O.T. Ebay

Someone on the group noted that ebay is running on Microsoft servers. This
surprised me as I'd seen a 'powered by sun' logo on the site for ages, but
Netcraft confirms it's true. I wonder when the changeover happened.

I have noticed that recently, it often fails to do searches for completed
listings. This morning even the 'ask seller a question' form is unavailable.

How shite is that?

 

What's to say they're not using both.

IIS for the frontend webservers and Oracle on Sun for the backend DB?

 

Well the powered by sun logo has gone, so I'd guess not.
And it's not working very well, which provides more circumstantial evidence
IMO. ;-)

 

I believe they are using some of both. It leaves me pretty speechless
but I think I remember it was a corporate relationship decision rather
than a technical solution....obviously.

'Hog

 

The .com site still has the Java and Sun logos.
I'd be inclined to blame Java more than anything
--
Alex

Hermes: "We can't afford that! Especially not Zoidberg!"
Zoidberg: "They took away my credit cards!"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk www.ebayfaq.co.uk

 

What, Sun standard Java running on a broken Microsoft JRE? I'd say it's the
JRE that gets the blame rather than the Java programmers.

 

Maybe its only the front end processors that have changed? Big databases
are best off running on a unix platform.

 

tallbloke said...

IIRC the backend including the search engines are still running on Sun
kit.

 

Correct

 

The logo was up for grabs to the highest spender, the http://www.ebay.com/
had "powered by IBM" until recently as we kicked up a bit of a fuss over
what exactly was meant by "powered by" , oh and then paid some more moeny

That will be the front-end then

 

Hasn't that drum got a hole in it yet?

 

Curious choice for a front-end, really. I'd put anything but Windows/IIS
front-facing if I was starting with a clean slate.

 

Must be getting well paid by M$ at a guess.

 

my.ebay.com
Device type: general purpose
Running: IBM AIX 4.X
OS details: IBM AIX 4.3.2.0-4.3.3.0 on an IBM RS/*
my.ebay.co.uk

 

4.3.3 well, that's out of support.......

 

IIS does what it says on the tin IF you are very careful about how you
construct your site AND hold its hand constantly.

I used to blow the trumpet for MS solutions including IIS. I worked for
years as a consultant concentrating on MS solutions and spent ten years as
a journalist writing about nothing but MS stuff.

When I started my company, it was a no brainer to install Windows servers
and build all our client solutions on Windows.

We now run some fairly busy web sites for clients but Windows & IIS are a
recurring pain in the arse.

IIS's memory management is so poor that MS had to bring out a tool,
'iisreset', to kill/restart IIS processes that had chewed up too much
memory.

The endless round of security updates requires so much attention that we
have had to appoint a patch manager. Each set of updates needs local
testing before we deploy them because we've had servers shagged by applying
crap updates.

We now route all web requests to IIS through a firewall and then Apache
first because new vulnerabilities can be exploited so quickly that you can
find your web site taken over while you're having lunch.

We're now in the process of replacing all our servers with Linux and Apache
because we've had enough.

Linux is more secure, more reliable, much more convenient, easier to
maintain - and hasn't got a Registry.

If you're still exclusively recommending Wintel, it is either because you
think it is the politic solution or because you don't know all the
alternatives.

 

Yeah, Oracle/Solaris techies. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, you
know.

 

Or because your client doesn't have any staff other than Wintel, and
doesn't want to employ any beardie weirdies.

 

Cool, need a linux techy?

 

Or because the only languages and technologies that your programmers
know is Microsoft. And your database programmers are SQL Server
compliant..

Phil