Windows Web Solutions UPDATE—brought to you by Windows Web Solutions, the Windows & .NET Magazine print newsletter with tools and solutions for managing your Web site.
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February 11, 2003—In this issue:
1. COMMENTARY
- IIS Owns the Fortune 1000 Web Server Market, Readers Respond
2. KEEPING UP WITH IIS
- Analyzing Firewall Logs for Infected Systems
- Results from Last Issue's Instant Poll: Your Organization's Security Plan
- This Issue's Instant Poll: Web Server Type
3. ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Microsoft ASP.NET Connections: 3 For 1 Conference Offer
- Pharma-IT Summit: Real-World Solutions for Today's Pharma-IT Challenges, March 31, 2003
4. RESOURCES
- Event Highlight: InfoSec World Conference and Expo/2003
- Featured Thread: Help Out a Newbie
5. NEW AND IMPROVED
- Create Web Applications with One Click
- Submit Top Product Ideas
6. CONTACT US
- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.
1. COMMENTARY
Every once in a while I write a Windows Web Solutions UPDATE commentary that sparks an enormous amount of reader interest. On January 28, I wrote a commentary titled, " IIS Owns the Fortune 1000 Web Server Market," and I received approximately 100 email messages about this commentary. About half of the email messages I received were from IIS administrators in midsize to large companies who felt vindicated that the word had finally gotten out that real companies do run their public Web sites, intranet, and extranet Web applications on IIS.
The commentary was based on an automated survey that Port80 Software, a San Diego-based software company that develops software products to enhance the security, performance, and user experience of IIS, performed electronically. Port80 Software has a tool available that queries the HTTP request header returned by a Web server to determine what Web server software it's running. Port80 Software's results from the Fortune 1000 are very interesting—a 54.1 percent market share for IIS, 21 percent for Sun Microsystems' Netscape Enterprise Server, 17.6 percent for the Apache HTTP Server, and 7.3 percent for all others.
I spoke to Port80 Software's Chris Neppes, director of sales and marketing, about his company's survey and about the state of the IIS industry in general. Neppes provided me with some additional interesting statistics from another survey that gathered statistics about what Web servers Fortune 1000 companies are running. That survey revealed that of the Fortune 1000 companies that responded, 48 percent run IIS, 24 percent run Sun ONE (formerly known as iPlanet), 18 percent run Apache, 4 percent run Lotus/Domino, and 2 percent run other Web servers.
The remainder of the content within the email messages I received concentrated on the tidbit I wrote about Netcraft's report about an IIS 5.0 Web server that's gone without a reboot for more than 2 years—basically since Windows 2000 shipped. Netcraft also reported about Microsoft partners Interliant and divine, companies that each have sites that haven't been rebooted in more than a year. (Microsoft has also run several of its own sites for more than a year between reboots.)
One of many readers' responses was, "How in the world are these companies keeping their IIS servers secure if they aren't doing the reboots required by installing the patches, hotfixes, and service packs that Microsoft releases at a frenetic pace?" Such great Web server service has to do with Netcraft's definition of uptime. NetCraft measures uptime by measuring the amount of time since the last reboot of the proxy server (i.e., Internet Security Acceleration—ISA—Server 2000). You can read NetCraft's explanation of uptime at the following URL:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html#uptime.
I don't doubt that IIS can remain up for a long period of time; common security requirements just prevent record uptime. The same goes for all UNIX-based sites that Netcraft reports have uptimes of 3 to 4 years. To give Netcraft some credit, the company does present a disclaimer with an explanation of availability, which fits a more traditional definition of uptime.
Tim Huckaby, News Editor, [email protected]
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2. KEEPING UP WITH IIS
Question: Our firewall logs show a lot of activity, but we don't have any way to analyze information about attacks—all we have are the IP addresses that launched the attacks. We'd like to advise the ISPs that own the IP addresses in our logs that they have infected systems. Do you know of a program that can scan our logs and alert us or the ISPs about infected systems?
http://www.windowswebsolutions.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=26640
The voting has closed in the Windows & .NET Magazine Windows Web Solutions channel's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "How much confidence do you have in your organization's security plan?" Here are the results from the 34 responses:
- 12% I'm very confident that our users and systems are protected.
- 44% I feel pretty good about our company's plan.
- 18% I'm a little nervous about our ability to protect users and systems.
- 26% What plan?
(Deviations from 100 percent are due to rounding error.)
The next Instant Poll question is, "What type of Web server does your company use?" Go to the Windows & .NET Magazine Windows Web Solutions home page and submit your vote for a) IIS, b) Apache, c) Sun ONE (formerly known as iPlanet), or d) Other
http://www.windowswebsolutions.com
3. ANNOUNCEMENTS
(brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)
Microsoft ASP.NET Connections + Visual Studio Connections + SQL Server Magazine Connections equals the largest gathering of Microsoft product architects and independent technology gurus. Register for one conference and attend the other two for free. Choose from more than 130 sessions. This conference will save you months of trial and error. Go to
http://www.devconnections.com
Annual executive conference highlights the increased focus on network storage, warehousing and security in global pharmaceutical enterprises. Networking, case studies, intensive workshops forums help CIOs, CTOs, CFOs, VPs and other top-decision-makers leverage pharmaceutical IT solutions successfully. Keynote presentations by executives from Aventis, Novartis, Astrazeneca, Hoffman-Laroche and Pfizer, plus US Dept. of Health & Human Services.
http://www.pharmaitsummit.com
4. RESOURCES
March 10 through 12, 2003
Orlando, Florida
http://www.misti.com/10/os03el25inf.html
This conference is for those in charge of developing and implementing their organization's security plan. If you're an information security manager, IT auditor, systems administrator, Web master, or strategic planner, you'll benefit from sessions that include Web Application Assessment, Web Security and Audit from A to Z, A Beginners Guide to Windows Security, Developing a Security Assessment Strategy, Virtual Private Networks: Implementing Best Practices, and Securing and Auditing Wireless LANs.
For other upcoming events, check out the Windows & .NET Magazine Events Calendar.
http://www.winnetmag.net/events
Forum member goofylovesmarcy wants to learn more about IIS. To recommend a good book to goofylovesmarcy, click on the following URL:
http://www.winnetmag.com/forums/rd.cfm?cid=41&tid=53889
5. NEW AND IMPROVED
(contributed by Sue Cooper, [email protected])
Vultus announced WebFace Solution Suite 3.2, software that transforms your client/server applications into Web applications that are browser and platform independent and standards-compliant. The suite is composed of the WebFace Browser Application Platform and WebFace Studio, a development environment that links the visual and nonvisual components of your applications to back-end data and associated business logic. WebFace Studio now offers more than 80 application components that you can manipulate and integrate. For pricing, contact Vultus at 801-852-0880 and [email protected].
http://www.vultus.com
Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Do you know of a terrific product that others should know about? Tell us! We want to write about the product in a future What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions to [email protected].
6. CONTACT US
Here's how to reach us with your comments and questions:
- ABOUT THE COMMENTARY — [email protected]
- ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER IN GENERAL — [email protected]
(please mention the newsletter name in the subject line)
- TECHNICAL QUESTIONS — http://www.winnetmag.net/forums
- PRODUCT NEWS — [email protected]
- QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR WINDOWS WEB SOLUTIONS UPDATE SUBSCRIPTION?
Customer Support — [email protected]
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