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Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

> Stackoverflow is notable because they went down the C#/MVC/SQL Server route from the start, which meant much better performance per server

And also notable because everything is under an expensive license, so big performant servers is the cheaper option.

Edit: everything = Windows servers for their .NET app ( apparently in the process of migrating to .NET Core) and SQL Server

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License costs are usually per-core, not per-server. It's the same whether you have a single large server or multiple small ones.

It used to be per-socket for Windows Server before 2016, and StackOverflow's infrastructure and architecture predate that.

what do you mean by saying "everything"? just SQL Server?

Technically Windows licences, too, but maybe they migrated to Linux with their switch to .NET (Core).

Indeed, afaik they have been migrating long time ago

2018:

>This is the query pattern that caused StackOverflow.com to go offline yesterday:

https://github.com/dotnet/efcore/issues/13524

but on the other hand their tech stack site says: C# + ASP.NET MVC

instead of ASP.NET Core, but I don't think it is proof of anything.

They are definitely using ASP.NET Core, most likely version 3.1 LTS.

EF Core (like ASP.NET Core) ran on .NET Framework until version 2.1. Everything after that requires .NET (Core).

Updated my comment for clarity - yes, SQL Server and Windows for their .NET app. Maybe they've moved to Linux if they have finished their migration to .NET Core, but even if they did, it's a fairly recent thing.

> Maybe they've moved to Linux if they have finished their migration to .NET Core,

As far as I know they have been using .NET Core (or just EF Core? would be weird to go EF Core + .NET Framework, I guess?) on prod in 2018:

>This is the query pattern that caused StackOverflow.com to go offline yesterday:

https://github.com/dotnet/efcore/issues/13524

So maybe they used some things on Linux and some things on Windows - those that couldnt be ported to .NET Core back in the days

They're using .NET Core, and I think even .NET 5 in the meantime though I couldn't find a clear confirmation for that. But they're still on Windows, looking at Linux and containers for potentially in the future.

License costs are peanuts in traditional enterprise bugdgets, when mapped across the overall costs of developer salaries, contracting, designer agencies, travel expenses,....

Is StackOverflow a traditional enterprise for you? I don't think they have huge travel expenses...

Yes, it's a typical large software/SaaS company.

It's not about the travel specifically, it's that servers and licenses are the cheapest cost of any company when compared to salaries, especially for engineering and sales.

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