BSDI Outperforms Windows NT

New BSDI Web Server Package Delivers 43 Million Hits Per Day From A Single PC

BSDI Outperforms Windows NT

Colorado Springs, CO (August 27, 1996) - Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI) announced today the immediate availability of its BSDI Web Performance Kit at no charge to supported BSDI customers. WebStone v1.1 benchmarks show that a single Pentium processor-based system running the new BSDI package can deliver over 43 million Web hits per day. A BSDI-powered Web server outperforms a comparable PC running Microsoft's Windows NT-based Internet Information Server (IIS) by factors ranging from 27 to 197 percent.

Running on a 200 Mhz Pentium Pro processor-based PC that costs approximately $3,500, the BSDI platform delivers over 1.8 million hits per hour or over 43 million hits per day and over 27 Mbps network throughput, according to BSDI's benchmarks. The WebStone v2.0 benchmarks, which use larger files, yield 45 Mbps network throughput - full capacity for a T-3 line. The BSDI Web Performance Kit contains an enhanced version of BSDI's BSD/OS kernel and powerful Squid caching software based on the University of Colorado's Harvest caching technology.

BSDI Performance Versus Windows NT

WebStone v1.1 benchmarks demonstrate that the BSDI Internet Server running its built-in Apache Web server executes Web applications faster than Windows NT in every test. Running the new BSDI Web Performance Kit on a 133 Mhz Pentium procesor-based PC, the BSDI Internet Server fulfills over 1.2 million HTML requests or "hits" per hour compared to just over 900,000 hits per hour for Windows NT/IIS.

The BSDI system performs 27 percent faster than Windows NT/IIS for static HTML content, 48 to 197 percent faster for API-generated content, and 77 percent faster for CGI-generated content. With 128 simultaneous WebStone clients, the BSDI system delivers 326 HTML connections per second and network throughput of 17.5 Mbps compared to 255 connections per second and 13.6 Mbps for Windows NT/IIS.

BSDI's WebStone v1.1 benchmarks used standard hardware platforms and were compared to WebStone v1.1 performance data published by Microsoft. The Microsoft-published benchmarks were run on a 133 MHz Pentium processor-based HP NetServer LS, while the BSDI benchmarks were run on a comparable 133 MHz Pentium processor-based server configured from commonly used, off-the-shelf components. The tested BSDI hardware includes 64 mbytes of memory, two SCSI disks, and industrial-strength power supply and enclosure, and costs approximately $3,000. The BSDI benchmark report is available.


          Connections Per Second          
        (128 WebStone client load)         
                      HTML   CGI   API      
   BSDI/Apache        326    39    135-271*
   Windows NT/IIS     255    22    91

* BSDI's Apache API performance reflects a range of optimizations. Microsoft did not publish the API module used in their benchmarks, so it is not possible to determine a single number for comparison.

The BSDI Web Performance Kit boosts the performance of any BSDI-compatible Web server. Microsoft-published benchmarks show that BSDI running the Netscape Communications Server delivers HTML content approximately 184 percent faster than Windows NT running Netscape. Using the BSDI Web Performance Kit, a BSDI-powered Netscape Web server delivers 271 HTML connections per second and performs 460 percent faster than Windows NT running Netscape.

"Internet experts are long familiar with BSDI's exceptional performance," said Rob Kolstad, Ph.D., President of BSDI. "WebStone benchmarks demonstrate to the world that BSDI significantly outperforms Windows NT, and, in fact, outperforms workstation-based servers that cost many times as much. When harnessed properly, Pentium and Pentium Pro PCs provide amazing computation power and throughput. We're pleased to provide the new BSDI Web Performance Kit to supported BSDI customers who require top performance from their BSDI-powered Web servers."

BSDI Web Performance Kit

The BSDI Web Performance Kit consist of two components:

A set of enhancements to BSDI's BSD/OS 2.1 kernel that optimize TCP/IP performance when handling heavy Web server traffic.
Version 1.0.5 of the Squid Internet Object Cache. Squid functions both as an accelerator for high-traffic Web sites and a caching HTTP proxy for sites such as Internet service providers with large amounts of cacheable data. Squid's hierarchical architecture is especially well suited for large corporate Intranets.

The BSDI Web Performance Kit is free to any supported BSDI customer running BSDI Internet Server Version 2.1, is downloadable via ftp from ftp.bsdi.com, and will be included with new BSDI shipments. The WebStone HTTP server benchmarks were developed by SGI as a vendor-independent means of comparing Web server performance.

About the BSDI Internet Server

BSDI Internet Server is an all-in-one Internet and Web system software package for PC platforms that integrates BSDI's complete BSD/OS and its bulletproof TCP/IP networking with PPP and SLIP, the high-performance Apache Web server, global E-mail, Domain Name Service (DNS), FTP, Netnews, and EZ-config setup. The BSDI package includes 60 days of installation support and a money-back guarantee.

About Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI)

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, CO, BSDI is the commercial supplier of the high-performance BSD Internet and networking system software originally developed at the University of California, Berkeley. Internet implementors worldwide are using BSDI software engines to power the networked economy. BSDI products for PC platforms include the BSDI Internet Server, BSDI Internet Gateway for Novell Networks, and BSD/OS for embedded networked systems. BSDI customers include Adobe, CompuServe, UUNET Technologies, Volvo, and leading Internet Service Providers worldwide.