Hello!

my 2 cents:

check whether the NT in the configuration you need 
is really much cheaper than AIX.
Compare comparable servers with similar performance, disk and scsi or FW
subsystems, similar failure-safety & redundancy (double power units,
hot-plug cards...,)  including service contracts, rack, ups, including
operating system and tools, tape drives, ..
depending on all this parameters the price comparision may,
but does not necessarilly, results to a surpise.


my NT experience: not really slow if you invest much $$ in a disk
subsystem
and you configure it the right way. Well, add at least 2 current CPU´s as
well.
The throughput seems to be mostly limited by very small database buffer pool
allowed (I believe 32 or 64 MB.
But does not have the robustness of unix, neither the OS nor the hardware.
Just one example of more: database mirrored by adsm means on two hard disks
which hang on two separate controllers. So a disk failure is not a problem.
One would mean, at least.
But - wrong.
One of the disks became malfunctioning, and NT stopped due to this disk
failure.
And -no, no swapfile and no other files has been on this disk, only ADSM
database volume.


regards
Juraj Salak
sal AT keba.co DOT at