Solaris calls Hotmail shots for Microsoft (from Unixlist)
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First appeared in Network News, 22 April, 1998
Microsoft has decided to get the hots for Sun and is using Solaris to run its acclaimed Hotmail web-based e-mail service instead of NT.
The software giant has attempted to exchange the Sun/Solaris
infrastructure of Hotmail with NT since buying it in December 1997.
However, the demands of supporting 10 million users reportedly proved too great for NT, and Solaris was reinstated.
In a leaked report, sources close to Hotmail said: "... its whole
mail server infrastructure is Solaris. NT couldn't handle it. On the
web server, they're running MP Pentiums and Apache on FreeBSD. They're
moving to Solaris for threads. The engineering team did its best to
run NT - and failed. The issue's being escalated."
Hotmail is running Apache's /1.2.1 web server which is not available
for NT due to technical difficulties. A statement on Apache's website states: "The road to Windows NT has not been a pretty one. Several attempts have been made, both by Apache Group members and outside folks, but due to a lack of stability and a clear consensus on how to manage a true cross-platform development project, NT is not yet a standard platform supported by Apache."
Microsoft is currently recruiting engineers for Hotmail, but NT
specialists need not apply. Hotmail's website lists vacancies for an operations software engineer and a QA engineer - and the common
requirement is for Unix experience.
Judy Gibbons, director of the Microsoft Network, was unaware of the
hardware behind Hotmail, but said: "We looked at all the on-line
mail services and Hotmail was far and away the best. It has the most
proven and scalable architecture."
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