I am deploying a custom-made server program that makes several
manipulations of XML files, including an automated conversion to Word.
It had been a mystery why the production server, a Pentium 700 with SCSI
disks running Windows 2000, was much slower than the development server, a
Pentium 500 with IDE disks.
Yesterday, a particular long processing involving a 53MB RTF file just run
forever. I killed it consumed after 3 hours of CPU.
Then, we decided to turn off the anti-virus software. A sample task that
took over six minutes now takes two and a half minutes. And the very long
processing now runs in 15 minutes.
Therefore, the cost of the Windows virus includes the cost of running the
anti-virus software. It cripples my server to less than half its
performance. My Pentium 700 becomes a Pentium 270 (usual case)! On some
cases, the anti-virus software delays the computation at least 24 times, and
the Pentium 700 becomes less than a Pentium 30!
Linux suddenly seems a lot cheaper!
Joaquim Baptista, alias pxQuim, Director, Technical Documentation
px@altitude.com [Joaquim Baptista via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 32]
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