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Apache Web Server Share Falls Below 50 Percent For First Time Since 2009
darthcamaro writes "Apache has always dominated the web server landscape. But in August, its share has slipped below 50 percent for the first time in years. The winner isn't nginx either — it's Microsoft IIS that has picked up share. But don't worry, this isn't likely a repeat of the Netscape/IE battle of the late 90's, Apache is here to stay (right?)"
The dip is mostly the result of GoDaddy switching to IIS from Apache. Which is to say GoDaddy hosts a whole lot of sites.
Microsoft paid GoDaddy a while back to switch to IIS because of all the domain placeholder pages they host to drive up IIS's "market share"
I presume that godaddy only ever moves its parked domains to IIS when M$FT hands over a new bag of payola. Then they drift back to Linux at their convenience, lather, rinse, repeat. Must be a profitable little scam.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
"Platform choice is pretty irrelevant as far as judging competency goes actually"
No, it isn't. When a sysadmin chooses all on his own using Windows you can bet he's incompetent.
"IMHO being a competent administrator/architect is more about change management "
See? Change management, for instance, it's basically a lost proposition on Windows while it's a breeze on unix-like and moreso on the open source variants like Linux or *bsd.
"engineering resiliency into your designs"
Not as obvious like in the configuration and change management side but, again, Windows is light-years away down the road if only -the most obvious reason, because above, the basic imposibility to programatically insure there won't be configuration drift and thus, lack of resiliency.
"If (for example) running a Windows web server makes it 10x easier for your internal web development guys"
Yes, you can go with Windows or you can do the proper thing: hire competent developments.
"In other situations (e.g., DNS servers, firewalls, mail relays, etc) - Linux, BSD or other unix platform of choice may be more appropriate."
No, it isn't because, as you say, the trade offs. As Bellovin stated, the most secure platform is the one you know the best: it makes no sense using Windows on most on your servers and then go with a drastically different OS for a minority of them. Given that, Linux offers the best trade off: people will tell OpenBSD makes for a better firewall and maybe they are right but then, Linux can be competently used all the way so it makes an overall better choice.
Given said that, I'm of course fully aware of the various reasons people choose Microsoft over alternatives but I can tell no one of them are technical: marketing and unwise management going for a lot of years explains it.