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Web Survey Reveals Shifts

by Richard Darsie

In order to understand the resources and support Web administrators may need in our highly decentralized, distributed and diverse Web server environment, Distributed Computing Analysis and Support (DCAS) has produced a preliminary database of campus Web servers, using a combination of survey techniques. There were three motivations for this endeavor: 1) to gather information on the campus Web server environment; 2) to prepare a Recommended Solution document with guidelines for selecting hardware and server software for Web servers; and 3) to determine the needs of the server population to whom IT will be providing distributed authentication services.

In February 1997, around 300 potential Web servers and their locations were identified. This fall, 207 of those servers were active. An in-depth email survey was sent to the identified site administrators, seeking more details about server hardware and software, databases and middleware, various content categories (in order to better assess the needs for secure Web pages), and site traffic. (To fill out the survey, see Resources at the end of this article.)

The excellent response rate from the email survey provided a good "snapshot" information base that will help plan future services and Recommend Solutions. The results that have been tabulated so far are presented on the Web survey page.

Hardware platform results include:

  • 30% of the respondents indicated they were using PCs running Windows NT. Another 18% use other PC-based servers. This represents a shift from primarily UNIX-based servers to midsize Intel-based servers, and a corresponding need for a shift in support.
  • 20% of the respondents indicated they were using Macintoshes. During the distributed authentication project, team members identified some special challenges associated with use of Macintosh Web servers. These need to be better understood and communicated to the campus in a future Recommended Solution.

Server software findings include:

  • Over 20% of the surveyed platforms use NCSA, which is no longer in active development and support. The general Web server community is migrating away from this server software (typically less than 5% continue to use this software). Our campus Web server community may need some migration support and resources.
  • Less than 20% of the respondents use Netscape as the server software, although it is site-licensed to this campus. To understand and respond to this selection pattern, IT will compare campus needs to the functions supported by Netscape.
  • Apache, WebStar, and Microsoft IIS together comprise another 30% of the server software population. The remaining 30% is distributed among almost 20 other server software products.

A Web page in early development is available to Web administrators interested in this survey and other Web administration information resources. To share suggestions for further development of this page, contact Doreen Meyer (dimeyer@ucdavis.edu).

Doreen Meyer and Vicki Suter of Distributed Computing Analysis and Support (DCAS) contributed to this article.

Resources:

Web Administration Page:
http://dcas.ucdavis.edu/webadmin/

Web Survey Page:
http://dcas.ucdavis.edu/webadmin/survey.html

Online Web Server Survey Tool:
http://www.netcraft.co.uk/Survey/

Remote Access Web Page:
http://access.ucdavis.edu/