What Server Software is in use on a RidgeStar Interactive Site?
When RidgeStar
first started creating Interactive Sites, we used the then current Windows/NT, IIS, ASP, and Access software products. These products worked fine for us in the initial stages, permitting us to develop and validate main concepts.
In the fourth quarter of 2002, we completed a fairly extensive search to locate the host software for the "next generation" of the sites to improve performance, reliability, and availability. As a result of this search and evaluation, we have standardized on the following key Open Source software products for all future development (commonly known as the LAMP stack
):
- Fedora Server
The Fedora Project's popular Open Source operating system provides a relatively aggressive approach towards software distribution, but has proven (over time) it's commitment to support and performance characteristics necessary for running a 24/7 operational environment. All the production RidgeStar Linux Servers are scheduled for regular software updates and preventative maintenance, as deemed appropriate by the Fedora Open Source community and the RidgeStar Server maintenance team- Apache HTTP Server
Apache Foundation's Apache Web Server manages actual HTTP operations, thread management, SSL functionality, and related logging activities within Linux. Not only is Apache an excellent fit with Linux, but it's throughput characteristics are simply not matched by anything we investigated.- MariaDB Database Processor
Finally, the "backend data storage" is directly supported through use of one of the most prevalent Open Source Database systems on the Internet, the Open Source MariaDB product. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, all your database Tables will reside on a RidgeStar <Server under control of the MariaDB Daemon.- PHP Scripting Language
There are many languages available on the Linux/Apache platform that we might have used to implement the Interactive Site concepts. We exclusively use the PHP Scripting language for all Server side coding and would certainly recommend it to anyone looking towards interactive HTTP based applications
We did not start our search to settle completely on Open Source products. Rather, we simply concluded that they offered the best performance and stability on "non-mainframe" types of hardware. We are certainly fans of open source and have (at this time) no reservations about recommending it to others with similar business constraints and requirements.
