Apache Releases New Version of HTTP Server

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is celebrating the 17th anniversary of the Apache HTTP Server with the release of version 2.4 - the most significant update in six years.

The ASF is a coalition of volunteer developers, stewards and incubators of nearly 150 open-source projects and initiatives, and the Apache HTTP Server has been the most popular Web server on the Internet since April 1996 - powering nearly 400 million websites or about 60 percent of all active domains.

"It is with great pleasure that we announce the availability of Apache HTTP Server 2.4," says Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server Project. "This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators and developers will welcome. We've added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features."

Numerous enhancements make Apache HTTP Server v2.4 ideally suited for cloud environments, including the following:

-    Improved performance (lower resource utilization and better concurrency)
-    Reduced memory usage
-    Asyncronous I/O support
-    Dynamic reverse proxy configuration
-    Performance on par, or better, than pure event-driven Web servers
-    More granular timeout and rate/resource limiting capability
-    More finely-tuned caching support, tailored for high traffic servers and proxies

Additional features include easier problem analysis, improved configuration flexibility, more powerful authentication and authorization, and documentation overhaul. A complete feature list can be viewed here.