| As long
as you understand how to use your FTP or
web publishing software, your can use
either operating system. But what is
important is that you know what you want
your website to do and what you want to
offer on it. This is what will ultimately
help determine the type of web hosting
that will work best for you. As mentioned
earlier, interactive websites usually
rely on ASP, PHP, or Perl type languages.
Linux
Web Hosting or Windows 2000 Web Hosting ?
Make your Choice !
When it
comes to Web hosting, Linux has, for some
time, been widely considered the best OS
for Web servers. It's typically found to
be the most reliable, stable and
efficient system and, as such, it's
commonly used for the demanding
environment of Web and mail servers.
Indeed,Most of the clients websites of
aalpha NET runs on the Linux OS precisely
because of this traditional stability.
The
million-dollar question is what
application are you looking to use for
your hosting? Consider the tools and
scripting languages you plan to use
– if you use PHP, Perl or MySQL,
Linux is the way forward. If apps are
Microsoft-specific, then Windows is what
you need.
If your
site, like most web sites, is what might
be termed "brochure-ware" then
Linux servers are ideal. By brochure-ware
I mean a site that offers the kind of
information that in the past might have
been provided on paper in the form of
brochures, newsletters or data sheets.
Brochure-ware sites will offer some
interaction through enquiry forms and can
certainly incorporate online purchasing
and other routine e-commerce functions.
If
however your site incorporates an online
searchable database or interactive chat
facilities then Windows 2000 or NT will
be a better bet in most cases. It will
cost a bit more but you'll get that back
in reduced development time and simply
better functionality.
The
following are the advantages of using
Linux based web server compared to
Windows based web server :
Stable:
Linux/Unix operating systems has
traditionally been believed to be very
stable and robust. A web site housed on a
Linux operating system will have very
high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of
course, other factors such as power
supply, network admin skills, and network
load etc. also matter when it comes to
maintaining the system uptime.
Low cost
of ownership: The Linux OS comes free of
cost (or at very insignificant cost,
usually cost of distribution). Also, it
has full fledged server, and desk top
applications that comes free along with
the OS. These server applications (such
as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File
Server etc.) being free, are also very
stable.
Ease of
use : When it comes to web hosting, it is
easy to host on Linux web servers. The
process of uploading and hosting is
almost same for both Linux and Windows
web servers. If you want to use a Windows
based tool such as Front Page for
uploading a web site on to a Linux based
web server, make sure that the Front Page
extensions are enabled. This is only
required if you are uploading using HTTP
feature (http://www.yourwebsite.com) of Front Page.
Front Page also makes it possible to
upload a web site using FTP. You need to
select ftp://www.yourwebsite.com for up loading
using front page FTP option. Note that if
you select "Front Page
Extensions" during web site design,
you must enable Front Page extensions on
a Linux web server also. These days, all
Linux web servers are coming with
installable Front Page extensions, and
this should pose no problem for hosting
on a Linux platform.
You can
use almost all types of file extensions
(or scripts) when using Linux web server.
Commonly, the following extensions are
supported:
.cgi,
.html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml,
.xml, and others.
Basically
it means that you can host web sites that
use different types of server side
scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and
.asp (with plug-in).
Easy to
move between hosts : A web site designed
to be hosted on a Linux based web server
can be hosted on a Windows web server
easily, where as the reverse is not
always true.
Most
widely used : Linux/Unix based web
hosting is most widely used compared to
Windows based web hosting.
Scalability
: A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web
site starts with a few pages of html and
grows over a period of time to suit the
customers requirements. It is preferable
to design a web site keeping this
requirements in mind. A web site designed
for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based
web server meets the scalability
requirement easily without making any
site wide design changes.
On the
downside, Linux based web server is not
fully compatible with Microsoft
technologies. If you are using any
specialized applications or VB for
development of your web site, it is
preferable to host with a Windows based
web server.
However
if you are not sure then email me or call
Teeyes Siva on 00 91 452 3105858 and I'll
help you decide by talking through the
issues.
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