Why migrate to NSHTTP?

Migrate to the new modern Web Server on NonStop now

An exciting new way to connect your mission-critical business applications on HPE NonStop to the online world

NonStop offers HPE NonStop HTTP Server 2.4 (NSHTTP), the next-generation web server on the NonStop platform. NSHTTP is a deep port of a popular open-source Apache HTTP Server that is ranked as one of the top two web servers in the world for the number of websites hosted on it. Conforming to the NonStop Middleware Products’ core values of common standard uncommon advantage, NSHTTP is fully fault-tolerant and leverages NonStop fundamentals. NSHTTP supports a variety of new security standards and protocols in addition to supporting all the existing HPE NonStop iTP Web Server features meant to work with other NonStop applications such as HPE NonStop Servlets for Java Server Pages (NSJSP), HPE NonStop Simple Object Access Protocol (NSSOAP) and Pathway CGI.

This article describes the salient features of NSHTTP released via the recent RVUs.

NonStop HTTP Server features

Web server is an important component for running online commercial or informational enterprise applications on the Web via the HTTP protocol suite. Internet application standards keep evolving for enhanced security and improved functionality. Therefore, web servers must be up to date with the latest standards to be relevant in the industry and to enable the development of new modern solutions. The vast and very active developer community continually enhances the Apache HTTP Server to keep it up to date with the latest industry standards which enables NSHTTP also to be compliant with the new standards.

Security

NSHTTP supports TLS1.3 protocol. TLS1.3 is a major revision to the TLS protocol that is intended to provide better security and improve handshake performance. NSHTTP internally uses OpenSSL library as an SSL engine which is optimized to use low-level hardware instructions for encryption and decryption, thus improving the performance of TLS further. HTTP/2 and WebSockets protocols are also supported in NSHTTP.

Generic and Pathway CGI Applications

The Generic and Pathway CGI applications that were built to work with the iTP Web Server do not require any code changes or rebuild to make them work with NSHTTP. A simple configuration in NSHTTP is sufficient for routing requests to CGI applications.

Sticky Sessions with NSJSP

Sticky session refers to the feature of load balancing solutions to route the requests for a particular session to the same server that serviced the first request for that session. The solution used in iTP Web Server to support sticky sessions is not very optimal which often leads to uneven load distribution. NSHTTP provides an optimal solution that ensures the load is distributed evenly and also improves the overall performance.

Migrating iTP Web Server to NonStop HTTP Server 2.4

NSHTTP configuration directives are very similar to Apache HTTP Server configuration directives but different from iTP Web Server. Users who are familiar with the Apache HTTP Server might find configuring NSHTTP to be easier. NSHTTP provides a migration utility called ‘ITP2NSHTTP’ to assist and make it easy for migrating iTP Web Server configurations to NSHTTP configurations. This utility also migrates all the applications hosted on iTP environment to NSHTTP.

Why migrate to NSHTTP?

1. With the support of TLS1.3 and other protocols in NSHTTP, migrating iTP to NSHTTP will provide enhanced security for the NonStop applications that are running behind the web server.
2. New solutions can be built on NonStop with the support of Web Sockets and HTTP/2 protocol in NSHTTP.
3. NSHTTP is constantly updated with the latest open-source code, keeping it up to date with industry standards.

NSHTTP Server has now reached a state where it is ready to take over from the iTP Web Server.

For a brief description of all the NSHTTP Server 2.4 features, you may refer to the NonStop HTTP Server data sheet. Also, refer to the NonStop HTTP Server 2.4 Reference Manual available in the HPE Support Center to learn how to use all the features and other aspects of NSHTTP.