Apache Web Server (Apache HTTP Server) is an open source HTTP web server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows.
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Watson IoT Platform
Score 8.5 out of 10
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The IBM Watson IoT Platform is an Internet-of-things is a managed cloud-hosted solution supporting device connectivity, control, visualization, and overall device visibility and management. It provides a UI where users can add and manage devices, control access to IoT service, and monitor usage. With its device management service, users can perform device actions like rebooting or updating firmware, receive device diagnostics and metadata, or perform bulk device addition and removal.
As I mentioned earlier, the Apache HTTP Server has a small disadvantage compared to the competition (NGINX) in terms of performance. If you run websites that really have a lot of visitors, NGINX might be the better alternative.
On the other hand, the Apache HTTP Server is open source and free. Further functionalities can be activated via modules. The documentation is really excellent.
For large companies with large-scale manufacturing, electronics management, and infrastructures that require lots of maintenance, IBM Watson IoT is a must-have. It greatly increases performance, decreases downtime, and is an all-around great management dashboard. This is best for infrastructures that have a larger infrastructures of IoT devices in an enterprise/manufacturing setting, otherwise IBM Watson may not bring many benefits to your team.
Street Cred: Apache Web Server is the Founder for all of Apache Foundation's other projects. Without the Web Server, Apache Foundation would look very different. That being said, they have done a good job of maintaining the code base, and keeping a lot of what makes Apache so special
Stability: Apache is rock-solid. While no software is perfect, Apache can parse your web sources quickly and cleanly.
Flexibility: Need to startup your own Webpage? Done. Wordpress? Yup. REST Endpoint? Check. Honeypot? Absolutely.
The asset information is available in both static and dynamic format (from thermal images, to OEM data, to time series data). The ability to ingest all the information using a single platform has great value.
Another benefit is a seamless integration with Maximo. This has been a challenge with other 3rd party systems available.
The experience of IBM Maximo systems updates is positive.
The default configurations which comes with Apache server needs to get optimized for performance and security with every new installation as these defaults are not recommended to push on the production environment directly.
Security options and advanced configurations are not easy to set up and require an additional level of expertise.
Admin frontend GUI could be improved to a great extent to match with other enterprise tools available to serve similar requirements.
Some of the tutorials could use a little more improvement - While there is a considerable amount of documentation, most of the good documentation for Watson IoT we found to be from third-parties.
Administration and billing tools could use a bit more improvement - The UI is a bit clunky and poorly-designed here.
Be prepared to work with IBM support to get this going - Their turn-around support for inquiries can be lengthy, and setup time may also be quite lengthy because of this.
I give this rating because there is so much Apache documentation and information on the web that you can literally do anything. This has to do with the fact that there is a huge Open Source community that is beyond mature and perhaps one of the most helpful to be found. The only thing that should hold anyone back from anything is that they can not read. RTFM, my friend. And I must say that the manual is excellent.
I has a lot more features, except that IIS is more integrated in a Windows environment. But now with .net core also possible from Apache it would work anywhere really. Only in a full Windows environment where full integration is needed I would chose to go for IIS. Otherwise Apache it is.
Positive - This tool greatly increases most company's manufacturing and production efficiency, and the use-cases are extensive. It was a great way of decreasing down-time for us.
Negative - Took lots of work and energy to get up and running, we had to rely on IBM support and tutorials many times during this process.
Positive - Quite cheap, most of the tiers of pricing cost very little, and it's possible to use Watson IoT for a few months for free to see if it is beneficial for your company.
