Google Web Server
Google Web Server (GWS) is proprietary web server software that Google uses for its web infrastructure. GWS is used exclusively inside Google's ecosystem for website hosting.
Developer(s) | |
---|---|
Stable release | 2.1
|
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Heavily modified version of Debian Linux |
License | Proprietary |
In 2008 GWS team was led by Bharat Mediratta.[1] GWS is sometimes described as one of the most guarded components of Google's infrastructure.[2]
In 2010 GWS was reported as serving 13% of all web sites in the world.[3] In May, 2015, GWS was ranked as the fourth most popular web server on the internet after Apache, nginx and Microsoft IIS, powering an estimated 7.95% of active websites.[4] Web page requests on most Google pages provide "gws" (without a version number) in the HTTP header as an indication of the web server software being used.
Information regarding GWS is scarce. In a blog post from Google's Chicago office in 2011, Google provided some details on GWS:
"The Google Web Server (GWS) team builds and improves the proprietary web-serving infrastructure that powers Google web search and many other Google search properties. GWS is involved in almost every user-visible change to the google.com site, meaning that there's frequently something to write home about. We're always looking for gung-ho engineers, ideally with a background in systems and experience working with very large C++ codebases."[5]
See also
References
- Interview with Bharat Mediratta About the Google Web Server. Jonathan Dingman, Ginside.com, 03/24/2008
- Google Chrome: free software as a launching platform Archived 2019-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, Charles-Axel Dein 2009
- "Google mystery server runs 13% of active websites". The Register.
- "May 2015 Web Server Survey". 19 May 2015. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
- "Google Chicago Job Openings". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2018-12-05.