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This article will introduce one of the most popular and useful computer software  and Web Server developed in recent years. This interesting software is called Apache Hadoop. What is the secret to this extraordinary success? How does Apache Hadoop and Web Servercarry the title of the largest foundation with free access (open source foundation)? We better start.

The question must have formed in your mind, what is Apache Hadoop software? Apache is an open-source and free web server software. If you don’t know exactly what a web server is, don’t worry, we’ll cover it later. This software has spread so much that nearly 40% of internet websites use this software! Do you know what this number means? According to available statistics, out of 1.5 billion websites, only 200 million websites are active. Okay! 40% of 200 million becomes 80 million websites! Don’t you think it’s amazing?

Many reliable websites among Apache Hadoop users and large projects have been done on this platform. The great ability of Apache Hadoop is to connect an unlimited number of computers. Just as an example, Yahoo company, having the largest Hadoop system and connecting a large number of servers and computers, has advanced the determination of the decimal part of the pi number to two trillion digits after the decimal point. If we were to do this on a computer, it would probably take over 500 years!

Apache Hadoop core includes a storage section called Hadoop Distributed File System. In addition, there is a processor part in the core of this software, which is a MapReduce programming model. Hadoop divides the files into two large blocks and then distributes them across the nodes of a cluster.

Hadoop then transfers the packaged code to the nodes to process the data in parallel. This approach benefits from data locality, where nodes can manipulate data. This allows data sets to be processed faster and more efficiently than conventional supercomputer architecture.

History of Apache Hadoop software

This software entered the market in 2006. The developer of this software is Apache Software Foundation. This software is written in Java and works on a cross-platform operating system. Doug Cutting and Mike Cafarella are the founders of this software. They consider the primary origin of Apache software to be the Google File System article published in 2003. The ideas presented in this article were later combined with another project and the Apache Nutch project started. Later, this project continued to work as a sub-project of Hadoop.

Have you ever wondered what the Apache software logo means? What can a smiling yellow elephant have to do with computer software?! The answer is here. In 2006, Doug Katinka, who was working at Yahoo, worked on this software. Apache was the name of Doug’s son’s toy! A smiling yellow elephant! At first, Apache contained only five thousand lines of code.

In March 2006, Owen O’Malley was a committer who joined the Hadoop project. From 2006 until today, we have witnessed the significant development of this software. Let me tell you about the greatness of this software. It has nearly 7,600 coders and more than a billion lines of code. Seven hundred sixty-five people are also official members of the Apache Software Foundation!

What is a web server?

We said that this software is a web server. File servers, database servers, mail servers, and web servers use different types of server software. Each of these applications can access folders stored on a physical server and use them for different purposes.

So, to put it simply, the task of a web server (which includes Apache) is to serve internet websites. Apache software plays the role of intermediary between the server and client machines. Apache extracts server contents based on user requests and presents them on the web.

But this mediation role is not as simple as it seems. In general, Apache and similar software should be able to respond to the continuous influx of users. This software should serve users simultaneously. This is while each of them may have requested different web pages. Web server processing files are written in different languages, including PHP, Python, and Java.

It is interesting to know that although we have named Apache software a web server, it is not a physical server. Apache is software that works under the server. Its main task is to communicate between a server and the browsers of website visitors, such as Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. The important thing is that files are constantly exchanged between the client-server structure during communication. Therefore, Apache can be called a cross-platform software. That’s why it works on Windows and Unix servers.

When a visitor tries to load a page such as a homepage or About Us page on your website, the browser sends a request to your server. This is exactly where Apache comes into play. This software sends all requested files to the browser, including text, images, or other files. This was the mediation role that we mentioned. Server and client communicate through HTTP protocols. What is responsible for establishing safe and smooth communication between these two machines? Yes! It is in charge of Apache software.

Apache modules

The basic Apache framework consists of several modules. These modules include Hadoop Common, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Hadoop YARN, and Hadoop MapReduce. The term Hadoop is usually used for base modules (base modules), sub-modules (sub-modules), ecosystem (Ecosystem), and compilation of additional software packages. These software packages can be installed on or alongside Hadoop. Some examples of this software include Apache Pig, Apache Hive, and Apache HBase. Hadoop framework is mostly written in Java programming language. Although MapReduce Java code is common, any programming language can be used with Hadoop.

What are the limitations and advantages of Apache software?

According to many experts, the Apache web server is the smartest choice for managing websites. Apache allows your website to run on a stable and flexible platform. But just like any other great software, there are limitations. It is better first to list the advantages and then the limitations of this software.

The advantages of Apache software can be summarized in eight main points:

• Free and open access even for commercial use
• Has reliable and stable software capabilities
• Timely updates with regular security patches
• High flexibility due to module-based structure
• Easy setup and configuration even for novice users
• Cross-platform with the ability to run on Windows and Unix
• Have creative work with WordPress sites
• Permanent support in case of problems

We can summarize the limitations of Apache to the following two items:

• Performance issues on websites with heavy traffic
• Too many configuration options can lead to software security vulnerabilities.

Apache is not the only web server software. Apache has strong competitors competing for customers’ attention. It is better to have a comparison between Apache and this software to see where is the superiority of this software? Each web server application is designed for a specific purpose. Although Apache is one of the most common web servers, some experts have proposed this software.

Apache software vs. NGINX

Nginx, pronounced Engine-X, is a newer web server than Apache. Engine-X was first released in 2004. From 2004 until today, this software has gained high popularity among website owners. Nginx was developed to solve the c10k problem. What is this problem? A web server that uses threads to manage user requests will not be able to manage more than 10,000 connections simultaneously. This is the same problem with c10k.

Website owners facing heavy traffic may find it difficult to use Apache because Apache uses a thread-based structure. Nginx is one of the web servers that solves the c10k problem. Therefore, Nginx is the most successful web server software in solving the c10k problem.

Nginx has an event-driven architecture. This means that the software does not create a new processing request every time. Instead, it handles each incoming request with a single thread. This controller process manages several creator processes so that the actual processing of requests takes place. The event-based model in Nginx efficiently distributes user requests among worker processes. Therefore, Nginx leads to improved scalability.

If you plan to manage a site with heavy traffic, Nginx is a better option than Apache because it can achieve the highest efficiency with the least available resources. Unsurprisingly, high-traffic websites like Netflix, Hulu, Pinterest, and Airbnb all use Nginx. But if your website is not that high traffic, I recommend using Apache software because it is easier to configure and has many modules. In addition, using Apache is more user-friendly, especially among novice users.

Apache vs. Tomcat

Tomcat is also a web server developed by the Apache Software Foundation, so its official name is Apache Tomcat. It’s an HTTP server but powers Java applications instead of stable websites. Tomcat can run on several Javas, including Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java EL, and Webstock.

Tomcat is developed specifically for Java applications, while Apache is a general-purpose HTTP server. You can also use Apache with different programming languages ​​like PHP, Python, Perl, etc. It is worth noting that the right Apache module is crucial here.

Although you can use a Tomcat server to serve stable web pages, it is less efficient than an Apache server. For example, Tomcat loads the Java Virtual Machine and other Java-related libraries without you needing them. Tomcat has low configuration power compared to Apache. For example, the best option to do WordPress is Apache.

What we stated in this article was a brief introduction to Apache software. This software provides a framework for processing huge data sets across computer clusters. The software is designed to scale single servers to thousands of machines so that each one gets local storage and computing power.

Do you remember what Apache software was? This software was a web server currently used by nearly 80 million websites. Then we dug a little into the concept of a web server and said that Apache acts as an intermediary that communicates between client machines and the server itself and takes care of the security and ease of this communication.

Remember the pros and cons of Apache? In a section, we discussed Apache software’s positive and negative points. We showed that the advantages of this software outweigh its limitations. We also showed that Apache software is a serious competitor to other popular software such as Nginx and Tomcat, and in some cases, it is superior to them. We hope you enjoyed this article and look forward to our next articles…

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an Apache web server?

Apache is an open-source and free web server software with unlimited access. Many reliable websites among Apache Hadoop users and large projects have been done on this platform. The great ability of Apache Hadoop is to connect an unlimited number of computers. Apache Hadoop core includes a storageب section called Hadoop Distributed File System. In addition, there is a processor part in the core of this software, which is a MapReduce programming model. Hadoop divides the files into two large blocks and then distributes them across the nodes of a cluster.

What are the advantages of the Apache web server?

• Free and open access even for commercial use
• Has reliable and stable software capabilities
• Timely updates with regular security patches
• High flexibility due to module-based structure
• Easy setup and configuration even for novice users
• Cross-platform with the ability to run on Windows and Unix
• Have creative work with WordPress sites
• Permanent support in case of problems

What is a web server?

File servers, database servers, mail servers, and web servers use different types of server software. Each of these applications can access folders stored on a physical server and use them for different purposes.

How does the Apache web server work?

Apache is software that works under the server. Its main task is to communicate between a server and the browsers of website visitors, such as Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. The important thing is that files are constantly exchanged between the client-server structure during communication. Therefore, Apache can be called a cross-platform software. That’s why it works on Windows and Unix servers.