What webserver are Australian ISP's using?
Posted 3:22:02 PM on Sun, 7th December 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!

For no real reason except personal curiosity I did a fairly unscientific survey of the top 20 isps according to whirlpool (top based on http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ which indicates this list is the top 20 based on provider disclosure of whirlpool membership, so clearly no the actual customer numbers). In any case I just needed a list of 'top' australian ISPs to survey.

My method was to simply put the main url into http://uptime.netcraft.com.au and then record it.

In a few cases servers have been moved behind load balancers (which were F5's in all cases), so I have assumed that the OS is still the same as in the entry before the move. Also some providers have changed platforms, so I have collected the most recent.

Here goes, remember that the numeric position is based on the above premise, not customer or revenue sizes.

#1	Internode	Apache/FreeBSD
#2	iiNet	Apache/Debian
#3	TPG Internet	Apache/Linux
#4	OptusNet	Apache/Redhat
#5	Telstra BigPond	IIS/Windows
#6	Exetel	Apache/Debian
#7	Netspace	Apache/Solaris
#8	Westnet	IIS/Windows
#9	aaNet	Apache/Debian
#10	Adam Internet	Apache/FreeBSD
#11	AAPT	IIS/Windows
#12	Amnet	IIS/Windows
#13	3	Apache/Unix
#14	Virgin Broadband	IIS/Windows
#15	iPrimus	IIS/Windows
#16	Comcen Internet	Apache/FreeBSD
#17	People Telecom	Apache/Debian
#18	Spin Internet	Apache/FreeBSD
#19	Dodo	IIS/Windows
#20	Vodafone	Apache-Coyote (Tomcat)

What surprised me is that FreeBSD showed up so many times (4/20 = 20%) and that Redhat was only present once. IIS accounts for (7/20) 35%. Debian comes in at 20% also (4/20). Solaris appears just once (although netspace does use solaris, but netspace strangely isnt on the list).

Apache accounts for (13/20) 65% of the total.

What I wanted to know, which I found from this little survey, is that the open source platform of choice is either Debian or FreeBSD.