Take a moment to introduce yourselves and to tell us about the services that Aplus.Net offers. David Fowler: I'm the Windows Administrator at Aplus.Net. I manage all of our internal IT systems that are based on Microsoft Windows products and our shared hosting services based on Microsoft technologies.
Dennis Kittrell: I'm Senior Product Manager at Aplus.Net. I orchestrate our full suite of product offerings, including our competitive analysis, new product creation, and existing product enhancements. I've been in the hosting industry for about six years.
David: Aplus.Net started as a UNIX-based hosting company. We established ourselves in that arena first, offering the LAMP stack and supporting customers who wished to host CGIs and PHP, among other things. Initially, Aplus.Net didn't offer Windows-based hosting.
Around 2000, as our users started requesting Windows-based hosting, we developed services based on Windows Server 2000, both shared and dedicated. That segment of the business has been growing ever since.
What made you initially choose UNIX as a hosting platform? David: At the time, it was the best solution that we could provide to our customers. Windows wasn't really an option back then.
Dennis: Most early Web hosting was done on UNIX/LINUX. Microsoft didn't really offer value in shared hosting before Windows 2000.
Since you had skills, expertise, and hardware investments in UNIX, what made you get into Windows? Dennis:
Our end users started requesting the ability to publish pages with FrontPage as well as Microsoft Web servers. When our customers wanted to use products that were compatible with Windows, we started looking at a Microsoft operating system.
David:
What made the transition from UNIX possible was that our hosting foundation, built with PERL, PHP, and other languages, could be easily moved to Windows. It was the availability of the APIs on Windows that let us get our Windows hosting up and running quickly. We could use our code to manage IIS and build our shared hosting environment.
As you brought Windows in to your environment, what are some of the things that you noticed? Dennis: From a cost standpoint, before Windows Server 2003, Windows was much more expensive per account than FreeBSD. We didn't make as much money off of Windows, but we sold it because it was in demand and was profitable. If we hadn't sold it we would have lost prospective customers.
Since 2003, we've seen the costs go down, and we've been able to host more domains and accounts on Windows. It only gets better with Windows Server 2008.
The turn-around in costs has been measurable.
What are some of the specific changes that result in cost savings for a hoster like yourself? Dennis: The stability of the server increased a lot with Windows Server 2003, and that let us host a lot more Windows accounts.
David: Microsoft has done some other things that reduce our costs. Early Windows Server software only allowed so much RAM per server. Now with 2008 Web Edition, you can give it as much memory as Standard edition. That's very important to our Web hosting business, because shared accounts allocate virtual memory, and these changes enable us to put more shared accounts on one machine.
Hosters often face different challenges than a typical corporate IT shop. What is the experience like when you are looking for answers to questions that are unique to a hoster environment?
David: We resolve 99% of software issues internally. We really do everything ourselves except for writing our own operating system. However, we also learn as much as we can from reviewing the literature that is available on industry best practices, and more of that type of information is becoming available for Web hosting companies.
Also, more information is now available regarding real-world customer experiences, such as exactly what happens when you put 2,000 accounts on one Web server. This information benefits us by showing us better techniques for improving processes, threads, and memory allocation. It seems like Microsoft has gone out and recruited some really knowledgeable people to be part of the Web hosting support community.
You feel that Microsoft is doing a better job of putting out real-world information? David: Absolutely. The documentation from TechNet, IIS.net, and so on has gotten much better. Microsoft is slowly building a community with deep experience in dealing with hosting issues.
Are you still seeing a growth in demand for Windows, and if so, what do you think is driving it? Dennis: Yes. I think it has to do with the popularity of ASP.NET and object-oriented programming for the Web. I also think that Web security is stronger on Windows 2008 than it was on Windows 2003.
David: Previously, if site designers were using PHP, they were going to stick with UNIX or Linux hosting and only if they were using ASP or ASP.NET, then they would want and use Windows. But now, you can successfully host PHP, ASP, and ASP.NET on Windows. That difference has really increased the demand for Windows hosting.
You mentioned PHP. There's a strong perception that PHP is a *NIX workload, but a number of hosters we've spoken to actually prefer running it on Windows. What's your experience with that?
Dennis: We currently host PHP on Windows 2003. Windows 2008 now supports a lot more of the software that we and other hosting providers have in our control panels, and that absolutely contributes to Windows' growth.
The hosting industry is growing very rapidly, and we're getting a lot of customers who've never had a Web site before. If you look at a graph of Web growth, you can see the obvious over-whelming growth.
I think that if someone now chooses Windows out of sheer familiarity, they're less likely to need to change that if they decide they need other technologies like PHP. Previously, they would have had to cancel the Windows account and set up a UNIX account, because their design house or Web developers weren't able to program on Windows, or they wouldn't support it. But now, because Windows provides support for PHP, those customers can stay with the Windows platform instead of migrating to UNIX or Linux.
David: That's absolutely true. A perfect example is that Microsoft is finally offering secure FTP. This protocol has been widely used on Linux for years, and Web designers depend on it to move files to Web servers. People will start using that on Windows the moment we turn it on. In the past, Microsoft fought against these kinds of open protocols, but now they are really interoperating well.
What benefits do you get by being a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner? David: Currently, our biggest asset is the Service Provider License Agreement [SPLA]. This makes Windows pricing very competitive, and makes it easy for hosters to track licenses.
Are there things in the Windows platform that are beneficial to you as a hoster? David: Absolutely. For example, Exchange Server and Active Directory are huge.
The ability to use Active Directory in conjunction with Web servers is also very beneficial. Active Directory makes it incredibly easy to move customers from one machine to another, because everything is stored in the directory, rather than local user accounts. It works great in conjunction with IIS. When you've been in business as long as Aplus.Net, you can have users using different Windows Server platforms. However, we can now migrate customers to a newer OS much more easily because of Active Directory. You don't want to leave people in the past. The new platforms have important features, and you don't want users to be stranded on old technology. Seamless migration based on Active Directory makes a whole world of difference. Before, with the LAMP stack, it was much more difficult to migrate customers to new software versions. | 
