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Posted by David on April 12th, 2006 filed in FeaturesWindows 2003 Server is the latest operating system for server developed by Microsoft. It’s the new version of Windows NT Server. The new Windows 2003 Server was built on NT technology. The interface of the software is similar to that of Windows 2000. It’s gaining market share due to the ease of use.
Windows Server is developed and sold by Microsoft. The company continually provides supports and updates. Users who are familiar with Windows will find themselves comfortably using Windows Server. Most people using Windows Server hosting utilize Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. This is the main reason why people are turning to Windows Server hosting. Users can develop web site using familiar interface of Microsoft tools such as Microsoft FrontPage, Visual Interdev, and Microsoft Access. With ASP users can develop a database-driven web site using Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL as the database.
Unlike UNIX, Windows Server requires more system resource. You need a powerful machine to run Windows Server. The Windows Server does not have a good reputation in term of server stability. The Windows Server needs reboot more frequent than UNIX. If you are using Windows Server hosting services, you may find yourself investing a lot of money in the development tools. Most of them are Microsoft products. The costs of applications that can run on your web site are usually higher than that of UNIX. For example, you can find a lot of free scripts to run web board, chat room, web stats, email (and more) for your UNIX-based web site, but you won’t find many free applications in Windows Server world.
Microsoft Windows Server and UNIX (of which there are many varieties, or flavors, including Linux, AIX, Solaris and more) are computer operating systems. Both Windows Server and quality UNIX implementations are enterprise application servers that can be used for a variety of critical purposes, including, but not limited to, Web, email, and database hosting. Windows Server was developed by Microsoft and is, in many ways, the flagship of their software solutions.
UNIX’s development roots begin about twenty years ago - jointly at Berkeley University and AT&T Bell Labs. UNIX is often referred to as an “open system”, which means that its source code is publicly available. This has both its advantages and disadvantages. While it has allowed many thousands of developers from all over the world working for different companies to contribute to its development, it is also more complex and less coordinated.
Both of these operating systems make excellent platforms for mission-critical Web hosting, and they function well. There are some differences of the two systems:
*Windows Server supports most Microsoft products including Microsoft FrontPage - a popular Web authoring tool.
*Windows Server supports Active Server Pages (ASP) - a popular programming that allows you to build dynamically database-driven web pages (connecting to Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL server).
*Remote interactive access, via telnet or SSH is only supported under UNIX. Generally one is able to do more configuration/setup tasks themselves rather than having to request services from web hosts.
*The majority of existing CGI programs (generally Perl scripts) that are available on the Internet have been developed on UNIX platforms and hence tend to install and operate much more smoothly under UNIX. Many Perl Scripts are FREE!
The bottom line is that for many web sites the operating system on which the Web server is housed is largely inconsequential. The real question is, “Are you using a specific web site or database technology that is more appropriately hosted on Windows Server instead of UNIX (or vice versa)?” If your web site does not require special features offered by UNIX or Windows Server, you can choose either Windows Server or UNIX to serve your web site. It doesn’t matter!
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