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Gartner: Consider Dumping IIS

In the wake of Code Red and Nimda, analyst firm Gartner urges enterprises running Microsoft Corp.'s IIS Web server to take a hard look at switching to the open-source Apache or Sun-Netscape's iPlanet.

"Gartner recommends that enterprises hit by both Code Red and Nimda immediately investigate alternatives to IIS, including moving Web applications to Web server software from other vendors, such as iPlanet and Apache," a recent Gartner bulletin from analyst John Pescatore says.

Pescatore acknowledges that those competitive Web servers have had their security breaches and patches, but he notes that IIS patches arrive "almost weekly."

The need to patch IIS servers regularly, and their high profile as a hacker target give IIS a higher total cost of ownership in Pescatore's opinion.

"Gartner remains concerned that viruses and worms will continue to attack IIS until Microsoft has released a completely rewritten, thoroughly and publicly tested, new release of IIS," Pescatore writes. Gartner predicts that such a rewrite won't occur before the end of next year.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.