "A fact about UNIX is that it is easy for an administrator to ensure that there are no irrelevant services running. As well as giving the potential for maximizing performance, it is useful to be sure that there are no random TCP/IP or UDP ports open that could be used as a basis for an attack," the paper notes.

Next there's kernel stability: "Both the UNIX kernel, and the design techniques it encourages, are renowned for stability. A system of several thousand servers must run reliably and without intervention to restart failed systems," the author notes, and adds that, "Apache is also designed for stability and correctness, rather than breadth of features or high performance demands."

Then of course there's the cost of ownership, which MS insists, against overwhelming contradictory evidence, gives Windows an advantage: "FreeBSD is free. Although there are collateral costs (it's not particularly easy to set up) the freedom from license costs is a major consideration, especially for a startup."

And it's easy to minimize a UNIX system: "It is particularly easy to cut down the load on the system so that only the minimum number of services is running. This reduced complexity [and] aids stability and transparency."

Whereas: "A Windows server out of the box is an elaborate system. Although it performs specific tasks well (such as being a web server) there are many services that have a complex set of dependencies, and it is never clear which ones are necessary and which can be removed to improve the system's efficiency."

Another good thing about UNIX is that everything is out in the open, for admins, anyway: "It's easy to look at a UNIX system and know what is running and why. Although its configuration files may have arcane (and sometimes too-simple) syntax, they are easy to find and change."

Whereas in Win2K: "Some parameters that control the system's operation are hidden and difficult to fully assess. The metabase is an obvious example. The problem here is that is makes the administrator nervous; in a single-function system he wants to be able to understand all of the configuration-related choices that the system is making on his behalf."

...And finally, we're reminded that Windows often needs a re-boot when a UNIX admin can simply edit a configuration file, stop the process in question, and immediately run it again with the new configuration.

...Another item worth mentioning, though not directly related to a UNIX comparison, is the cost of load-balancing technology and its supporting software. Using Windows load balancing service requires Advanced Server, whereas using Cisco's Local Director needs only Server. The costs, we discover, are dramatically different:

"Although Hotmail uses Microsoft software without license fees, we must consider this project as a model for real customers. Use of WLBS requires Advanced Server, but Server provides all the other features used by Hotmail. Using list prices, the cost comparison for a farm of 3500 servers is: Using WLBS (hence Advanced Server): $15M+ / Using LD and Server: $6M+"

...It is terrifying to contemplate the efficiency bonus MS would have enjoyed if it had only been willing to base its entire corporate operations on UNIX instead of eating its own dog food. The software monopolist might today be in the bizarre position of being the world's only consumer of unices.

Intel Support | What is the Difference between Buffered and Registered Memory?

DDR and SDRAM can be unbuffered or registered. EDO and FPM can be buffered or unbuffered. Buffered modules contain a buffer to help the chipset cope with the large electrical load required when the system has a lot of memory. Registered modules do not have a buffer but do contain a register that delays all information transferred to the module by one clock cycle. Buffered and registered modules are typically used only in servers and other mission-critical systems where it is extremely important that the data is properly handled.

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Microsoft on Wednesday said it would pour more resources into its efforts to carve out a position in the $10 billion video game market rather than cutting its losses and exiting from the venture.

When asked if the software had an "exit strategy" for the year-old Xbox video game machine, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said in a Webcast: "The fallback position is probably to double down and make it successful."

Although Microsoft hasn't disclosed how much it has spent on the Xbox so far, figures released last month showed that the home entertainment division, which includes the Xbox, lost $177 million in the last quarter.

Analysts expect Microsoft to spend more than $2 billion over five years on the Xbox machine, which launched a year ago as part of the company's push to get its technology and software off the desktop and into living rooms worldwide...

Corporations usually have some money left in their budgets at the end of the year to buy computer systems, providing a holiday bonus to technology companies, but this year it looks as though the usual fourth quarter tech spending could turn out to be a dud.

..."I know several CIOs that are actually being paid cash bonuses based on underspending their budget this year. There is no company out there that I'm aware of that is aggressively spending to try to flush their budget," Dan Warmenhoven, chief executive of data storage company Network Appliance told Reuters in an interview.

...HP plans to cut $3 billion in costs during fiscal 2003, which began Nov. 1, up from a previous goal of $2.5 billion by the end of 2004.

...Hewlett-Packard plans to cut another $500 million in costs as a result of its merger with Compaq Computer, but the company kept its revenue and profit outlook unchanged because of "tepid" IT spending, CEO Carly Fiorina said during a presentation to securities analysts here...