Hosting Platforms

Our UNIX / NT comparison below will help you decide the proper platform for your hosting needs. Business or home users of Microsoft® Windows® 95, 98, or NT will find either platform acceptable, as personal PC use does not require NT web site hosting.

Our recommended UNIX Packages are reliable, responsive, and tim

e-tested, providing the absolute best hosting environment available. Our Windows NT® Packages are geared toward database-savvy applications, such as Access and SQL Server, providing high-end server integrations.

UNIX Platform

Why should you choose UNIX hosting?
UNIX-based web hosting is the most reliable, performance-enhanced server environment available, and has been the Internet's top choice for more than 30 years. The UNIX operating system is a powerful, time-tested, flexible platform for server hosting needs.

What are some of UNIX's top benefits?
UNIX has proven to be substantially faster than most other server platforms, as well as the most secure environment available, thus becoming a mainstay within the corporate and e-commerce world. However, UNIX's greatest feature may be reliability and performance. Unmatched processing power combined with powerful operating system stability makes UNIX the best choice for many applications. Unlike the Microsoft NT environment, UNIX uses no GUI (Graphical User Interface) overhead, and is able to concentrate the full power of the machine to serve your web sites as they are being accessed.

How stable is the UNIX operating system?
In a shared server environment, UNIX is virtually immune to server lockups or faults of any kind caused by errant processing, due to its user-level permission structure as opposed to NT's server-level structure. UNIX has proved itself time and again a fault-tolerant web server, easily able to halt errant processes to keep your web site running smoothly and fully functional.

Will Microsoft FrontPage® run on UNIX?
The majority of leading Internet applications are available and built for the UNIX environment. Sassafras Forge has dedicated time, money, and expertise for our UNIX platforms, to ensure that top-level development applications such as Microsoft® FrontPage® perform flawlessly. All FrontPage® components are installed and work seamless with both UNIX and NT systems.

Is UNIX secure?
The UNIX environment provides top-of-the-line security via .htaccess protected pages and directories, C2 Certification, and granular file access-control - features not available in an NT environment.

Can I switch from NT to UNIX?
Absolutely! Moving your existing NT site to one of Sassafras Forge's UNIX servers is an easy, painless process. Sassafras Forge's experienced technical support staff will work directly with our Network Administrators, completing the switch within 24 hours. A one-time $50 transfer fee does apply to this process. For in-depth details of how this process works, please contact our technical support team.

NT Platform

Why should you choose NT hosting?
Windows® NT is a relative new-comer to the web hosting industry, yet is quickly becoming the operating system of choice by content providers and developers. The NT environment offers flexibility and a user-friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface), complete with today's top tools and utilities.

What are some of NT's key features?
NT has established a large presence in the corporate community, and offers a powerful, easy-to-use Web publishing platform that allows for customized applications. NT also offers an abundance of available tools and utilities including Visual Basic, Visual C++, VBScript, FrontPage, and MS Internet Studio. When coupled with the large number of third party tools being developed by MS partners, NT is quickly becoming a complete environment for Web hosting.

Is the NT platform secure?
While the NT environment was developed to address the security issues of the corporate world, and has been approved by the Federal government as a secure operating environment, Sassafras Forge's UNIX Platform provides a more secure environment for online vendors and e-commerce providers.

What features and/or applications are available on NT?
Sassafras Forge offers full support for some of the industry's leading Internet applications such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Cold Fusion Studio, Access Database, SQL Server, and more.

What is IIS for NT?
IIS is an acronym for Microsoft's Internet Information Server, the only HTTP (Web) server software fully integrated into the Windows NT server. IIS is a powerful server for a new generation of Web applications such as Active Server Pages.