Impressive, to Say the Least: Windows Wins in OS Debate

Which server-based operating system (OS) is at the top of our customers’ priority lists for multi-tier-application support?

I’ll give you three guesses (and the first two don’t count)…

Need a hint? It is the dominant platform of choice for multi-tiered applications across nearly every industry. It comes in flavors such as “NT”, “2000”, “2003”, and “2008”. It… okay, it’s Windows Server. At least that’s the conclusion of an extensive research study conducted by Research Edge for StackSafe. See for yourself in the December 2007 study, IT Operations Research Bulletin: Operating Systems for Multi-Tier Applications.

StackSafe markets our Test Center solution to help IT Operations groups understand how changes to large, complex, multi-tiered production software infrastructures will impact production availability and performance. StackSafe also helps IT Operations groups within large to very large to the largest organizations understand the impact of these changes to production. We’re talking business-critical systems at enterprise organizations with nearly 100% availability expectations… and we’re talking serious repercussions when changes to these production systems cause degradation or (egad!) unplanned downtime.

In an age where open source Linux is well-established, where Mac is fiercely defended, where Unix and iSeries and pSeries and zSeries and other OSs all have their strengths and supporters, it is “impressive to say the least” for Windows to dominate the server OS market for multi-tier application use. (Yes, a 68% platform of choice preference is dominant compared to 12% for all of Linux and 11% for all of UNIX). And according to a recent article in Computerworld, Gartner thinks the hold of UNIX is slipping.

(Photo Credit: Popular Technology)

Whether its Microsoft’s marketing, technology, partnerships, cost, inter-operability… that is up to you to decide for yourself – I’m not looking to incur any wrath or blessing by presenting Microsoft-favorable statistics. And we know there is already much debate regarding such issues as desktop OS preferences.

However, what this means to StackSafe (and any ISV targeting multi-tiered application stack customers) is that Windows is where we need to apply much of our focus and energy as we prioritize what OSs to support with our Test Center solution.

Consider these points from the research study:

• 59.5% of responding companies use Windows and only Windows Server as the single OS platform for Web server, application servers, and database servers
• 44% of all Web, application, and database server tiers deploy Windows 2003. Oh by the way, the second highest deployment (18%) is attributed to Windows NT
• Every industry vertical indicates a preference for Windows as their primary multi-tiered application platform. Even the only two verticals with less than 80% preference still significantly prefer Windows – these were Financial Services (70%) and Computer-related companies (59%)

It will be interesting to see where this rivalry will take us as virtualization takes greater hold. Tarry Singh’s Virtualization for Everyone blog quotes a Yankee Group report that states:

“Virtual appliances bring dramatic changes to an entrenched ecosystem of OS vendors, ISVs and IT departments, but changing the culture and businesses of these parties will not be easy,” said Gary Chen, Yankee Group Enterprise Research senior analyst.

Regardless of the reasons, it’s clear to us and a point reinforced by our target market through the Research Edge study, that Windows server OS rules the multi-tiered application platform space.

Note: We’ll be taking a break for a few days, but be back late next week with some exciting announcements. Happy holidays!

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Filed Under: Downtime, IT Operations, IT Operations Research, Testing