Choosing a Web site host
Best practice #5: Choose a server platform
The best server platform for almost any business is the combination of Linux, (FreeBSD, Solaris), an Apache server, the MySQL database, PHP, and PERL.
Easily obtained on both shared and dedicated server offerings, the LAMP open-source software stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, PERL, and sometimes Python) provides everything you need to run virtually any standard business application in a secure and scalable manner.
With the exception of the Linux operating system itself, the rest of the LAMP components will also run natively on Windows. The Windows .Net development framework runs natively only on Windows systems, though there have been some recent successful attempts to move them to Linux. So by using the LAMP stack, you can move your Web site to another host with minimal difficulty; you aren't locked into a platform. Also, LAMP hosting is usually less expensive than Windows hosting, and it's a more secure platform than Windows.
Unless you specifically need Microsoft technologies (for example, Active Server Pages or the .Net framework) to run custom applications or you have developers that specialize in these technologies, we can't recommend using a Microsoft Web hosting platform at this time.
Why not Windows?
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, IIS, Microsoft SQL Server
With easy management and integrated publishing features, the Microsoft offerings for Web hosting are quite good. Microsoft offers excellent development tools and a fervent developer-support community that is easily accessible online. Our biggest issue is the potential for attack and thus downtime, resulting in a loss of dollars or customer information. We also don't like being locked in to Microsoft-specific technologies that aren't standards based. Nonetheless, there are quite a few Windows hosting providers that offer a great selection of features. If you have a team using Microsoft frameworks for development, it will be easier to use Microsoft products on your Web site, too. However, if you do so, we recommend outsourcing the management and hosting of your servers to a hosting company that has Windows expertise, rather than attempting to manage Microsoft security issues and patches on your own.
HOSTING RESOURCES:
| |
Select a best practice: |
|
 |
|
| |
Send feedback
E-mail to a friend
Best practice #6: Select the features
