Santa Barbara, CA, Jan. 5, 1998. Tenon Intersystems today announced WebTen
2.0, an upgrade to its industrial-strength, high-performance Apache Web
server for Power Macs. A new Tenon “supercache” feature boosts the
Macintosh Web server performance leader by more than 400%! WebTen, based
on the latest Apache 1.2.4, continues as the fastest Web server on Power
Macintosh, sustaining over 700 hits per second, or over 60 million
connections a day. In addition to its improved performance, WebTen 2.0
adds significant new features to Tenon’s unique and top-performing Web
server – multihoming SSL 3.0, multihoming FTP, NFS and DNS
“The Macintosh is widely accepted as the platform of choice for internet
content development. Despite its ease of use, poor Macintosh Web
performance and an eclectic array of “required” Web options have hampered
acceptance of the Macintosh as an internet delivery system. Tenon’s goal
is to make the Macintosh a world-class networking engine, with performance
and features that meet and eventually exceed those that are readily
available on other platforms,” said Tenon’s president, Steve Holmgren.
“WebTen 2.0 is a major step toward this goal.”
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is essential in the support of Web-based
commerce. Using encryption, SSL supports secure exchange of packets
between WebTen and any SSL-enabled Web browser. WebTen 2.0 is the only
Macintosh Web server that supports SSL 3.0. SSL 3.0 is a state-of-the-art
implementation supporting such advanced features as streamlined handshaking
for faster round-trip times, multiple key exchange and encryption
algorithms, and support of hardware tokens in the form of Fortezza cards as
a first step toward cryptography-capable “smart cards”. In the past, SSL
support from other vendors required multiple Macintoshes with different Web
addresses, leading to a maintenance nightmare for ISPs. Tenon’s
multihoming SSL 3.0 is the only Macintosh software that can be configured
to support simultaneous, secure and unsecured operations for each Web
address, enabling the support of hundreds of secure Web addresses on a
single Mac.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) provides for the convenient uploading of Web
content. Unlike other Web servers where FTP is generally an extra cost
option, Tenon’s multihoming FTP is bundled with WebTen 2.0. Tenon adopted
the widely available wu-ftp server from University of Washington and
integrated it into WebTen. Tenon extended this already feature-rich FTP
server with a number of Macintosh-specific capabilities, including the
automatic detection of MacBinary II transfer modes, AppleSingle and
AppleDouble translation, and dynamic translation of Apple end-of-line
characters during text transfers. WebTen’s multihoming wu-ftp has been
further extended to segregate content transfers for different, multihomed
virtual hosts, providing convenient ISP support.
WebTen 2.0 also includes a client implementation of NFS (Network File
Service). WebTen 2.0 is the only Macintosh Web server to bundle NFS. NFS
is an industry-standard for file sharing across local networks. WebTen 2.0
allows point & click specification of a remote host, remote directory, and
local directory, linked together by NFS operations. URL references can be
given to the local directory, which will automatically share NFS data.
This high-speed file sharing can be used to simply and seamlessly create
Web server clusters of multiple Web server machines with access to NFS
shared Web content.
DNS (Domain Name Service) has been integrated into WebTen 2.0. DNS
provides for the mapping of names and addresses to internet addresses.
WebTen’s DNS supports the latest domain name server (BIND version 8.1)
available from the Internet Software Consortium (www.isc.org). Its
features include dynamic updates, change notification, improved logging,
access control, and improved performance and security. WebTen’s DNS has
been augmented with a point & click configuration and maintenance
interface, to support remote or local administration of both primary and
secondary DNS service, either for a local WebTen server or for a complete
domain.
WebTen’s HTTP/1.1 features include “content negotiation” to allow different
versions of a single document (e.g., English or French, html or pdf), and
“persistent connections” or “keep alive” to give a faster response when a
large number of documents are requested over a single connection,
server-side includes (SSIs) and extended server-side includes (XSSIs) to
let users create dynamic Web pages without having to write CGI scripts.
WebTen 2.0 is:
The only Apache Web server with a point & click browser-based interface.
The only Mac Web server to support ‘true’ virtual hosting.
The only Mac Web server to support multiple secure connections on a single
machine.
The only Mac Web server with built-in proxy service, including proxy FTP.
The only Mac Web server that is 100% HTTP/1.1 compatible.
The only Mac Web server to support industry-standard Perl scripts and
Apache modules.
And, the only Mac Web server that has a seamless transition to Rhapsody.
WebTen 2.0 provides the lowest cost per feature and the highest price
performance ratio of any commercial Macintosh Web server. The software is
available for U.S. $495. Existing WebTen customers can upgrade to WebTen
2.0 for $120. For a limited time, owners of other commercial Macintosh Web
servers can purchase WebTen 2.0 for $350.
Tenon Intersystems is a leader in high-performance networking, UNIX and X
software for the Macintosh. Founded in 1989, Tenon has developed a suite of
products based on their unique “UNIX virtual machine” technology. Products
in this series include MachTen, CodeBuilder and XTen. WebTen is the first
offering in a suite of “Rhapsody-Ready” internet applications.
Contact:
Anita Holmgren
Phone: 805-963-6983, 888-2-WebTen
FAX: 805-962-8202
Internet: anita@tenon.com
http://www.tenon.com/products/webten/