Tenon Intersystems : Press Release

WebTen 2.0 -- A World-Class Web Server for MacOS

New features and unparalleled Web performance for Power Macs

Fastest Mac Web server gets faster: Tenon quadruples the performance of its top-performing Web server

Most capable Mac Web server gets more capable: Tenon adds multihoming SSL, multihoming FTP, NFS and DNS to its powerful Macintosh Web server, WebTen.

Santa Barbara, CA, Jan. 5, 1998. Tenon Intersystems today announced WebTen 2.0, an upgrade to its industrial-strength, high-performance Apache Web server for Power Macs. A new Tenon "supercache" feature boosts the Macintosh Web server performance leader by more than 400%! WebTen, based on the latest Apache 1.2.4, continues as the fastest Web server on Power Macintosh, sustaining over 700 hits per second, or over 60 million connections a day. In addition to its improved performance, WebTen 2.0 adds significant new features to Tenon's unique and top-performing Web server -- multihoming SSL 3.0, multihoming FTP, NFS and DNS.

"The Macintosh is widely accepted as the platform of choice for internet content development. Despite its ease of use, poor Macintosh Web performance and an eclectic array of "required" Web options have hampered acceptance of the Macintosh as an internet delivery system. Tenon's goal is to make the Macintosh a world-class networking engine, with performance and features that meet and eventually exceed those that are readily available on other platforms," said Tenon's President, Steve Holmgren. "WebTen 2.0 is a major step toward this goal."

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is essential in the support of Web-based commerce. Using encryption, SSL supports secure exchange of packets between WebTen and any SSL-enabled Web browser. WebTen 2.0 is the only Macintosh Web server that supports SSL 3.0. SSL 3.0 is a state-of-the-art implementation supporting such advanced features as streamlined handshaking for faster round-trip times, multiple key exchange and encryption algorithms, and support of hardware tokens in the form of Fortezza cards as a first step toward cryptography-capable "smart cards". In the past, SSL support from other vendors required multiple Macintoshes with different Web addresses, leading to a maintenance nightmare for ISPs. Tenon's multihoming SSL 3.0 is the only Macintosh software that can be configured to support simultaneous, secure and unsecured operations for each Web address, enabling the support of hundreds of secure Web addresses on a single Mac.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) provides for the convenient uploading of Web content. Unlike other Web servers where FTP is generally an extra cost option, Tenon's multihoming FTP is bundled with WebTen 2.0. Tenon adopted the widely available wu-ftp server from University of Washington and integrated it into WebTen. Tenon extended this already feature-rich FTP server with a number of Macintosh-specific capabilities, including the automatic detection of MacBinary II transfer modes, AppleSingle and AppleDouble translation, and dynamic translation of Apple end-of-line characters during text transfers. WebTen's multihoming wu-ftp has been further extended to segregate content transfers for different, multihomed virtual hosts, providing convenient ISP support.

WebTen 2.0 also includes a client implementation of NFS (Network File Service). WebTen 2.0 is the only Macintosh Web server to bundle NFS. NFS is an industry-standard for file sharing across local networks. WebTen 2.0 allows point & click specification of a remote host, remote directory, and local directory, linked together by NFS operations. URL references can be given to the local directory, which will automatically share NFS data. This high-speed file sharing can be used to simply and seamlessly create Web server clusters of multiple Web server machines with access to NFS shared Web content.

DNS (Domain Name Service) has been integrated into WebTen 2.0. DNS provides for the mapping of names and addresses to internet addresses. WebTen's DNS supports the latest domain name server (BIND version 8.1) available from the Internet Software Consortium (www.isc.org). Its features include dynamic updates, change notification, improved logging, access control, and improved performance and security. WebTen's DNS has been augmented with a point & click configuration and maintenance interface, to support remote or local administration of both primary and secondary DNS service, either for a local WebTen server or for a complete domain.

WebTen's HTTP/1.1 features include "content negotiation" to allow different versions of a single document (e.g., English or French, html or pdf), and "persistent connections" or "keep alive" to give a faster response when a large number of documents are requested over a single connection, server-side includes (SSIs) and extended server-side includes (XSSIs) to let users create dynamic Web pages without having to write CGI scripts.

WebTen 2.0 is:

•	The only Apache Web server with a point & click browser-based interface.
•	The only Mac Web server to support `true' virtual hosting.
•	The only Mac Web server to support multiple secure connections on a single machine.
•	The only Mac Web server with built-in caching proxy service, including proxy FTP.
•	The only Mac Web server that is 100% HTTP/1.1 compatible
•	The only Mac Web server to support industry-standard Perl scripts and Apache modules.
•	And, the only Mac Web server that has a seamless transition to Rhapsody.

WebTen 2.0 provides the lowest cost per feature and the highest price performance ratio of any commercial Macintosh Web server. The software is available for U.S. $495. Existing WebTen customers can upgrade to WebTen 2.0 for $120. For a limited time, owners of other commercial Macintosh Web servers can purchase WebTen 2.0 for $350.

Tenon Intersystems is a leader in high-performance networking, UNIX and X software for the Macintosh. Founded in 1989, Tenon has developed a suite of products based on their unique "UNIX virtual machine" technology. Products in this series include MachTen, CodeBuilder and XTen. WebTen is the first offering in a suite of "Rhapsody-Ready" internet applications.