![[LWN Logo]](/images/lcorner.png) |
|
![[LWN.net]](/images/Included.png) |
The December 2001 Netcraft Web Server Survey is out:
http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
Top Developers
Developer November 2001 Percent December 2001 Percent Change
Apache 20713781 56.81 20497607 56.50 -0.31
Microsoft 10844419 29.74 11156732 30.75 1.01
iPlanet 1310502 3.59 1302788 3.59 0.00
Zeus 800661 2.20 792530 2.18 -0.02
Active Sites
Developer November 2001 Percent December 2001 Percent Change
Apache 7750275 61.88 8588323 63.34 1.46
Microsoft 3307207 26.40 3609428 26.62 0.22
iPlanet 431935 3.45 383078 2.83 -0.62
Zeus 174052 1.39 172352 1.27 -0.12
Absolute number of sites found falls
This month sees a drop in the number of sites found by the survey, for
only the second time since the survey started in [1]August 1995. The
previous drop was in [2]August this year, caused by failures and
business model changes at several mass hosting companies, and the
aftermath of the Code Red virus. That drop turned out to be a blip
with the previous trendlines re-establishing themselves the following
month.
This time the primary reason is a drop in the number of registered
domain names, as the number of domains not renewed exceeds new
registrations. Domains bought during the rampant domain-name
speculation of late 1999 are now coming up for two-year renewal, and
many are being abandoned. For example over the last three months the
number of .com domains has dropped by about 130k, though earlier
quarters this year still saw increases. Domain-name speculation
accelerated during 2000, so it will be interesting to see how the
number of sites changes during 2002. The introduction of the [3]new
domains like .biz, and increasing internet development in parts of the
world, will counter the abandonment of existing domains.
The drop has had particularly evident impact this month at the popular
registrar [4]register.com, which has seen the number of registered but
unused sites parked at [5]futuresite.register.com drop by 300k,
accounting for the drop in Apache numbers this month. Note that this
does not necessarily demonstrate that register.com's business is
harder hit than other registrars, though as register.com was one of
the earliest popular alternative registrars it would perhaps see large
numbers of non-renewals earlier than some other registrars. Even if
many domains are not renewed, this does not mean registrars are in
trouble; many domains will be renewed providing an increase in
business compared to earlier this year, just not at the amazing levels
of two years previously.
Of course there is not a direct linkage between the number of
registered domains and the number of sites in the Netcraft survey. On
the one hand domains may not have any websites, and on the other hand
sub-domains permit multiple sites per domain, such as our
[6]www.netcraft.com and [7]uptime.netcraft.com sites. As domains
bought for speculative reasons are abandoned, we can expect a higher
proportion of sites to be [8]active.
Not all hosters retrenching
It's not all doom and gloom for web hosters. [9]Dialtone Internet is
expanding into Europe, [10]opening a new data center here in the
United Kingdom this month, following in the steps of [11]Rackspace
which [12]opened a European data center in the United Kingdom last
year. We have noticed a trend of people moving sites from the US to
their own countries as dedicated server facilities pick up around the
world, and hosting in the US is no longer significantly cheaper for
many countries as bandwidth costs drop.
Review of 2001
The year has seen dramatic changes, with the meltdown of some internet
infrastructure companies and the slide in technology stock prices.
In the survey we have seen a very significant slowing in the growth of
the number of sites compared to the boom times of 2000. Reduction in
web advertising demand and rates has caused difficulties at a number
of free mass hosters, targeting residential and small business users,
such as [13]Webjump, [14]Namezero and [15]Homestead. This and the
[16]Code Red virus and [17]Nimda worm has caused the monthly growth in
numbers to be somewhat erratic in the second half of the year.
Mainly through gains at some of the remaining mass hosters such as
[18]Namezero and [19]Network Solutions, IIS has seen its share
increase in the full survey during the second half of the year.
However for active sites IIS and Apache share has changed little
during the year.
The most significant [20]web business failure of the year was Exodus,
weighed down by a huge debt burden of $3.2 billion and running out of
cash (though ISP [21]PSInet's bankruptcy with $2.6 billion is also
significant). However with Exodus' high-end customer list it was
relatively quickly [22]bought for $755 million by the canny and
cash-rich telco [23]Cable & Wireless. C&W had [24]previously bought
another high-end hoster Digital Island for $340 million. C&W has also
[25]just announced it is acquiring PSINet Japan. Together with its own
facilities C&W is now a formidable player in the high-end of the
hosting market, though integrating the businesses does present the
risk of it all going wrong.
Lower down in the hosting market dedicated server companies such as
[26]Rackspace seem to be doing well, gaining share from the first
generation colocation companies by offering convenience, service and
reasonable cost effectiveness. Their target market is both those
growing out of shared hosting, and those currently using leased lines
but finding that unsatisfactory.
On the technology side the development of Server Blades is an exciting
change, perhaps the most significant change in hosting technology
since the introduction of the 1U server. Although offering the
potential of purchase cost as well as space saving, to date they are
offered at a high price, and it will be hard to break out of this
situation during the Internet economy downturn. Current solutions like
[27]Cobalt RAQ servers offer better value for money.
The downturn in the Internet economy also affects the Cobalt server
solution though, with Sun's Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander
[28]remarking that the acquisition of Cobalt Networks hadn't been all
that Sun had hoped. We have noticed that some dedicated server
providers, such as Rackspace, have stopped offering a Cobalt server
option, instead offering Linux systems with third party web control
panels such as [29]Plesk Server Administrator or [30]Sphera
HostingDirector rather than Cobalt's web-based user interface. Both
Sphera HostingDirector and the recently launched [31]Covalent
Enterprise Ready Server offer centralised web-based management of
multiple servers as alternative solutions to the [32]Cobalt Control
Station.
Despite the failure of many internet based companies over the last
year, there has been steady growth in the numbers of sites performing
encrypted transactions over the internet. Verisign [33]reported in
July that 87% of SSL certificates were being renewed, while our own
SSL Survey shows growth of around 37% over the year.
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/
References
1. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/year1.html
2. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-200108.html
3. http://www.icann.org/tlds/
4. http://www.register.com/
5. http://www.netcraft.com/whats?site=futuresite.register.com
6. http://www.netcraft.com/
7. http://uptime.netcraft.com/
8. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-200007.html#active
9. http://www.dialtone.com/
10. http://eu.dialtone.com/
11. http://www.rackspace.com/
12.
http://www.rackspace.co.uk/about/newsroom/listings.php3?hidelistings=1&detail=1055
13. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6773687.html?tag=mn_hd
14. http://www.namezero.com/
15. http://anything.homestead.com/
16. http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-19.html
17. http://www.cert.org/body/advisories/CA200126_FA200126.html
18. http://www.namezero.com/
19. http://www.netsol.com/
20. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7309927.html
21. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-6155076.html
22.
http://investor.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-8026522-0.html
23. http://www.cw.com/
24. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-5915414.html
25. http://www.cw.com/th_05.asp?ID=mc_506dec1101
26. http://www.rackspace.com/
27. http://www.cobalt.com/products/raq/
28. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7383790.html?tag=rltdnws
29. http://www.plesk.com/html/products/psa/
30. http://www.sphera.com/
31. http://www.covalent.com/products/enterprise_ready/
32. http://www.cobalt.com/products/controlstation/
33. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6695510.html
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