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Windows vs. Linux Hosting

mytrustywebhost — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:47:43 +0800

Windows or Linux Hosting

Which is "better"? Windows or Linux?

I will not even pretend on attempting to give a definitive answer to such a question. I don't think there is one, or at least not in the "this one is better" formula. Like with most things, each side will have its strengths and weaknesses, its advantages and disadvantages.

It's often been said that Linux is more secure and much more stable in general, although there is no Linux per se, but many flavors of it. Linux users tend to be sometimes fanatic in their support for their favorite operating system. The power of their convictions may be very impressive, but that shouldn't be the only reason to believe they're right. On the other hand, the average Linux user is somewhat more knowledgeable than the average individual when it comes to computers, so there's a higher chance that he knows what he's talking about.

On the other side, Windows doesn't seem to have that many true fans or they're not that vocal. This might be explained by the fact that the Microsoft company has been involved in quite a few suits which have affected its image, and consequently the image of its products as well.

Desktop vs Server - stability

Many people who are just taking their first steps in "the wonderful world of hosting", assume that, because their desktop computer or the computer that will be used to create the web pages uses Windows, they must look for Windows hosting. That's not true at all. The pages can be created in Windows and hosted on a Linux box and vice versa. There's no problem with that.

Also a confusion/over generalization that is often made is that Windows is just Windows and that it is very buggy, unstable and insecure. There is no Windows though. There are many types of Windows, and they are not the same.

Both Windows 95 and Windows 98 were and are haunted by the dreaded and widely known (though not highly acclaimed) blue screen. While a blue screen would not be a very bad thing, what is bad about it is that you never seem to be able to get out of it. The only thing you can usually do is to reset the computer.

Without any shadow of a doubt, the frequency of the blue screens was and is impressive on the fore-mentioned operating systems, but what's more bewildering about them is that they seem to appear almost "out of the blue" (pun intended) .

I'll give you one example that I've witnessed on a computer that was running Windows 98. Everything was OK, the computer started. A few applications that were always on were loaded as usual (an antivirus, a dictionary and a few other things). The computer was left idle for minutes while my friend and I were talking. When we looked at the screen, it was "blue". Yes, the blue screen was present, signaling a problem and the PC had to be restarted.

Now, what was wrong? What could've been wrong? The applications that were running have never caused any problems before, and nothing "exotic" was running at that time - not to mention that no one was actively using the computer. It's this kind of things that give the Windows family of products a bad name.

Windows XP is a great step forward when it comes to stability and apparently, the main reason for that is that it is based on Windows 2000, which is an OS (operating system) designed for servers. Stability on Windows versions that were designed for servers is much better than the one for desktop (95 & 98 & Me). This goes to prove that Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 are not your average desktop operating system, they are playing in a different league.

Performance

Comparing Windows and Linux, one thing that has been often noted is that Linux handles high numbers of processes running at the same time much better than Windows - that Windows' stability decreases faster when more processes run on the machine.

This in the end means that Linux might be able to squeeze more out of the server, but in the hands of a knowledgeable system administrator, a server will perform very well, regardless of the operating system, may it be Windows or Linux.

Linux is free while Windows is all about the money

This is a very popular view on things. Linux is open source and thrives because of the work of many volunteer programmers. The volume of work they put in and the quality of their work can only be commendable.

Windows, just like Linux, is a product created by the work of many programmers. They however are hired to do a job and they are paid to do it. Microsoft is their employer - a business - and, like any other business, its goal is to make a profit - to make money. That's not seen as a bad thing for any of the small businesses out there, but it is sometimes seen as one when it comes to big companies, especially when the word monopoly comes to be associated with them. Sure, Microsoft did a thing or two do be seen as a "bad guy", but let's not get into that.

Then, which one should you look for?

The decision of going for Windows hosting or Linux hosting should be based on actual needs, not myths. More often than not it should be based on the knowledge that you and/or your staff/business partners/friends have, on the things that you plan do to with your website or on the things you'd prefer to learn.

Basic, static web pages are written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) which the browser interprets into the web pages as we see them, containing text, tables, images and so on. Pure HTML pages can be hosted on any type of web server, regardless of the operating system.

Dynamic, interactive web pages however, are a different kind of beast and they require powerful programming languages. Now, don't confuse dynamic with animated. There may be animated objects such as gifs on the web pages, but that doesn't make them dynamic. Dynamic pages are those of a forum, of a shopping cart etc. where you send information to the server and the server will store it and do things differently, in accordance with that information.

Some such programming languages are Perl, PHP, ASP, Python, Java etc. PHP and ASP are special with respect to this article due to their popularity and more. PHP is open source and free, while ASP is a Microsoft product.

While the developers of PHP took the necessary steps to make PHP usable on Windows based machines, Microsoft apparently (and unsurprisingly) saw little reason to make ASP usable on anything else than Windows.

Other companies and people are working on to port ASP on others operating systems, but, while their efforts are definitely appreciated, and they have already made giant steps towards their goal, the solutions so far are only partial. Full use of ASP functions/capabilities on other operating systems besides Windows is not available yet.

One cross-platform ASP attempt is Sun Java System Active Server Pages. Another attempt is Apache-asp.org. Because Apache is the preferred web server for Linux, Apache-ASP makes a lot of sense.

To date, as I said, ASP and ASP.NET are fully usable only on Windows. I will try to stay on top of this and find out when a complete, ready for production, cross platform solution will be released by a company or anyone else for that matter, but until that time, if you plan to use ASP, you'd better stick to using Windows for your hosting. It's the safer choice.

PHP

PHP was developed by the open source community, much of which is gathered around Linux. Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL form a well known combination and they are known to work very well together.

Fortunately PHP works well on the Windows-IIS (Internet Information Services) platform too, which means that PHP scripts will work on a Windows machine as well (although a few changes in the scripts might be necessary).

PHP gained its popularity quite rapidly and it is renowned for being free, fast and powerful. Add to that the big number of scripts (many of which are free) that are written in PHP, the abundant information on just about every PHP related subject, and you can understand why PHP becomes the choice of ever more users.

Making the choice

Windows as a hosting platform has at least one big advantage: full use of ASP and ASP.NET. If your plan to use ASP because your employees know ASP or because it does a better job for your specific application, Windows hosting is the best choice right now.

Good thing is that PHP is not confined to Linux and it works quite well on Windows. If, at a later time, you decide to use PHP for certain things, you can do so without much worry, provided that your host has PHP on that server, of course.

Back to Linux - while it is not yet able to take full advantage of ASP, it is a very popular choice as an operating system for web servers. It is widely acclaimed for its stability and that has to count for something. While Windows' instability, although it might be somewhat anecdotal, is a subject that is often discussed, Linux's stability is almost undisputed.

Price and availability

Although Linux is known to be free and it basically is, some disputes over total cost of ownership as an operating system for web servers, do exist. Certain studies revealed that Windows might be cheaper to use than Linux in time and under certain conditions. Not surprisingly though, the sponsor behind these studies was Microsoft (in one form or another). Of course, counter studies exist also and they - of course - state the exact opposite. There's a war out there, you know?

If you want to read more about this you could try searching on Google for "windows linux cost of ownership".

While the "big guys" run their numbers and fancy extrapolations, in the real world, for one reason or another, Linux hosting is generally cheaper than Windows hosting, meaning that a dedicated server running Linux will cost less than a dedicated server running Windows. Moving this into the "shared hosting" space, one can obtain more web space and data transfer for the same amount of money if he chooses Linux.

Now, another thing to notice is that most hosts offer Linux based plans, so finding a good Linux hosting company might prove easier. Not that there's a lack of hosts offering Windows hosting. No! There are thousands of hosts out there and there's a serious offer of Windows hosting, just not in the numbers that Linux is.

So, what then?

Personally I would use Linux as the "default option" because of its widespread use, renowned stability, reliability and level of security and - why not mention - lower costs. However, some things are not available on the Linux platform. If your needs cannot be fully met by a Linux server, but they can be by a Windows server, then that's the time when Windows will definitely be the better choice.

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An article on unlimited bandwidth?

mytrustywebhost — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:55:34 +0800

The unlimited bandwidth in a world with limited resources.

What's this bandwidth thing again?
First of all, we have to establish one thing here. I'm not necessarily talking about bandwidth in the sense of speed of transmission or data transmission rate (bits/second), which is the correct definition for the term "bandwidth". I'm mainly talking about the so called bandwidth which measures the total amount of transmitted data (bits).

This whole misuse of the term bandwidth started perhaps because most packages come with a specified amount of Gigabytes/month. Some might've considered it to be the same thing as bandwidth because the latter is measured in bits/second. But who knows? Anyway, most likely you already know what I'm talking about.

Still, just to be clear and rigorous I must make a clear distinction between terms. Bandwidth means data transfer rate, which is a speed - the speed of transferring data. Hence unlimited bandwidth would mean, in other words, an infinite speed when transferring data. This does not exist. Speeds are limited in our world. For example we (or at least most of us) believe that the speed of light is the ultimate speed of anything in this universe. However, the speed of light is limited, not unlimited.

Back to definitions, when most hosting companies refer to bandwidth in their shared/reseller hosting packages they actually mean "data transfer", not "data transfer rate". They state for example 5GB of bandwidth, meaning that you'll be allowed to transfer 5GB of data, usually within a period of time of one month. This is the data transfer that you are allowed to use (or consume), the amount of data that is transmitted, not the speed at which it is/can be transmitted.

With that taken out of our way, I will say that this unlimited bandwidth issue is one of the most sensitive and maybe to some extent controversial issues in the web hosting industry. Certain web hosting companies actually offer unlimited bandwidth (in the sense of data transfer) in their hosting packages. The thing that really boggles the mind is that they offer it at a fixed price! Can you put a fixed price on something unlimited? In fact, the very idea of unlimited in a limited world is... well... rather impossible.

Unlimited overselling?
Selling unlimited something is overselling at the extreme, no matter what it is. There's no unlimited anything in this world as far as we know.

Companies defend themselves saying that they don't do anything to stop a user from doing his best to "consume" unlimited amounts of data transfer. But then we'd be dealing with the so called unmetered bandwidth, which is a different thing.

While unmetered bandwidth is relatively OK when you rent a server with let's say a 10mbit/sec connection (not shared with any other server), when you're talking with shared hosting or reseller hosting, unmetered bandwidth is not OK anymore.

When you rent the server you can use that connection to the max, but when you're just a guy hosted on such a server, you have to "fight" for it with the other people on the server, meaning you'll never enjoy a full 10mbit connection.

There is also such a thing as contented bandwidth, when you are sold a server with a 10mbit connection with unmetered bandwidth, but so are let's say 15 other people. The seller however doesn't have a 150mbit connection, he has a 100mbit connection and he's overselling. Tricky business this hosting business, isn't it?

Anyway, I digress... The reality is that the more or less hidden policy of most of the companies that offer unlimited bandwidth is to either close accounts using more than a set amount of GB/month or use the resources abuse clause to suspend the user's account.

So, although the offer states "unlimited bandwidth", the web hosting company knows, and anyone else should know from the start, that it will not be delivered. It cannot be delivered. Physically, the network has a limited speed of transmission, which in turn means that the hosting company cannot send more that xxxxGB/month.

Unlimited bandwidth or data transfer do not exist and they cannot be delivered, even though they are offered. They are just hype, just marketing. Rather deceptive marketing if you ask me.

True stories
Often, what reads "unlimited" on the initial offer transforms into "limited" when you read the terms of service. You'll sometimes find a point where the web hosting company reserves the right to stop the transfer for your account (i.e. suspend your account) if the bandwidth (data transfer actually) consumption exceeds the "unlimited value" of... lets say 20GB in a single month. This whole thing is barely legal in my opinion. It is however so hard to prove that they were trying to deceive you...

I remember reading about someone who signed-up for an account with unlimited bandwidth. Imagine his surprise when he received an e-mail one day, asking him to "upgrade" the account because he was (basically) reaching the limit of the "unlimited". It might make you laugh too, but it's sad really!

While participating in hosting forums I've often had the -- let's call it pleasure -- of exchanging ideas with and question owners of hosting companies who were offering unlimited bandwidth. Obviously I was not alone there, other members were asking questions as well. Anyway, in one such occasion, after a few questions we've asked, it turned out that even though the host had no limit stated on their site (not even in the fine print), they were in fact using an "in house" monthly data transfer limit of 10GB. All this while bandwidth was advertised as "unlimited". The owner argued that the customers didn't complain and that they actually had a few customers who were paying for multiple "unlimited bandwidth" accounts.

The funny things you get to hear in a lifetime!..

Is there anything more to say?
To make a long story short, the conclusion is that physically it's impossible to achieve unlimited bandwidth. "Extreme amounts of bandwidth" yes, but not "unlimited bandwidth". So anyone claiming to provide unlimited bandwidth is not telling the truth (yes, that means lying ).

For me, unlimited bandwidth is a bad sign. A very bad sign. Sure, from a marketing point of view it might be a good sign -- the guys know how to attract innocent, sometimes ignorant clients. But from the educated client's point of view, it's definitely a no-no.

I stay away from unlimited bandwidth. I can understand overselling and I condone overselling to some extent, but from overselling bandwidth (or any other resource) to such extreme as unlimited bandwidth, there's a long way. An infinitely long way in fact!

Besides, I like to know what I'm getting exactly. When it comes to web space, bandwidth, price, and many other hosting features I expect numbers. The thing that cannot be expressed exactly is the level of support. For that, as you might know by now, I search for customer reviews.

Unlimited other things...
This article seems like a good place to bring into discussion the other unlimited features that come with hosting accounts. One such thing is the unlimited space. Just like bandwidth, web space is essentially and undisputedly - limited. Hard disks have limited capacities, and although those hosts who offer unlimited space might argue that hard disks can be added when necessary, fact is that even then, the space would be limited. Smart and responsible hosts don't advertise neither unlimited bandwidth (data transfer), neither unlimited space. At least I don't think a "tech" person could think of such a thing.

Once bandwidth and space limits are clearly defined, unlimited anything else is (more or less) acceptable and, to a certain extent, even standard practice. Unlimited FTP accounts, email accounts, databases and so on are acceptable because they're not limited by the host (hence the unlimited claim), but mainly by the amount of space you have bought. Each such account requires space, so when you read "unlimited email accounts", translate it into "as many email accounts as you can create within your limited amount of space", just so you you don't lie to yourself -- or feel lied to.

As a closure to this article, I wish you an unlimited number of unique visitors! OK, that was just a silly joke. I wish you unlimited happiness! That at least, we may all hope to achieve - we are granted the right by law.
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