Which platform should you choose for e-commerce?MacOS, Windows NT, and Unix face off in the Web server arenaSummaryWhile Windows NT, Unix, and MacOS each have undeniable strengths, chances are you're going to have to settle on one for your e-commerce Web server platform. We give you the low-down on each platform's ability to meet the e-commerce challenge. Check out our comprehensive comparison chart to help you make your decision. (2,200 words) |
 February 1998    |
 hoosing
an electronic-commerce platform can be worse than buying
a new car -- at some point, you know you have to head to the dealer and
put your money down, but it's difficult to guess which product will
give you the features you need today and last you through the years.
For all practical purposes, the choice between Web server platforms
boils down to the three major operating systems: Unix, Macintosh, and
Windows NT.
It's in situations like this that it really pays to be a true OS "bigot" -- a Mac fanatic, for example, or a die-hard Unix guru. For these people, and for those whose corporations are equally committed to one platform only, the OS platform more or less dictates the e-commerce package they'll use when it comes time to develop an online storefront. Many Web developers, however, have it the other way around. They must implement a Web server specifically for e-commerce applications. And, your Web server platform can be independent of your network operating system if you so desire -- indeed, many corporations whose main network is based on Windows NT run separate Unix Web servers. It's your responsibility to decide which platform can best meet your e-commerce needs -- not an easy decision. The Macintosh OS, for example, is in many respects an ideal Web server platform. Yet a January 1998 survey by Internet research firm Netcraft found that only 2.29% of the almost two million computers offering HTTP services on the Web were Macs. Obviously, the Web server decision is more complicated than it might appear. Assuming you and your organization are looking to deploy an e-commerce site, a look at the relative merits of each operating environment might help you make your decision. In that spirit, we give you a brief analysis of each platform and provide a comprehensive table listing pros, cons, and available Web servers and e-commerce applications for the Mac, Windows NT, and Unix.
Unix's power makes it the champ For instance, Unix typically runs on high-performance systems, such as Sun UltraSPARC servers or Silicon Graphics Origin servers. UltraSPARC machines scale from a single-CPU version up to 64 processors, and the higher-end systems can handle literally hundreds of thousands of Web impressions with little effort. Unix also supports true 64-bit operating systems from Digital and Hewlett-Packard (HP), and provides support for large disk arrays and clustering options. These features are crucial for the mission-critical, non-stop operations performed in e-commerce. Clustering (also known as high-availability) capabilities are particularly important for e-commerce, where 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation is mandatory. Clustering lets you run multiple physical servers as if they were one, sharing processing load and providing back-up if one goes down. HP's clustering product for its HP-UX OS supports eight clustered servers, while Sun's Sun Solaris Cluster 2.0 handles four. As you can see from our accompanying feature table, e-commerce applications for Unix abound. These range from the free Apache server to Trade'ex Corp.'s Market Maker, at $250,000. But there is a downside; all that power and performance comes at a price. The OS itself isn't all that expensive -- as an example, Sun's Solaris costs $1,290 -- but Unix servers can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In addition, Unix requires a system administrator familiar with its seemingly endless list of commands. Most of the Unix vendors have incorporated graphical front ends to ease some of the difficulty, but the OS remains a complex environment that's not for the faint of heart. This carries over into the Web server arena. With the exception of the Web servers from Netscape, the more popular Unix Web servers -- including NCSA Apache and the Community ConneXion Stronghold servers -- must be configured from the Unix shell, not a GUI. This procedure requires extensive Unix expertise. Still, for high-end e-commerce activity, Unix holds the upper hand for good reasons. If you're thinking about making a major investment in a robust, large-scale e-commerce system, you should definitely consider making the hardware and system administrator investment to match.
NT comes in strong on price and ease of use NT has become a leader in low-end Internet and intranet environments for several reasons. Not the least of these is Microsoft's strong market presence -- the company's clout allows it to deliver a wealth of supporting products, such as SQL Server, that bolster NT's attractiveness. But NT offers several technical advantages, too: By providing a preemptive, multithreaded microkernel that supports symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) capabilities, NT allows multi-Pentium processor Intel machines to provide more than adequate performance in most Web environments. NT Server Enterprise Edition 4.0 can handle the biggest multi-Pentium box, with eight processors -- still providing far less brute force than clustered multiprocessor Unix boxes, but offering at least respectable power. As the accompanying table shows, there are more e-commerce apps available for Windows NT than any other OS platform. Price is also a big selling point on the software side; while some of the high-end vendors, such as Pandesic, BroadVision, and Connect still charge $25,000 or more for their products, the fact that Microsoft includes its Merchant Server e-commerce product free as part of its Elite Server Enterprise product has forced many others to keep their prices in line. For instance, iCat's Electronic Commerce Suite 3.0 Professional Edition sells for $9,995; the Standard Edition sells for $3,495. WebSite Pro 2.0, from O'Reilly & Associates, is a reasonable $799. In addition, hardware for NT servers costs considerably less than the typical Unix box. Although it's possible to run an NT server on a low-end PC, it's more common for organizations to use high-powered Pentium servers, with costs in the $10,000 to $15,000 range -- still far less than the $100,000-and-up price range for powerful Unix boxes. Windows NT is also less complicated to use and manage than Unix, though still not as easy as the Mac OS. Microsoft says it's improving its management capabilities in Windows NT 5.0 with MMC, or Microsoft Management Console, which allows users and third-party software vendors to use a variety of plug-in components to build management applications. Windows NT has its downsides, of course. For one, Microsoft Clustering Services (MCS) support only two-way clustering, without the scalability of the Unix systems. Windows NT 4.0 is also not as stable as Unix -- it's more prone to crashes. Microsoft says it's addressing this in NT 5.0, but with 5.0 in beta and no firm shipping date in sight, users have yet to see hard evidence. Windows NT's relative lack of scalability also means that it can support fewer virtual servers per computer than Unix. This can make it more difficult to manage and administer for certain types of organizations, including e-commerce services providers. Overall, NT's features make a Windows NT-based Web server a cost-effective solution in low- to mid- range e-commerce environments that don't handle the traffic of, for instance, an Excite or Alta Vista. But if you've got heavy traffic or have to provide large-scale mission-critical e-commerce service, you may want to consider Unix instead.
MacOS has great ease-of-use but few applications Apple's strategies aside, Schrick still says the Mac is a great Web server because "the real cost in a Web site is your own time, and any Web site, regardless of the platform, has to be watched constantly. On a Mac, people can take control of their sites and be involved with them themselves," thus doing away with the heavy costs of outside consultants or IT personnel. In addition to ease of use, the Mac architecture offers extremely tight security, completely separating the Web application space from the Mac OS space. In fact, that's one of the key reasons Jim Tincher, president of Online PC, a Web-based computer retailer, chose the Mac as the platform to host his site. The Mac OS "doesn't have the [security] holes in it that Unix and NT have," he says; "it's too difficult of an operating system to break -- it's an OS that's never been broken via the Web, even though numerous events have been sponsored to do so." The Mac OS also gives users the ability to run multiple virtual Web servers on a single PowerPC hardware platform. That's a key issue for companies such as 5Line Communications, an advertising and design firm that hosts Web sites for many of its regular customers, according to 5Line owner Alan Ferguson. With Mac hardware prices now in line with those of Wintel computers, the Mac OS also offers price-performance benefits similar to Windows NT. This is especially important in the less-than-Fortune-500 environments -- i.e., education and graphics departments -- where the Mac still has a strong presence. StarNine's WebStar, the commercial upgrade to the original MacHTTP, remains the number one Mac Web server. StarNine, a division of Quarterdeck, also offers two of the more widely used Mac e-commerce packages, Web-Catalog and Web-Merchant. ICat's Electronic Commerce Suite is another of the few packaged choices available for Mac merchants. The factors going against the Mac OS as an e-commerce platform are the same issues every Mac user deals with: Fewer available applications, and applications that generally offer fewer options than their NT or Unix counterparts. Apple Computer's single-supplier tactics for selling the Mac hardware put the Mac OS at another disadvantage -- with the mass exodus of computer stores from the Mac seller business, some users are fearful that hardware will be harder to find and purchase.
Basically, it boils down to momentum; with less than 3% of Web sites
running on Macs, any organization plotting its e-commerce strategies
should think twice before committing to the Mac OS as an e-commerce
platform. The best bet might be to follow Apple's lead and move to
Unix instead.
|
About the author
Jim Carr is a Saratoga, CA, freelance business and
technology writer who's covered the networking industry for more than
10 years.
Reach Jim at jim.carr@ne-dev.com.
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