can someone help me with server experience advice?

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hey guys i recently have got a lot of time on my hands and i would like to spend some of it getting to know the different server OS'es that businesses use.
ii imagine the most used ones are redhat and suse, i also would like to use one of microsofts server OS'es (one of the good things about dreamspark :P) so i was hoping you guys could give some names as to what OS'es are the most used in the industry
im not sure if MS server 2008 has catched on yet as a few places that i have seen still use 2003 but anyway you guys know best as your in the business

thanks guys

 

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It will be Windows server 2003 most places, some places quick on the uptake will be Windows 2008 R2, also new servers rolled out likely to be on newer OS's. Some may even still be on Windows 2000.

CentOS gets used some places too, basically free RedHat.

HP-UX on some HP kit I expect.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD used some places too.

Solaris pretty common on Sun hardware. OpenSolaris on various kit for Sun fans.

OpenVMS some places but quite rare.

OS X Server in some apple shops.

Also some places still use Mainframes and Mini computers, others have massively parallel supercomputers.
IBM has z/OS for mainframe and AIX for Mini.
ICL has ICL VME.

Netware still exists but not that popular and usually mixed with Windows and Linux servers.
Then theres Cisco's IOS and Juniper's JUNOS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_operating_system

Most supercomputers run variants of Linux, Cray has Cray Linux Environment, others run SUSE, CentOS or RedHat.

Then you have bare metal Hypervisors like VmWare ESX, z/VM and others.

Also depends what you mean by 'server OS' plenty of embedded servers around, most running embedded versions of linux but a few running other embedded OS's like VxWorks or QNX.

Many system integrators use Windows for things like ATM's and POS terminals, whether you class this as embedded/workstation/server use is debatable. Machines in the field could be based on anything from Windows NT, 2000, XP, or Windows Embedded.

Lists of operating systems here :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_systems_timeline#2000s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_operating_systems

Other interesting projects include Midori and Inferno.

 

just to add server experience at home will let you learn so you can set up a virtual network and have a playabout. I have win2k3 running virtually with a few xp systems all networked together. Whilst this is a good way to learn it does not count as experience that you could put on your cv as proper experience.

you could put experience of virtualization and virtual networks but you couldn't put experience of setting up and managing win2k3 because real world experience is far different from messing about experience.

 

yea i mean this wasnt really to be able to put it on my cv it was more so if i went to a job using these OS'es i knew how to get around and use them

 

Simply join technet or use dreamspark and install Windows Server 2003 or 2008 onto a virtual machine.

Virtual machine is best as you can save snapshots or disk images and revert changes made during testing.

This is how most people do their MCSA. Its common to have one virtual server and two virtual clients in most labs.

Virtual PC works ok, I used this to start then switched to VmWare Player, Workstation and Server.

Server and Player are free, server only installs on server OS's. You can get Player to do most stuff you need with a little ingenuity.

Suns VirtualBox is supposed to be pretty good and free also.