Windows 2000 as a Webhosting Platform?

Each platform has its virtues. Windows 2000 (known affectionately as W2K) has some powerful features that make it appropriate for a webhosting business, such as Active Directory and (Microsoft) FrontPage compatibility.

by Vince Barnes Consultant [January 29, 2001]

Windows 2000, the latest generation of Microsoft's "NT" family, is making more and more noise in the marketplace as people come to recognize some of its powerful new features. Perhaps the loudest buzz surrounds Active Directory.

What, however, does all this hype have to do with Webhosting, and what advantages, if any, are there in W2K and/or Active Directory for a Webhosting business? Let's take a look. (By the way; it's all too easy to fall into a direct comparison of different platforms—I don't want to do that here. There are many platforms that I like a lot, each for different reasons —here I want to look at W2K just by itself.)

To begin at the beginning: installing W2K is a snap. It is highly automated, very intuitive, and seems to recognize all the basic hardware I throw at it.

Certain special hardware requires an external driver, like the amazing Promise Technology Supertrak/100 IDE RAID Controller (look under "Products"), but this is easily added during the installation process. Enough said—on to the review!

Internet Information Services
Yes, it used to be called "Server" and has changed, presumably to reflect its multifaceted nature. The fifth generation of IIS is a very cool product. The control mechanism—which operates as a "snap-in" under the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), a standardized console for administration of almost all aspects of the machine—is so straightforward that a relative novice host master will require only a few minutes of study before being able to complete the normal administrative tasks.

Frontpage Extension administration is built right in (if you don't think that's important, then you haven't looked at Frontpage and Visual Interdev recently!) Many thanks to the team at Microsoft for adding in the much needed sort capability for the sites hosted on the server. Also note that it is a simple thing to add multiple servers into a single instance of the management console.

Most of the functions required for administration are included for servers other than the local machine; Frontpage Extension Administration however, is not. Simplicity is the keyword here. Everything you want to do in setting up and managing a site hosted on your server can be accomplished simply = quickly = profitably!

IIS 5.0 includes an SMTP service that can handle outgoing email associated with the sites being hosted. A hosted client can easily use the mail server if they are using Frontpage or the like. A simple "WebBot" takes care of sending the item.

Scripts, however, (see "CGI Scripts" below) are a little more complicated. I have used the technique of creating a mail piece with appropriate headers and copying it into the SMTP service's "Pickup" folder. This gets it delivered just fine. The problem is that this technique requires exposing that folder to (multiple) clients and I don't like that, looking from a security perspective.

IIS also includes an FTP server. I can't find a good way to set up the IIS server to provide clients FTP access to their sites. In order to restrict their access to their own site space it would be necessary to include special provisions in their user account. That makes adding their account a whole lot more complicated. I prefer a simpler solution. It is covered in my next article, which is all about FTP. For my W2K server installations I have left out the IIS FTP service altogether.

Terminal services
This is an excellent feature, not included in a default installation. Check this box at installation time and set it up in administrative mode (if you believe you need Application Server mode, then you already know all about this feature, and don't need me to tell you here).

This feature lets you log on from any Internet-connected PC and get your console desktop. All you need is a little client program. The effect is somewhat like NetOP or PCAnywhere except that more than one person can be connected at a time with separate consoles and the client program is small enough to fit on a floppy disk (not to mention that the feature is already included in the price).

Now you can easily administer your server from anywhere. This is also a great solution if you have thirty servers and only one desk to sit at!

Active Directory and DNS
Although Active Directory really comes into its own when used in conjunction with larger or more complex networks, it has some great features to offer the webhost. The Active Directory, which keeps track of users, computers, and other resources in your network, integrates with the W2K DNS service. This neat little integration means that if properly set up, DNS will be automatically updated to reflect the new location of a server that moves or has its IP address changed for some reason.

As soon as the server rejoins the domain, DNS is updated. If you have ever relocated servers onto new connections you will know how useful this would be. DNS management under W2K is also very easy, again with an MMC snap-in providing a simple and intuitive interface.

Go to page 2: Advanced features, and conclusion