Hmmmm have you ever worked with a UNIX system ????

On the same Intel based hardware Windows Advanced Server 2000 only has about 70% of the performance of a competing Linux. W2K3 is more efficient, but, requires more horsepower to do the same tasks so the effect is a net loss over W2K... Further, Linux based systems can be clustered in a manner similar to W2K/W2K3... It's not unique in the industry by a long shot.....

However, the main consideration for this application would be CISC .vs. RISC... For most database machines, UNIX on RISC is the preferred platform. Better drivers and buffering for starters...

While the SUN may or may not be the best RISC processor in the market right now, it's really hard to argue with the cost effectiveness of a free SUN. and, all the disk drives with the data are already formatted and loaded for the SUN. And, in case you did not know, SUN's have had the reputation for the best uptime in the industry... and we are not just talking about today's world... SUN's have regularly and reliably had uptimes measured in multiples of months or even years, instead of simply days or weeks of a Microsoft Server... And, they have been achieving these uptimes since the late 1980's... There is no free lunch..., but, it's damn close...

I will grant you one small point... I do think administering a W2K3 server solution would be easier overall...