From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2006-09-10T12:54:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Real World Scalability and Ruby - Top 20

On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 12:30:09PM +0900, Joseph wrote:
> 
> Here is the table, feel free to add more information to it since there
> are still many gaps that I have identified with a question mark.  The
> first line mentions the site name and web server, the second line the
> language or framework behind it.
> 
> 1 Yahoo	FreeBSD
>    PERL, PHP, Proprietary, C?

Also Python and Common Lisp (though the Lisp codebase is not growing at
this point -- it's "legacy code" that is indispensable as long as they
keep their RTML templating system).


> 
> 2 MSN	Windows Server 2000/2003, Some Apache
>    ASP, ASP.NET, DLLs?

I believe they're still using some FreeBSD systems at Hotmail, and all
of Windows is behind free unix firewalls through a proxy service.


> 
> 3 Google Linux based or unknown servers, probably modified FreeBSD or
> Apache.
>    Python, Perl, PHP?, C, Proprietary, Java
> 
> 4 Baidu.com  Linux based unknown.
>   ?
> 
> 5. Qq.com  Linux based unknown and Windows 2003.
>    ?
> 
> 6. MySpace  Windows 2003 / 2000 some Linux unknowns too.
>    Coldfusion

Migrating to BlueDragon.NET, which uses .NET as the back end for
ColdFusion, last I checked.


> 
> 7. sina.com.cn	FreeBSD, Solaris 8, Linux based unknowns,
>     ?
> 
> 8. Yahoo Japan Like Yahoo at 1.
> 
> 9. 163.com China  FreeBSD, Linux based unknowns,
>     ?
> 
> 10 Live.com	Windows 2003, Linux unknown servers
>    ASP, ASP.NET, DLLs?
> 
> 11 eBay.com Windows 2000/2003
> PERL?, C?, DLLs, Proprietary, more?
> 
> 12. Sohu.com China	Linux unknown servers
>       ?
> 
> 13. YouTube.com	Linux unknown servers
>       ?
> 
> 14.	Yahoo China	Like 1
> 
> 15. Microsoft	Windows 2003 / 2000
>       ASP.net, ASP, DLLs?
> 
> 16.   Wikipedia	FreeBSD, Linux unknown servers
> 	PHP, PERL?

The Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia, Wikinews, et cetera) has to my
knowledge only ever had a grand total of one FreeBSD server, and it
wasn't really used in production.  The servers are primarily running on
Fedora Core 3-5, with a couple of old Red Hat Linux and pre-Novell SuSE
Linux servers (unless those have been upgraded since I stopped working
there).  The MediaWiki software is all PHP.  MySQL is used for
databases.  Thus, it's classic LAMP platform.  There are some Perl and
Python scripts running about for various administrative tasks, but they
don't represent any kind of measurable percentage of traffic load.

There are a lot of squid proxies used for caching to serve pages faster.
There's some rudimentary load balancing (last I checked) that's handled
at least in part by in-house scripting.

The Wikimedia Foundation uses zero .NET or Java, in case you were
wondering.


> 
> 17. Amazon.com	FreeBSD, Linux unknown servers, Solaris 8, Netware
>      PERL, Proprietary, more?
> 
> 18. Orkut.com	Linux unknown server
>       PHP?, PERL?
> 
> 19. Blogger		FreeBSD, Linux unknown servers
>       PHP?, PERL?
> 
> 20.	Google UK	Like Google
> 
> INTERESTING FACTS
> 
> * Not a single significant "safe" Java J2EE in the top 20.
> * Many proprietary variations with FreeBSD or Linux as the only common
> ground
> * Some .NET and Windows 2003 are indeed listed
> * Arguably the biggest web application is MySpace which is based on
> Coldfusion! Certainly not a "safe" choice by a long shot.

While MySpace is (again, based on what I've last heard) migrating to a
.NET foundation for its ColdFusion, it got to its current prominence
entirely on a ColdFusion 5 back-end, as far as I'm aware.  Having never
been employed by MySpace, I of course cannot be as sure of this as I am
about Wikimedia Foundation information.


> 
> Food for thought fellows, any input on how would Ruby would ever get
> there, or who runs what, would be appreciated.

It's also worth noting that Slashdot is Perl on Linux, I think via
Apache and MySQL (but don't quote me on that unless I'm right).

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"The measure on a man's real character is what he would do
if he knew he would never be found out." - Thomas McCauley