You have to be dead to miss the emphasis on Windows NT Server as an
Internet and intranet Web server. You have to be only half conscious to notice
the overwhelming number of Web server products that are competing for your
attention and acceptance. When we looked at Web servers a year ago in "Commercial
Web Servers for Windows NT" (September 1995), we reviewed six products.
This year we found more than 25 and reviewed 16. You can attribute some growth
to the popularity of Windows 95 (many products target both NT and 95) and some
to the burgeoning intranet trend.
Having so many Web server products on the market is not necessarily good.
First, that the market can support so many products is hard to believe. Second,
most companies have a hard time thoroughly evaluating so many products. By the
time you complete a comprehensive evaluation, new products are on the market and
some that you just looked at have gone away.
To help you survey the current Web server market, the Windows NT
Magazine Lab staff tested all the NT-oriented Web server products we could
get our hands on. We must note that some vendors refused to cooperate with our
evaluation, we omitted packages that had Web server functionality but not as
their primary goal, and chances are great that by the time you read this, more
packages will be on the market.
We reviewed Web server packages in every class, from enterprise to small
scale. See the sidebar, "Editor's Choice," to see how we decided on an
Editor's Choice winner. We evaluated each product solely on its feature set,
user friendliness, and performance (see Table B in the sidebar, "Feature
Comparisons," on page 64). We evaluated installation and configuration,
interface, tools included, functionality, documentation and online Help, and
performance (see "Running Them Up the Flagpole" on page 67 for the
results).
Alibaba 2.0
Computer Software
Manufaktur's Alibaba 2.0 comes out of Austria to open the door to the Web.
Alibaba isn't well known in the US, but it's a leading Web server software
package in Europe.
Screen 1 shows Alibaba. It doesn't include a lot of add-ons or auxiliary
services but does the job as a basic Web server. Alibaba has all the features
you need for remote administration (through both an Internet connection using a
browser and a direct LAN or dialup connection), basic authentication, and more.
Alibaba installs as an NT service, and its administration tool has the
familiar tabbed dialog look. With this tool, you can map directories, gather
statistics, and view hyperlinks. A handy feature is Alibaba's customizable error
messages, which let you use Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to specify what
messages or graphics appear on the client browser after an error on the Web
server. Administrators will also appreciate this server's abilities to generate
HTML page headers and footers.
Alibaba supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for secure transactions and
includes a custom scripting environment, the Alibaba Authorization API. It
consists of programming interfaces and an environment for building client
authorization applications. Alibaba's Authorization Tool manages basic
authentication and access control. The Alibaba Statistics Tool lets you log and
display server statistics.
Alibaba is a good, no-nonsense server package. The documentation doesn't
translate into English very well--it's cryptic and confusing--but full listings
show how to use the scripting language (without significant examples, though).
You'll want to consider it.
Commerce Builder Pro 1.51
The Internet Factory's Commerce Builder Pro 1.51 solution consists of Commerce
Builder, the main Web server component; Catalog Builder, an application for
developing online catalogs; and Server Macro Expansion (SMX), a macro language
for creating dynamic HTML documents. This package has all the tools for a basic
Internet presence, with secure transactions through SSL (fully RSA-compliant for
generating digital certificates and key pairs).
Commerce Builder installs easily as a Control Panel applet from two
floppies and presents no surprises in configuration. Screen 2 shows the GUI
administration tool, a tabbed dialog where you set all server attributes such as
file mappings and MIME types. Commerce Builder supports standard HTML pages and
data files.
Catalog Builder is a standalone application that installs from two floppies
and lets you develop online catalogs with security and database connectivity.
With Catalog Builder, you can create online stores that Web clients can access
and order from. This application offers full protection of credit card numbers
and other important user information and uses The Internet Factory's SMX
language for development.
The SMX API is worth noting. This API is a scripting environment that lets
you add database connectivity or create custom Web server applications without
the need for a third-party add-on.
Documentation is reasonable. Each of three books covers one of Commerce
Builder's three major pieces in detail. Although this package contains no
wizards for HTML authoring or other functions, Commerce Builder is a
straight-forward package that's easy to set up and use. If you want to conduct
business on the Web, give it a look.