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Amazon.com switches to Apache
This week's ApacheWeek has the news that Amazon.com has switched from using Netscape's server to C2Net's Stronghold, an Apache-based commercial server (Stronghold is mostly known for it's SSL capability). Check out the Netcraft poke to see the setup Amazon is running.
Why is Netcraft not responding?... infact, it is refusing my connection. That's a BSD/Apache solution.
I commonly hear people say that it doesn't take much horsepower to supply enough capacity to handle a high-speed internet connection (eg. multiple T1). Wouldn't my connection time out if it were a bandwidth issue? If it were the dynamic content generation, wouldn't I get some headers, then a long pause? Instead my connection is being outright refused nine times out of ten. It is as though I'm hitting a port with no server on it at all.
I guess it all comes down to the Admin. They could have a high load, they could have a cap on the number of threads which Apache will generate, but this kind of stuff makes me quite skeptical. Slashdot occasionally does this too, far less frequently, but frequently enough to notice.
I strongly dislike the closed MS solution, and I know Apache works well for small and medium sized sites, but I've never come close to administering something with vicious traffic on it, so I'm quite ignorant of these things. If Apache is so vastly superior to IIS, why is Apache /BSD unable to serve my requests when I point my browser at Netcraft?
Though I haven't run any formal benchmarks, Amazon.com seems much peppier after the upgrade. Before, pages would take forever to transfer and their servers took about 15 seconds to even answer a GET/POST request, let alone do something like SSL.
Anyone got official speeds? Before and after would be cool.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
gcc doesn't get much mass-media attention, and that is (in my opponion) by far the most important piece of free software.
The reason should be obvious, Linux and Mozilla is easier for non-geeks to relate to. Most people have an OS and a Web browser on the computer they use.
I think this is fine, mass-media attention is nothing particularily desirable. If you want to be a star, free software isn't the smartest route to take. If you want to hack on cool code, the quite projects are fine. Your peers will know of your work, who cares that Joe Sixpack will never hear about it?
So just let Linus enjoy or suffer his fame. He is a nice representative for the whole free software world anyway.
You can't legally use Apache+SSL in the US for any commercial purpose without buying a commercial version of apache unless you want to license the RSA patents, at hundreds of times the cost of buying a commercial server.
The decision to use Stronghold (which is massively overpriced) probably relates to the fact that its one of the few that you can get a Digital UNIX port of... on Linux, redhat's professional 6.1 is a better deal. (And 1/6 the cost)
In all seriousness?
Even I do that sometimes.
I wish there was an Ask Slashdot on selling domain names. I'd really like to know if I could get half a million dollars for the thing, like many of the domain sales sites imply.
D
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But, was the Amazon outage related to the change over?
Amazon.com Outage
Details like that can make or break other sys admins' choices.
I ran Netscape years ago, and it had horrible memory leaks which forced frequent restarts and really brought down the performance of the system.
Apache has never given me a lick of trouble.
If their performance results mirror mine, I would guess that they're ramping up for the holiday season, where they expect billions of people to come in and buy books, toys, music and what-have-you.
It's strange, but they will always be books for me. It would take a major shake for me to consider another book vendor, but I don't know what it would take for me to buy toys or music there; I really like specialist companies and will probably continue buying from them.
D
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They're running their patented one-click technology. Nobody knows how it works.
But have a look at The Netcraft Web Server Survey. Apache took a beating of -1.65 percents while IIS gained 2.78 percents. Even when Webjump is the reason, it's quite a massive loss for Apache.
What could we do to gain more share? It looks like the Mindcraft "tests" are still hurting and badly. But we have to fight back and with style. Apache on a unix box has lots of advantages. It's free, fast, secure and rock solid. It doesn't need expensive hardware. There are also many big sites using Apache. But somehow it is not enough.
I guess Apache needs an "Web hosting for Dummies"-book as it's more a rule than exception that IIS-sites are run by dummies. Also it would be cool to start "selling" Apache. Sell a Linux+Apache-installation for exactly the same price as NT but donate all the money to for example the Red Cross. That would make a nice ad :-)
If all you're doing is serving static HTML pages, then it's straight out $0/licence vs. $NT_COST/licence.
If you're serving dynamic content, you gain significantly in stablility/reliability/cost/security by using *nix/Apache over NT/IIS.
Remember that IIS runs as a kernel service, so if it screws up it kills the kernel, versus Apache, which runs as a multi-process hydra, so if one head dies another pops up in it's place.
As for the CGI issue you talk about deeper in this thread, you can probably work around it by tweaking the CGI.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I am surprised that they [apache] do not get more mass media recognition. Can anyone see any obvious reasons why Linux gets so much more attention than Apache?
Possibly because linux is "not microsoft" while apache is merely "not IIS"?
I don't think there's that much need for Apache-mania, anyway. In fact, I like the way everyone in their right minds knows to go to Apache if they want remotely decent web serving, without having to make a song and a dance out of it!
~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Go to your management and point out to them that if Amazon.com thinks Apache is better, then your company should consider it too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It is probably the best example we have of why US export restrictions are bad for US businesses, and more importantly (at least for those of us in the UK), it's an example of why the UK shouldn't adopt similar export restrictions, something I'm increasingly worried that our government will try and do.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
You're right...but have overlooked one small point. If their long term goal is to say, migrate to Windows NT, or at least leave that option open, then moving to Apache can be contrued as an intermediary step. Since apache is cross-platform, they will now have the option of running their site on *nix AND NT...presumably without too much re-work.
Werd.
"Wow, their copy of the Best Butts of '99 is 1 penny off!"
They're just one-click shopping their way into my heart.
At my current contract they reboot all their NT IIS servers in the morning and have remote monitors that run periodically that reboot the server when the page fetch fails. ;)
Beats fixing the problem I guess
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
My NT4/IIS4 PII/266 server was handling an average of 9,000 requests/hour with spikes of 20,000 requests/hour and handling as many as 1,000 email messages/hour - not average, but spikes. Does that count as heavy? I needed to reboot that machine about every 3 months.
No, that does not count as very heavy. Go over a couple of forums to the answers from the person who switched the Royal Family over to Linux to get real life judgement of how to handle a somewhat heavier load.
And no, you should not need to reboot every 3 months.
Would Apache have handled the load? Most likely but the point is NT and IIS are more than capable of handling as much as you have bandwidth to support.
Exactly right. Virtually anything can do the basic job. Now look at licensing costs, stability, and security. While NT and IIS can do it, various variations on the Unix theme with Apache can deliver more value for less.
BTW do yourself a favour and try ZOPE...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht