We are a Windows only shop but my commects are:

Win2K boxes cost a lot less the Sun boxes.
Win2K is more easy for new users (but no good command prompt for someone who
has done it before)
Solaris performs better (but you could get a very big Win2K box for the same
money)
You know Solaris better the Win2K

Ask your tape vendor what he thinks is best for you and use all the
information you get.

You don't tell anything of the size of your installation. That could make a
big difference.

If we talk about a site with 18 media servers and 12 STK9310 I would go for
Solaris (We all know that Solaris can handle this)

By the way the real cost is normaly not the hardware/software cost of the
boxes for master/media servers.

There could also be an issue regarding max block size on tape in Win2K
versus Solaris. Some tape drives support block sizes of 256K and I don't
think Win2K can handle more the 64K.

/johnny


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Riedesel [mailto:mried AT MIT DOT EDU]
Sent: 25. september 2002 20:16
To: Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Choice of platform for Master Server


We are about to purchase Vertias NetBackup DataCenter for our mix of 
Solaris, Windows and Linux
servers and our Oracle databases.  Our IT director favors Windows for
the master server since it is less expensive and he was told it is the 
better choice
since the Windows version is better supported and has more features.

However, I am going to be responsible for administering this system and 
while I have many
years experience with Unix administration, I have only user-level 
experience with
Windows.  Would I be well-advised to advocate using a Solaris master 
server instead,
or is Windows really the better choice?  We have only the Dell and 
Veritas salesmen's advice to
go on at this point.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark Riedesel
Systems Manager/DBA
Sloan School of Management
MIT
mried AT mit DOT edu

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