Zeus Web Server
{{Short description|Web server program}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}
Zeus Web Server is a discontinued proprietary high-performance web server for Unix and Unix-like platforms (including Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX and Linux). It was developed by Zeus Technology, a software company located in Cambridge, England that was founded in 1995 by University of Cambridge graduates Damian Reeves and Adam Twiss.
History
Zeus was designed to be a high-performance web server since the beginning of its development in 1995. Until the first decade of the 2000s, it was known as one of the fastest and most scalable web servers available on market.{{cite web|url=http://www.zeus.co.uk/products/zeus3/ |title=Zeus Web Server v3.3.7 |publisher=Zeus Technology |url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000815084815/http://www.zeus.co.uk/products/zeus3/|archive-date=2000-08-15|access-date=2021-12-18}}{{cite web|url=http://www.zeus.com/products/zws/ |title=ZWS - Zeus Web Server |publisher=Zeus Technology |url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070621034645/http://www.zeus.com/products/zws/|archive-date=2007-06-21|access-date=2021-12-18}}
Despite its excellent performance, it never gained more than a few percentage points (less than 3%) in the global usage of most popular web servers.{{cite web|url=http://survey.netcraft.com/index-200212.html |title=Web Server Survey |publisher=Netcraft |url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051202112130/http://survey.netcraft.com/index-200212.html |archive-date=2005-12-02|access-date=2021-12-18}} However, it was commonly used by hardware vendors submitting SPECweb99 benchmarks for their hardware.{{cite web |url=https://www.spec.org/web99/results/web99.html |title=All SPECweb99 Results |publisher=SPEC |date=Nov 21, 2005 |access-date=2008-12-21}} The SPECweb99 benchmark was retired in 2005 and replaced by SPECweb2005.{{cite web |url=https://spec.org/retired.html |title=Retired SPEC Benchmarks |publisher=SPEC |access-date=2008-12-21}} While some SPECweb2005 submissions were made using Zeus, by 2008 it was no longer used by the top computer hardware performers.{{cite web |url=https://spec.org/web2005/results/web2005.html |title=All SPECweb2005 Results |publisher=SPEC |date=Dec 19, 2008 |access-date=2008-12-21}}
Support for AIX, Tru64, and Mac OS X was dropped on 10 June 2008.{{cite web|url=http://support.zeus.com/zws/news/2007/12/10/zws_platform_eol_dec2007|title=ZWS: selected platforms - end-of-life announcement|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106042206/http://support.zeus.com/zws/news/2007/12/10/zws_platform_eol_dec2007|archive-date=2012-11-06|access-date=2021-12-18}} No new Zeus releases have been made since January 2010,{{cite web|title=ZWS 4.3r5 released|url=http://support.zeus.com/zws/news/2010/01/13/zws_4_3r5_released|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121121063000/http://support.zeus.com/zws/news/2010/01/13/zws_4_3r5_released|archive-date=2012-11-21|access-date=2021-12-18}} and the company no longer offers a similar server solution. In July 2011, the company was acquired by Riverbed Technology,{{Cite web|url=http://www.riverbed.com/us/company/news/press_releases/2011/press_071911b.php|title=Riverbed Expands IT Performance Business with Acquisition of Zeus Technology|publisher=Riverbed Technology|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208012543/http://www.riverbed.com/us/company/news/press_releases/2011/press_071911b.php|archive-date=2011-12-08|access-date=2013-09-08}} who ended support for Zeus on November 30, 2014.{{Cite web|url=https://support.riverbed.com/content/support/about_support/end_of_life_policy.html|title=Hardware & Software End of Life Policy (search for 'PL-ZWS-4CPU')|publisher=Riverbed Technology|url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925055448/https://support.riverbed.com/content/support/eos_eoa/stingray_products.html#WebServerandGlobalLoadBalancer |archive-date=2015-09-25|access-date=2021-12-18}}
Features
In addition to static content serving, Zeus supported dynamic content via CGI, FastCGI, Apache JServ, ISAPI, NSAPI, mod_perl, SSI and Zeus Distributed Authentication and Content (ZDAC), a proprietary FastCGI-like protocol. While Zeus mainly competed with other commercial web servers such as Oracle iPlanet Web Server, it also included a high degree of compatibility with Apache HTTP Server (including .htaccess support and a URL rewriting system comparable to Apache's mod_rewrite), with the expectation that Apache users would migrate to Zeus as their server load increased.{{cite web|first=John |last=Clyman |url=https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,11536,00.asp |work=Server's Advantage PC Magazine Editor's Choice Winner |title=Zeus Web Server 4.0 |publisher=PC Magazine |date=2002-01-15 |url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190221162707/https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,11536,00.asp|archive-date=2019-02-21|access-date=2021-12-18}} NSAPI and ISAPI were added to ease migrations from Microsoft IIS and Sun Java System Web Server.
See also
- Comparison of web server software
- ApacheBench program derived from original ZeusBench used to benchmark performance of Zeus Web Server.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.zeus.com/ Zeus Technology's site] NOTE: no content, redirects to Brocade Communications Systems site
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20080211093558/http://www.zeus.com/support/index.html ZWS Online Support] (archived link 2008-02-11) newer content but not all available
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20000818232811/http://support.zeus.com/ ZWS Online Support] (archived link 2000-08-18) historical documentation
{{Web server software}}