UNIX or NT? Perl or ASP?
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By By Benny A

Compare Unix (Perl/CGI scripts) Vs Windows NT (ASP scripts)

Chapter1: UNIX Vs Windows NT
UNIX family of servers
UNIX is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system. It has some 20 years of history and is very mature in terms of performance with a proven track record for performance, reliability, scalability and security. UNIX grew to its full stature after about thirty years of continuous research and development with contributions from quite a number of volunteers. The result of their dedicated efforts is an operating system which has powerful multiprocessing capabilities and whose performance is still unparalleled. It not only meets the demands of today's computing needs, but in many cases exceeds them.

UNIX is not a single operating system; it refers to a family of operating systems. Some popular members are Linux, Digital UNIX, HP-UX, SCO, Solaris, SunOS, IRIX and AIX. The list continues with some other members NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSDI, FreeBSD and Pyramid. UNIX operating systems are equipped with scripting languages like Bourne Shell, Korn Shell, C Shell, Perl and more.

The main advantage of UNIX is its portability to numerous hardware platforms. Intel or Motorola, it does not matter. You can use it from small networks to supercomputers. We call this feature scalability**. Next, there are several software applications, scripts, tools and utilities for UNIX. Moreover many there is a choice of software available for Internet services. UNIX has administrative functions that can make your server and user management very easy. UNIX's strong preemptive multitasking and protected memory support make it well designed as an application server.

There are disadvantages of UNIX as a webserver. Writing a software solutions is expensive unlike writing an application for a PC. The next problem is that different versions have been released by different vendors. Any application can loose its portability if it is not running on all the versions. This may make applications nonstandard. Moreover, you might be confused to choose which vendor's UNIX platform you need to choose as your web server. Also each vendor offers different management tools to manage their web server.

Windows NT
Microsoft's Windows NT server is well known. This also is a multi-user and multitasking operating system. It is younger compared to UNIX, but Windows operating system is well established in the PC market and users are reasonably comfortable with it. Windows NT market is gaining a higher and higher share in the server market. The PC market is huge and it is well-known that products that are friendly to the user alone can win the market. Windows NT server is way ahead in this area.

Windows NT has its webserver called Internet Information Server(IIS) which is highly integrated with the server. This takes control over the webpages and all other related pages like Active Server Pages.

Since Windows NT is PC based, it has a higher reach. NT applications are multithreaded and has multi-platform support. Its graphic user interface is well known and hence PC users will find it comfortable to work with. The support for Windows NT and its applications from Microsoft is good.

Unlike UNIX, NT is poor in its scalability because it is strongly tied to PC platforms. NT comes along with its server applications like Internet Information Server, Transaction server, Site server, Exchange server and many more. Even for developing simple applications it becomes mandatory to have knowledge about these different servers. Moreover reports indicates that performance of these server applications do not reach the expected level. Another major disadvantage is NT's limitation on memory. It has a limit of 2GB on addressable memory. In addition, NT 4.0 still shows signs of asking administrators to reboot the operating system even for minor configuration modifications like changing an IP address.

The scripting technology
The scripting technology used in both the operating systems are different in terms of their complexity. Microsoft's server scripting technologies like VBScripts and ASP are becoming more popular because it is easy to develop web applications with them.

On the other hand writing an application with a Shell script or Perl in a UNIX environments needs a lot of programming experience. These programs are complicated to learn.

The multi-user capabilities
In UNIX an authorized user can run any application on his machine once when he logs in. But in the case of a NT user, it is possible to run only those applications which are written as client/server applications. The NT server cannot run any application which resides in the server. In the case of ASP, written applications adopt a three layer or three-tier architecture.

E-mailing
UNIX operating systems has its free mailing program called Sendmail** Also many third party software packages are available. With Windows NT, you will have to buy a separate software package in order to set up an e-mail server.

Disk space usage
UNIX can control the disk space by its disk space allocation utility to any user. Microsoft claims this facility will be available in its future release version 5.0 with improved storage management.

Web Hosting Providers
Whether you choose NT or UNIX, having your own server involves considerable investment. This may not be the best option unless you would like to get into the web hosting business which provide webspaces for clients. But for hosting just your web site, it is not worth the expense of software and hardware upgrades. You could pay for renting a space on a web hosting company's server and save money and time.

Chapter 1: UNIX Vs Windows NT
Chapter 2: CGI Vs ASP
Chapter 3: Conclusion - Look for the best

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