newby question about apple servers

[jacg]

Sorry if this information is easily found, but a friend had the audacity to suggest that the iTunes Music Store "was hosted by a windows server anyway". What does Apple use to host things like their own site, forums, and the music store?

(And what about MacRumours for that matter?)

TIA

[ezkimo]

From netcraft.com

The site www.macrumors.com is running Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.0 PHP/4.3.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 mod_ssl/2.8.12 OpenSSL/0.9.6b on Linux

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by jacg
Sorry if this information is easily found, but a friend had the audacity to suggest that the iTunes Music Store "was hosted by a windows server anyway". What does Apple use to host things like their own site, forums, and the music store?

(And what about MacRumours for that matter?)

TIA

You would need the DNS or IP of the apple music store and then you could find out.

netcraft is great for things like that.

[unc32]

The music store, quicktime, software update, etc. are all handled by Akamai.

http://www.akamai.com/

it is quite possible that it is run on linux or something similiar...probably something cheap that can pump out some serious information. Remember, the Xserve hasn't been out that long and isn't a high level server.

[britboy]

Is there any concievable reason as to why apple would use a Windows-based server, when then have their own hardware (Xserve & Xraid) and software (Mac OS X Server) to do the job? Seems like a fairly far-fetched idea to me.

Macrumors, on the other hand, is run on two windows-based machines; specifically from two P3 computers.

[funkywhat2]

When OS X first came out, before OS X Server was polished, Apple used Windows 2000 to host their pages. But since, what isn't handled by Akamai is hosted on their own servers, mostly Apache, if I am not mistaken.

[saabmp3]

Yup, you guys are right. Apple uses Apache and Pure-FTPd on Linux boxes to host their domains.

Let's face it, the Xserves are REALLY REALLY nice, but they just can't cut it with what you can get in a Linunx server (try 16 processors?). The Apple sites just get way too much traffic for a relativly new server like the Xserve to realibly handle. I hope to see in future times Xserves hosting the apple store and site, but until then there is no marketing problem with them using Linux. Heck, it's basically a cousin to Unix (for people who know the Linus Trovaldi story).

BEN

[szark]

Originally posted by saabmp3
Yup, you guys are right. Apple uses Apache and Pure-FTPd on Linux boxes to host their domains.

Except for the main portal -- from Netcraft:

The site www.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.27 (Darwin) PHP/4.3.1 on MacOSX.

...and...

The site www.applemusic.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2 on Solaris.

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by funkywhat2
When OS X first came out, before OS X Server was polished, Apple used Windows 2000 to host their pages. But since, what isn't handled by Akamai is hosted on their own servers, mostly Apache, if I am not mistaken.

I doubt Apple ever ran windows 2000 on their servers, I could be wrong though! It just seems that windows 2000 is not reliable enough for the traffic the Apple pages must handle on a daily basis. I’m almost certain that before OSX they used UNIX or Linux to run their severs. Got a link to back your statement?

[rainman::|:|]

running their web services on mac servers would be ideal; however Apple is not set up as a data hosting facility, which is what's needed here. The added cost of having and maintaining secure, globally networked servers is much higher than hiring Akami or someone to deal with it.

tho they could always donate a few hundred xserves to a facility and have them running a little X section... still... who notices these things?

pnw

[rjvamp]

Don't get me wrong - I love Apple - but saying Windows 2000 can't handle the traffic is a bit lame.

I personally am writing from a Windows 2000 Server running on a Dell Laptop - would I use it to host a 12,000 a day (example number only) hit website? Most likely not. I would make sure my hardware and my software could handle it. Why am I using Windows 2000 on my Dell? Because it runs great, just like OS 10.2.6 runs great on my PowerBook Pizmo. I wouldn't even run a website with 12,000 hits a day on my Pizmo either.

I agree that most of Apple's stuff is run through hosting facilities, which all companies determine what hardware they will use in those facilities. For example, my company uses a Compaq Data Center in Alpharetta, GA, the UK and in Singapore. We choose our own hardware and OS.

When you look at servers or desktops/laptops decide what you want to use it for and then buy. That way you make the best and most informed decision. That way you don't just slam a company for slamming sake. By the way - netcraft will tell you what OS/Web software any domain uses. I like the longest uptime report at http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html Mostly BSD and Apache.

Peace!

[Alte22a]

just a thought would be ideal to get Xserves for hosting my own web pages?

[Wes]

Originally posted by Alte22a
just a thought would be ideal to get Xserves for hosting my own web pages?

A bit of overkill? Unless your site gets thousands of hits a day.

[Alte22a]

well actually, I am about to setup a company to host our clients web pages. So just looking what to buy and looking in to setting up and at the same time. By the way need a bit of education in this area as it is newish to me.

[Fukui]

Steve said that the music store itself (from iTunes) was all being hosted from Xserve. If you watched the iTMS introduction.

[Fukui]

URL to iTMS preview file

itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?songTerm=Walk%20Don't%20Run

(Use http:// instead of itms:// to access from a browser)

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...obos.apple.com

As you can see, running Darwin A.K.A OS X.