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 WINDOWS
v/s LINUX |
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If you happen to be running your own server system, you would
not have to consider what operating system to use for hosting
your websites. That decision would already have been made.
Part of that decision making process may, however, have involved
consideration of the features that would be available to you
for your websites. Other considerations may have involved
other system features as well as cost, ease and convenience.
Those aspects which concern your websites are the same operating
system considerations to be born in mind when selecting a
hosting service for your sites.
The vast majority of hosting services being offered today
are based either on Windows or Linux. There are a few other
Unix variants used in hosting companies, but for the most
part the features offered to the guest website are so similar
that they can be thought of as the same. For the purposes
of this discussion, "Unix" systems will be lumped
together and a Linux model will be considered. There may also
be hosting services based on another operating system altogether,
but these are few and far between. For those systems, you
would have to compare their feature sets to those discussed
here.
Second to the operating system, the most important influence
on the features that will be available to you will be the
Web Server system in use. On Linux systems, the Web Server
offered is almost always the Apache server. On Windows it's
the Internet Information Server (now "Service"),
IIS. Apache is also available for Windows systems, but is
not very frequently used by hosting companies using the Windows
platform. Again, there are other Web Servers in use but the
great majority of hosting companies use one of these two.
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 Features
In Common - HTML, JavaScript |
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No matter which platform you select for hosting your site,
there are some things that are common to all. All web servers
are (or certainly should be!) configured to support HTML files
and JavaScript. It is also reasonable to expect that every
system offering hosting services these days also has an outgoing
mail server (SMTP Server) set up and available to you. The
lack of this could be a problem for you.
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FrontPage
and the FrontPage Server Extensions |
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While their name suggests that are for enabling the use of
FrontPage, the extension in fact provide a set of capabilities
that is utilized by a wider range of software. FrontPage itself
is a very useful web development tool; especially for someone
with a less intimate knowledge of the actual codes used in
website creation, but the server extensions also provide a
number of utility functions that the website can take advantage
of and they provide for a "post" method that allows
a program (such as FrontPage or Visual Studio, among others)
to "Open" the live site for updates. These extensions,
which can be a very important feature for you, can be installed
on either a Windows or a Linux server.
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Uploads
- FTP and Telnet |
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If you are not doing
live updates via the extensions, nor using the FrontPage style
HTTP import and export, then you will need a means to upload
your pages and other website files to the server after you complete
them. The most common way to accomplish this is via the "File
Transfer Protocol" (FTP). From the System Administrator's
perspective, there are differences in the ease of setting up
FTP for individual users that tend to make it more commonly
available of Unix servers than it is on Windows. If FTP is important
to you, you will want to check specifically for this feature.
While Telnet access can be provided on a Windows server,
it almost never is. Far more common on Unix servers (which
is where it originated) it is, however, quite rapidly disappearing
from them too because of security considerations. Telnet is
useful to you if you are familiar with the Unix or Linux command
line utilities and commands and wish to use them for controlling
or manipulating your files. Almost everything you do with
your site through a Telnet session can be accomplished by
other means, which means that the availability of this feature
may not be of particular importance to you.
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CGI
- Shell Scripts and PERL |
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The "Common Gateway
Interface" (CGI) provides a means to connect or link from
a web page to a program written in a scripting language that
runs on the server. Some people refer to a "CGI Script"
when what they actually mean is a Shell Script accessed via
the CGI. Shell scripts are files containing a series of commands
to be executed by the Unix Shell. They are therefore a feature
of a Unix or Linux system. Other types of scripts accessed via
the CGI include PERL scripts. PERL is readily available for
either Unix/Linux or Windows. It is included by default is almost
every Linux distribution and is an add-on to Windows. As a very
powerful and popular scripting language, it is available on
most hosting service systems. It is something that you will
want to check. |
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Control
Panel |
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This is called various
names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you
to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically,
and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like
add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords
for your account. Do not go for a host where you have to go
through their technical support each time you want to change
a password or add/delete an email account. Such chores are common
maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time
again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for
their technical support to make the changes for you. |
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Server
Side Scripting - PHP, ASP, ASP.NET |
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There are many other
type of Server Side scripting and/or interfaces, including PHP,
ASP and ASP.NET. PHP, as an easy to learn, but very powerful
scripting language has gained a great deal of popularity. It
is readily available for both Unix/Linux and Windows systems,
but is still more commonly deployed on Linux. Most hosting companies
these days will have made PHP available on their systems no
matter which platform they have chosen. It is still, however,
something you will want to check on if you have any plans to
use it.
ASP and the newer ASP.NET are native to Windows. They provide,
among other things, access to Visual Basic and the VB Scripting
language. There are hosts who port ASP to Linux, but it is
very rare to see it offered by a hosting company running Linux
servers. ASP.NET holds a great potential for the future of
the web, providing features that greatly extend the capabilities
that web developers can offer to their clients. A decision
to utilize ASP or APS.NET may be a deciding factor for you
in the choice of platform you look for in a hosting company.
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Databases
- MySQL, MS Access, MS SQL Server and Others |
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MySQL is a common database on Linux based servers these days.
It is also available for Windows and is starting to appear
on the list of offerings from more and more Windows based
hosting providers. Access, as a Microsoft product, is available
for Windows. Other databases, including the large database
systems such as SQL Server and Oracle can be accessed through
interfaces such as ODBC. There are also ODBC connections to
such system as the IBM AS/400, which is fairly common in medium
sized businesses. These interfaces, which are fairly specialized,
are more commonly available on Windows systems, and in the
offerings of hosting companies are usually special request
or custom solutions. If you have a need for such a connection,
you will need to talk to the potential hosting service representatives.
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Summary |
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Recent advances in operating
systems, and especially in the areas of inter-operability, have
brought the available feature sets of Windows and Linux based
website hosting offerings much closer to each other. Where in
the past there have been cut and dry advantages to one over
the other for particular applications, these differences have
now diminished to the point where the choice of operating system
a hosting service company makes is frequently not a concern
to the client. With a few exceptions, as noted above, you can
often make your choice of hosting company based on the available
feature set and factors concerning the company themselves, rather
than the operating system they have chosen. |
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Comparision
Chart |
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| Features |
Windows |
Linux |
| FTP Access |
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| Telnet/SSH Access |
limited |
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| HTML and JavaScript |
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| FrontPage Server Extensions |
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| CGI/PERL |
limited |
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| ASP |
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limited |
| ASP.NET support |
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| PHP |
limited |
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| ColdFusion |
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| Access Database |
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| MySQL Database |
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| MSSQL Database |
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