From: mhp@netcraft.com (Mike Prettejohn) To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: April 2002 Netcraft Web Server Survey Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 02:02:48 +0100 (BST) The April 2002 Netcraft Web Server Survey is out; http://www.netcraft.com/survey/ Top Developers Developer March 2002 Percent April 2002 Percent Change Apache 20492088 53.76 21191595 56.38 2.62 Microsoft 12968860 34.02 12014054 31.96 -2.06 Zeus 855103 2.24 850956 2.26 0.02 iPlanet 889857 2.33 832474 2.21 -0.12 Active Sites Developer March 2002 Percent April 2002 Percent Change Apache 9522954 64.37 10509138 64.38 0.01 Microsoft 3966743 26.81 4431875 27.15 0.34 iPlanet 265826 1.80 278775 1.71 -0.09 Zeus 170023 1.15 182918 1.12 -0.03 Around the Net Microsoft drop back a couple of percentage points this month, primarily attributable to the reaping of around a million expired sites at [1]homestead.com. Homestead used to offer limited free hosting supported by advertising, but has revised its business model, announcing on April 15th that it is migrating to a traditional paid-for services model. ZDNet's analysis It has been interesting to watch ZDNet's respected columnist Larry Seltzer [2]conjecture on the recent rise of Microsoft-IIS in the Web Server Survey. It is a complicated picture as there seem to be several forces at work, not all pulling in the same direction; * Some of the big moves are because Microsoft has been able to identy people who control very large numbers of sites, are not bound tightly to a particular technology, and persuade them to switch to Microsoft servers. The leading domain registrars, Verisign and register.com, are prime examples of this. It would be wrong to infer a trend from this because there are only a few very large domain registrars, and once they have switched, there is limited further potential. However, Microsoft-IIS share could jump again if Microsoft can convinice another class of entity that controls a large number of Web sites to migrate to Windows. For example, the pioneer shared hosting systems such as [10]Pair Networks, [11]Alabanza, [12]Rapidsite, [now part of Verio] who control significant numbers of sites, and presently seem happily entrenched using the technology that they originally set their businesses up with in the early days of the Web. Shared hosting has traditionally been a Unix preserve, but as the table shows, hosters led by Interland have been able to host significant numbers of sites on Windows 2000. Top Windows 2000 Hosters by ip address, April 2002 Hosting Company IP Addresses [3]interland.net 67,893 [4]softcomca.com 30,565 [5]sprintlink.net 23,626 [6]verio.net 16,730 [7]uu.net 15,378 [8]datapipe.net 9,046 [9]crystaltech.com 8,396 * The evaporation of the free hosting business model has caused volatility in survey numbers over the last eighteen months, as large numbers of small sites appeared on free hosting systems and subsequently disappeared as companies revised their business model or went out of business. * There has been a technology shift in Microsoft's favour over the last three years, as the dedicated server phenomenon has progressed from being innovative and exciting to commonplace and conventional. Microsoft has benefitted as the decision on choice of hosting technology has moved to individual site owners from the managers of large hosting systems. Intel machines running either Linux or Windows have become the de facto platforms for dedicated server based sites, and almost without exception hosting companies offer their customers both. For example, [13]Rackspace, who received venture funding funding from Red Hat, have become a significant provider of Windows dedicated servers. * Also, Microsoft does have an area of the market where there is no natural Unix based competitor - mid-market commerce sites. Commerce Server [nee Site Server] has traditionally dominated in this market, and this month Microsoft has [14]announced a .Net enabled version, Commerce Server 2002. * Conversely, the success of Miva and PHP has supported Linux adoption on commerce sites far more effectively than was the case two years ago. Apache 2.0 released At the start of the month, Apache 2.0 was [15]released. Most of the emphasis for the immediate release has come from [16]Covalent, who released an Apache/2.0 product some five months [17]earlier. The other leading commercial lights in the Apache community [18]Red Hat and [19]IBM have adopted a much more conservative approach to Apache 2.0, and are still running their own sites on Apache/1.3. Indeed, Red Hat's [20]Stronghold 4 which was released after the Covalent product, is based on Apache/1.3. So far, there has not been a largescale move to Apache/2.0, though several high profile sites, including [21]News.com and [22]slashdot.org have started using it. VeriSign investors see money go up in smoke Mark Shuttleworth, possibly the survey's wealthiest subscriber, who netted half a billion dollars from the sale of his certificate authority, Thawte Consulting to Verisign in December 1999, was successfully [23]launched into space on Thursday. He took off from Baikonur aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and docked with the International Space Station early on Saturday 27th April. Ironically, just as Mark was hitting new heights on Friday, Verisign was hitting new [24]lows as investors apparently followed the smart money, out of domain registration and into the Russian space tourism industry. SSL Encryption : weak ciphers being eliminated Last [25]month we drew attention to a paper nCipher had published a paper on their success in cracking 512-bit RSA public keys and the deployment of these keys on the internet. This has prompted us to take a look at the strength of the symmetric ciphers which are used during the actual transfer of data. Although many SSL servers will offer weak ciphers as an option, typically for compatibility with older web browsers, those servers that offer exclusively weak ciphers compromise the privacy of the encrypted data. Looking at data collected since the [26]SSL survey first started in 1996 serves to illustrate the progress being made in eliminating servers that do not support strong encryption. Not only has the percentage of servers internet-wide offering exclusively weak ciphers fallen from around 40% in December 1997, to below 6% in the April 2002 survey, but also in absolute numbers from 25,000 a year ago, to 9,595 now. Many of the servers offering exclusively weak ciphers were hosted outside of the United States, with France and Taiwan offering the poorest protection of encrypted data. Two hosters highlight profitability Two dedicated servers companies, both based in Texas and with similar sounding names, have highlighted their profitability in a largely unprofitable industry. [27]Rackspace recently [28]announced a year of continuous profitability. [29]Everyones Internet, owner of dedicated hoster [30]Rackshack [31]announced a fifth consecutive quarter of growth in revenue and net income. The two companies are finding success with two different messages. Rackspace highlights its "Fanatical support", while Rackshack terrifies its competitors with frigteningly low prices. However both companies have [32]dropped Cobalt from their offerings, in common with several other leading hosting industry companies, including [33]Dialtone Internet. Rackshack's decision comes relatively shortly after it made the [34]largest ever single purchase of Cobalt machines in December 2001. References 1. http://www.homestead.com/ 2. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2862549,00.html 3. http://www.interland.net/ 4. http://www.softcomca.com/ 5. http://www.sprintlink.net/ 6. http://www.verio.net/ 7. http://www.uu.net/ 8. http://www.datapipe.net/ 9. http://www.crystaltech.com/ 10. http://www.pair.com/ 11. http://www.alabanza.com/ 12. http://www.rapidsite.com/ 13. http://www.rackspace.com/ 14. http://news.com.com/2100-1017-876955.html 15. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-878325.html 16. http://www.covalent.net/ 17. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-275672.html 18. http://www.netcraft.com/whats?site=www.redhat.com 19. http://www.netcraft.com/whats?site=www.ibm.com 20. http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2002/press_stronghold.html 21. http://www.netcraft.com/whats?site=www.news.com 22. http://www.netcraft.com/whats?site=images.slashdot.com 23. http://www.africaninspace.com/ 24. http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/interactivecharting.asp?FTSite=FTCOM&symb=verisign&countrycode=US 25. http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/index-200203.html 26. http://www.netcraft.com/ssl/ 27. http://www.rackspace.com/ 28. http://www.rackspace.com/promo/oneyear.php 29. http://www.ev1.net/ 30. http://www.rackshack.net/ 31. http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/rac041002.cfm 32. http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D701%2526a%253D25274,00.asp 33. http://www.dialtone.com/ 34. http://www.rackshack.net/aboutus/intro.asp Internet Research from Netcraft. Netcraft does commercial internet research projects. These include custom cuts on the Web Server Survey data, hosting industry analysis, corporate use of internet technology and bespoke projects. All of the data is gathered through network exploration, not teleresearch. sales@netcraft.com Network Security Testing from Netcraft. Netcraft provides automated network security testing of customer networks and consultancy audits of ecommerce sites, Clients include IBM, Hewlett Packard, Deloitte & Touche, Energis, Britannic Asset Management, Guardian Royal Exchange, Lloyds of London, Laura Ashley, etc. Details at http://www.netcraft.com/security/ To unsubscribe from the Netcraft Web Server Survey Announcements list send the message unsubscribe webserver-survey to majordomo@netcraft.com To resubscribe send the message subscribe webserver-survey Mike -- Mike Prettejohn mhp@@netcraft.com Phone +44 1225 447500 Fax +44 1225 448600 Netcraft Rockfield House Granville Road Bath BA1 9BQ England