On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 01:11:04PM -0800, Nicole Zimmerman wrote: > > Try checking out the different servers at netcraft's what's that server > running (now includes uptime stats). > > http://www.netcraft.com/whats > > Just checking www.hotmail.com would not be sufficient in this case. If you > have a hotmail account, check the addresses it actually sends you to to > read mail. If you don't, they are probably listed somewhere out on the big > bad internet.
And you have to seperate the different -classes- of servers from each other. Historically, Hotmail has been FreeBSD servers for the web stuff, with the mail store and other 'database' stuff (authentication db) done on big Solaris boxes. If Hotmail's architecture is correctly set up, you can't get to the Solaris boxes from the 'net, just from the 'front-end' machines. I know they're moving the FreeBSD stuff out and replacing it with Windows Y2K, but whether the Solaris backend is moving is another question. Intel hardware just doesn't scale that well to handle such a backend, regardless of how great MS thinks their software is, there are a lot less restrictions with a fat Sun box.
