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Apache Software

Amazon.com switches to Apache 81

Posted by Hemos from the joining-the-open-source-world dept.
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.
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Amazon.com switches to Apache More

Amazon.com switches to Apache

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  • Why is Netcraft [netcraft.com] 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?

  • maybe your subconscious likes amazon.com because you probably get the mispelled URL entries from them. hehe

    amazing.com?

  • Talking of song, sadly david bowie's site's still NT4 and IIS...
  • Citing the Kirch paper [unix-vs-nt.org] about Unix-Vs-NT:
    Amazon.com Books, the world's largest on-line bookstore, relies on DIGITAL UNIX AlphaServer 2000 systems to keep its Internet business open around the clock. DIGITAL VLM64 technology keeps data highly available to customers. "The extensive Web server capabilities of the DIGITAL AlphaServer series, coupled with its smooth upgrade path, provided the perfect solution for our rapid growth curve."
    BTW: www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.de also have switched to Stronghold/2.4.2 Apache/1.3.6 C2NetEU/2412 on DIGITAL UNIX :-)
    ms
  • I guess many companies are like my employer - they develop software for Windows using Microsoft tools (Visual C++ / SQL Server).

    When they want to change their web-site from static text hosted somewhere to something more dynamic, it's not surprising that they think 'let's stick to what we know', set up a test copy of IIS and then develop the site using Microsoft technologies.

    This is a fine example of Microsoft's dominance in one area covering over into another area.

    I must admit to finding these NetCraft figures a big shock - reminds me of the figures for Netscape Navigator vs. I.E.
  • I would vote for Linux+Apache+Mod_Perl+a relational database (not necessarily a free gratis or free libre one, even).
    Possibly design it to be connected to from another machine - probably a Windows machine, and therefore don't bother with X or a desktop.

    I personally have looked at a number of books / websites / magazine articles about web technologies and found the O'Reilly 'Apache Modules' book very convincing, and felt that I would be inclined to have a go with this - I can believe this might be a usable technology whereas things like ASP look just too grotesque for words.

    I can't believe anyone would want to use this nonsense - often people write ASP pages which then contain VBScript so they're essentially writing two levels of macro expansion, both of them some half-baked Basic derivative. Ugh!
  • Here's a company who has what ammounts to a patent on cookies, and we're happy that they're using free software that was created in the type of atmosphere they're helping to destroy with their blackmail.

    It's too bad we can't remove the right to use free software from companies currently blackmailing other companies with patents or other similar behaviour.

    I'd laugh if they had to run the pathetic company on NT using a webserver written in Visual Basic.

    It is all they deserve after all, with their hostile behaviour.
  • The company I work for uses NES on IRIX, and we've got constant problems with the webserver spontaneously rebooting itself, and taking out all current connections with it. It's a well known problem with NES, and it doesn't happen only on IRIX, but I've seen reports of it happening on Solaris as well, with no explanation or fixes.

    We've also had problems with NES locking up completely under only moderate load, and no clue as to why it happenned... I've also seen reports of this from other users, so I know I'm not the only one. Very frustrating!

  • 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.


  • I agree. Proper load-balancing keeps you visible if a few web servers go down. But why train and pay a monkey to reboot NT boxes all day? Run Apache on a *nix and forget about them.

    If you're responsible for a large web presence and haven't evaluated Apache, you're not doing your job very well. Likewise, if you haven't tried NT and IIS, you probably don't appreciate just how good Apache really is.

  • 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.

  • Does anyone know what they're running behind apache? Is it PHP, perl, servlets?
  • Our Sun SS10 (old pathetic 5 year old box with a 75mhz CPU/256MB ram) handles about 200,000 (mostly static) hits a day. This kind of load is _nothing_ for apache and unix.
  • 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)
  • Come on, man. If you do a traceroute, you will know that most of the time is spent on getting packets through some routers in uk(I suspect), it is not the Apache/BSD's fault.
  • It's still the same ugly looking, poorly colored, hard to read, unconsistent site that it was before.
  • Come on, man. If you do a traceroute, you will
    know that most of the time is spent on getting
    packets through some routers in uk(I suspect),
    it is not the Apache/BSD's fault.
  • 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
    ----
  • c2 was founded in Berkeley, California and their
    headquarters are still here in Oakland. (Yes,
    export restrictions suck, but C2 has found ways
    to work with/around them.)
  • One decently sized leap for Apache.

    I'm really glad to see that more companies are making the change to Apache's web server... If nothing else, it brings to light the blatantly obvious fact that *nix is the superior network OS.

  • good? (Score:1)

    by kettch ( 40676 )
    their new found stability will go to their heads and advertisment will increase exponentially
  • Apache runs on NT, amazon isn't running apache on NT, according to netcraft, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

    As long as end-users see near 0% downtime, anything is superior.
  • Apache running mod_perl is much more stable I assure you. And much more secure than IIS. See this advisory [eeye.com]. In all honesty, have you ever used apache? Its time tested and runs the majority of internet servers. Install apache (even in NT) and see how much better it is. I promise you will never go back.
  • I don't know about *nix and Apache really being better web servers. I'm no professional on this matter, but where I work we have been running just fine on several IIS/NT machines that take a heavy beating at all times of the day, and despite some ASP bugs, everything seems to work fine (once we figured out what we were doing). I'm probably going to get lynched for saying this, but from what I've seen, Apache is just different, not really better.
  • But what is your MTBR (Mean Time Between Reboots)? Linux servers tend to have a much greater MTBR than NT servers. Quite apart from the question of crashes, in *nix systems you can reconfigure the system and in most cases they will take effect without a reboot. It is the opposite case for NT.
  • I'm glad to see that yet another corporate giant isn't too big to realize what's in their best interests when it comes to web serving reliability.

    Now if OnSale [onsale.com] and other online-stores would only switch to Apache, it would make my surfing alot easier. Many times I've been surfing for that special piece of hardware only to find myself drumming my fingers on the desk waiting for their lame server to send me a page or two. If these competitors keep using their IIS or Netscape servers, they're only going to drown in their own downtime & latency.



    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
  • not to mention netscape enterprise runs on unix.
  • I also heard that you need a $4500 dollar license to let your buddy come over look at your new win2k box.

    man... microsoft is asking for way too much for something that is not so revolutionary. I guess they hope that companies will think its better becuase its more expensive. I hope companies go to linux becuase its free.
  • I've always found Apache to be an excellent web server; although you have to be careful with the configuration otherwise your server will get bogged down if you are slashdotted...

    Actually I believe Apache will gain even more marketshare in server space at Microsoft's expense; one reading of the new Microsoft Windows 2000 prices is that you now also require a $1995 unlimited web client access license if you want to run a largeish web site.
  • It's good to see companies such as Amazon switching over to Apache. Maybe this will help route more of the OSS craze in Apache's direction.

    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?

    DM
  • But, was the Amazon outage related to the change over?

    Amazon.com Outage [cnet.com]

    Details like that can make or break other sys admins' choices.
  • Uh oh, doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of Apache. Let's see how people rationalize this one.
  • Now if OnSale and other online-stores would only switch to Apache, it would make my surfing alot easier. Many times I've been surfing for that special piece of hardware only to find myself drumming my fingers on the desk waiting for their lame server to send me a page or two.

    They're probably not slow because of the web server, but because of their particular backend systems... Load balancing is your friend :^)

    -joev

  • 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

    ----
  • One simple trick that may tell you something is using lynx to goto the site, then hit =
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but Amazon was
    always running on Unix (solaris, I think).

    They are switching from one Unix web server to another Unix web server (probably because
    no one trusts that Netscape Enterprise server will be around in a few years).

    Barnes & Nobles on the other hand, uses NT/IIS.

    As far as I can see, both work fine.
  • They're running their patented one-click technology. Nobody knows how it works.
  • I have used Apache recently, and all I know is that it would not run my CGI properly, whereas I had it up and running in IIS in minutes. As far as the MTBR, on the servers doing ASP, you are right, they require reboot more than I would expect, but the machines serving straight HTML have a MTBR of roughly infinity (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit). In any case, I'm still exploring Apache at home, and I'm hoping the new release will fix the CGI bug, as it seems to suggest it will.
  • Everyone in the media has always questioned Linux's ability to handle a large system, and with Amazon switching to Apache, it should turn a few heads and really bring the stability of Linux and Apache to the forefront...

  • But have a look at The Netcraft Web Server Survey [netcraft.com]. Apache took a beating of -1.65 percents while IIS gained 2.78 percents. Even when Webjump [webjump.com] 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 :-)

  • However, they had been running Netscape Enterprise Server on Digital Unix. Netscape Enterprise server is very good about acting the same between NT and Unix. I have not had as good of luck with apache on NT.

  • Ahh, but is it not also possible to run Netscape's server on NT? Why should/could this be construed as a possible NT move?

  • 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.

  • In my experience, Apache is definitely better than Netscape Enterprise. Enterprise has proven quite buggy and unstable and, despite the fact that we are one of Netscape's very largest customers, the support is attrocious. I'd throw out Netscape in a minute and replace it with Apache if it were my (and not Management's) decision to make.
  • 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!
  • I'm pretty sure it's all been on Digital UNIX running on some hefty Alphaservers. At least according to an interview with Jeff Bezos I read in an "Oracle Magazine" article a couple years ago that's what they were using then. It'd be pretty silly to migrate onto something else as long as it's all working for them, which it seems to have been.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Go to your management and point out to them that if Amazon.com thinks Apache is better, then your company should consider it too.
  • Apache is just different, not really better

    They say the proof is in the pudding, and Apache has been rock solid for us. Regardless, I think configuration-wise, Apache is far superior. IIS 4 is still a far cry from Apache in terms of customizing the way things work, and IIS 3 was so pathetic I won't even talk about the dozen or so things you could only configure.

    been running just fine on several IIS/NT machines that take a heavy beating

    'heavy' is a rather vague term, don't you think? Heavy to a corner store with a website may be 100 hits a day but to Amazon, that is nothing. Anyway, I'm reminded (once again) of Hotmail's attempt to move from *nix to NT web servers without success...

  • As long as you use clustering, so any down time is effectively invisible to endusers, and you've taken care of all the security issues you can take care of, i don't see why your choice of operating system and web server would make any difference.

    Your language for dynamic content would, but as long as you can do what you need to, its not a big deal.
  • Interesting to note that they're using Stronghold, which is basically Apache with 128-bit encryption added by UK company http://www.c2.net [c2.net]. If a US company had done this, they wouldn't be allowed to export it outside the US/Canada. As it stands, Stronghold has access to the global market.

    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.

  • 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.

  • I can't wait to see the new lower prices with all the money they saved through licensing costs and upkeep.

    "Wow, their copy of the Best Butts of '99 is 1 penny off!"

    They're just one-click shopping their way into my heart.


  • You have never had to deal with a couple hundred sites running on IIS then. Virtual hosting on this platform is a real pain because it is suggested that you bind a single IP to every "Web". The admin tools are Goouie. You can't order the "Webs" in a fashon other than the order they were created in the "Management Console". I will take http.conf any day of the week ;)

    PS Bring on that negative Karma!!!
  • I'm getting really sick of all this platform-specific babbling I hear.
    What's the article? Amazon switches from a commercial web server to a
    free one, perhaps for performance reasons. Good. What about the
    platform? Who cares?

    To further confuse the issue: NT runs on Alphas. Apache runs on NT. On
    an x86, you can run NT under Linux, or Linux under NT. Therefore, you
    could try running IIS under a Linux box (emulating NT) if you wanted to.
    Other platforms can do x86 emulation, especially the Alphas. So.

    Were we discussing the OS? What about the hardware platform? Nope. We
    were discussing the web server, and Free Software.

    ---
    pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
  • IIRC, Netscape Enterprise Server also runs on NT. I think you are jumping to the Islands of Conclusion there.
  • 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 ;)
  • Last time I checked, Netcraft didn't use Apache. But I have not checked in some time.
  • I just spent two comatose hours yesterday, after I was invited by the "NT Security" team to listen to a presentation on Microsoft Site Server.
    With VB, ASP and Front Page, a very large pressure built up inside this organisation to deploy NT, IIS and SQL-Server accross the Web server landscape.
    Classic Quote by the Microsoftie "Site Server can deploy content to Unix Web servers as well. We *still* have some customers in this situation". The implication being that they will run Unix until we get these tools deployed properly and it will become a natural choice to replace the old technology with brand "New Technology".
    Don't underestimate the power of the MS desktop on the Intranet perverting the Internet in its own image.

  • 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.

    Well, there are always exceptions. I run Apache because I think it's fairly easy to set up. And many who know me would consider me to be part of the "dummy" category. But if I can download and install mod_perl, then nearly anyone can. Though I may be a dummy, I can read instructions.

  • doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of Apache

    It would be a fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc, I think) to conclude that the down time was a result of Apache. There are a thousand things that could have resulted in an outage... plus it's not that the servers weren't responding, the home page simply stated that the store wan't available.

    And, if you bothered to actually read the article on CNet, you would have seen that there were other outages before the switch over.

    Amazon suffered a similar downtime in July, when its site was down for about 35 minutes just days after it launched its new toys and electronics stores. Last year, the company experienced a pair of multi-hour outages, including a 12-hour outage in January 1998.
  • I'm just curious why Amazon would go with a open source web browser but use a comerical adition for security. I know Apache has a 128 bit encryption adition which from my experience is quite awsome. Any thoughts?

  • Well, that could be to do with all kinds of things, including platform-specific concerns, but that's a side issue.

    Realistically speaking, it can be hard to draw a line between IIS and Apache in performance terms. As far as I can tell, IIS being threaded means that it's got great static page performance. On the other hand, Apache's CGI performance seems to exceed IIS's by a clear margin. This may be NT's fault.

    It's also been my experience that Apache is far more resistant to the damage that bad CGIs can cause, but that is probably more to do with the forking architecture than superiority of code.

    A lot of the problems that IIS experiences are actually down to the ASP DLL, which is frankly quite a sucky piece of code. It also doesn't help that Microsoft's error messages are the least helpful of any software product I have ever seen.

    In the end, I use Apache for UN*X and IIS for NT. I prefer Apache/UN*X because it's easier to fix it if things do go wrong, and its open nature means that what you can do with it is limited only by your imagination and the time you're prepared to put into it. I suspect that the main reason people like Amazon use Apache is it's just nicer to develop for.

    --
  • It would be a fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc, I think) to conclude that the down time was a result of Apache.

    Correct. However, in the absence of any revelation of what the actual problem was, it is a good possibility that the changeover to a new webserver might be the problem. It might not be the reason either, but a change of webservers is just about as big a change as you can do on an e-commerce site.

    And, if you bothered to actually read the article on CNet, you would have seen that there were other outages before the switch over.

    I actually did "bother" to read the article on Cnet. I know how to work those link thingies too ;>)

    I guess the point of my original article is that this outage can be miscontrstrued by people, organizations (any guesses here...) who have an apache ax to grind or who want to promote other web servers. I'm rather agnostic on the issue but I'm always intrigued to hear comments from people who are in the trenches.
  • 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 [zope.org]...

    Cheers,
    Ben

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