The Apache HTTP Server has been serving up websites to the world for over 17 years and with six years since the last major release, Apache v2.4 has finally been launched to celebrate the web server's extreme longevity and popularity.
Apache is used to host over 400 million websites world-wide and the 2.4 update looks to offer a significant boost to its large userbase by introducing the following key features:
- Improved performance (lower resource utilization and better concurrency)
- Reduced memory usage
- Asyncronous I/O support
- Dynamic reverse proxy configuration
- Performance on par, or better, than pure event-driven Web servers
- More granular timeout and rate/resource limiting capability
- More finely-tuned caching support, tailored for high traffic servers and proxies.
The update also includes enhanced troubleshooting analysis, configuration flexibility, documentation and authentication/authorisation capabilities.
In the past, significant Apache roll-outs have been met with caution, as when a firm is hosting thousands of websites, breaking just a handful can lead to angry clients, however, the offerings are certainly appealing as incentives to upgrade.
