A Feather in Your NT Cap
By Jim Jagielski
If you've had growing concerns about sites you've hosted on Windows NT, while running Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), you're not alone. Lately I've been hearing from a lot of clients who are heavily invested in NT and IIS, but want to migrate away. I'd guess that the biggest reason is security. Most of the attacks in the last year, including worms like Code Red and its cousins, have chiefly affected IIS. For whatever reason, IIS seems to be a popular target.
I won't try to convince you to move from NT to Linux, or Solaris, or anything else. I'm a confessed Unix bigot, but I also live in the real world. I know that dropping NT and IIS outright in favor of Unix and Apache in one fell swoop isn't realistic. Fortunately, there's a much less painful solution, one that addresses about 95 percent of most Webmasters' concerns: you can run Apache on NT.
I'd Rather Switch Than Fight
Compared to IIS, Apache has proven incredibly resilient, and has a noteworthy security history. Most of this, of course, is due to its open-source nature. However, the fact that the Apache core is so simple that it relies on modules for most of its more advanced capabilities is significant as well.
A side effect of this design is that Apache is also more expandable and configurable than IIS. With more than 200 different modules available, Apache can arguably do lots more than IIS can. And because you can pick and choose exactly what capability you need, you can better fine-tune the server for your needs. What's more, it both tastes great and is less filling.<>
