It is also a feat that Windows NT cannot do under any circumstances. The administrative tools do not warn you if you do not have enough swap space available. Any smart admin would examine the system resources before pulling boards. Clearly, Microsoft is throwing stones in a glass house. Ebay Responsibilities Ebay has a right to be upset, however they must bear some of the blame for the problem as well.
Bad things happen all the time.
It doesn't have anything to do with Solaris or Oracle. If you design a database that can't correctly handle concurrency, doesn't have good constraints, no triggers, etc. I can't vouch for the claim, but Ebay may want to investigate their change management policy in addition to the their architecture policy. This incident represents the first high-profile bad experience with an E10000 and reactions are mixed. Competitors, like Microsoft, want to exploit the situation with unfounded allegations.