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Sutherland Research and Development Computer and Components, Testing Refurbishment and Redistribution Department:
Tech Zoner
Ross Sutherland
For SR&D
Reports on Web Server Platforms...
Ross Sutherland is currently underaking the second year of a Bachelor of Applied Computing at Southern Cross University
Apache2 Vs. IIS7
Introduction
The Netcraft survey analysis (Mutton P. 2009) shows that the shipping of IIS7 with Server 2008 and Vista has served Microsoft well in gaining a greater market share over Apache (still the most popular web server of the world) in the United States. It also reveals that they aren't the only two players in the market now. So it behoves neophyte web developers to consider at least becoming familiar with both webservers environments of the top two players.
This report will focus on comparing Apache2 and IIS7 Webservers and the native platforms they run on, as it is the Operating Systems that seem to be the major point of difference as each Webservers Application can support to a degree most of the web development technologies offered to website developers to craft dynamic pages.
URL and the Cloud
Webpage resources can be anywhere in the world, on any machine, on any HDD of a machine. SR&D is currently exploring ASP.NET Development on another server and hopes that clients don’t experience any perception of “Switching” to a new machine as they navigate the website.
SR&D Website, Live on both Claw (IIS7) and Infotech (Apache 2) for direct comparison.
There is a "One Way Street" going on though as the web development technologies eminently configured for Apache can be configured to run on a Windows O/S and IIS But the webservers technologies native to Microsoft like: Active Server Pages ASP, ASP.NET, and the databases - Access or SQL Server. Cannot be configured for Unix (Linux any flavour) and Apache.
Which brings us to the third option available which is to install an Apache web server on a Windows O/S with WAMP packages available. WAMP Windows with Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl or Python (Wikipedia, WAMP 2009)
xampp has preconfigured FTP server [FileZilia], SMPT Server [Mercury] and additional webserver tools like database construction[phpMyAdmin] log file analyser [Webalizer] (Vogelgesang K. 2009)
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
Sutherland Research and Development has extensively trialled this option more suitable for older style Windows Operating Systems and equipment instead of the necessary up grades required for IIS7.
Comparison and contrast of the two systems/platforms
If the web server program its self where truly modular then direct comparison would be a straight forward case of examining things like HTTP request response times, File through put times and the way each application handles security along with auditing - Log file format that can be readily analyzed with third party applications.
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