Javascript required
Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

How to Install Apache Web Server on Windows

A Web Server For Your Pocket

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Before Sun Microsystems Inc. summons its Jini of embedded networked devices, a number of embedded Web server companies may have already granted customers their wishes.

Disparate standards like the Home AudioVideo Interoperability (HAVi), Universal Plug and Play (uPNP), Jini, and others have tried for years to provide device-level control and networking for a variety of devices: lights, clocks, security systems, and even more innocuous devices like toasters and refrigerators.

However, progress has been slow and not all that steady. The latest crop of companies to take a crack at this market propose using the kind of tried-and-true HTTP web servers usually accessed by PCs, but in a tiny fraction of the space. One such company, Ubicom Inc., Mountain View, Calif., will be describing its latest embedded processor, the IP2022, at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose this week, the chip which powers what the company calls the "world's smallest web server".

Ubicom's claim to fame is not to ship the fastest, most powerful, or even lowest-power embedded processor. Instead, the company has set out to design a true system-on-a-chip, not stopping at mere hardware integration. Half of the company's engineers design software, according to Bulent Celebi, the company's chief executive officer.

Ubicom IP2002 Embedded Processor

Ubicom packs an embedded OS, an Ethernet MAC/PHY and link layer, IP.ICMP stack, DHCP client, its own ipWeb HTTP client and packet handling into less than 42 Kbytes of code, which is stored in on-chip flash memory. Most embedded Linux kernels alone are about 800 Kbytes in size; 3iLinux's stripped-down Linux 2.0 kernel requires about 480 Kbytes.

Sun's Jini, on the other hand, has struggled to achieve Sun's grand vision of millions of interconnected devices since it was introduced in the winter of 1999. Although Sun claimed high-profile companies like America Online, Canon, Cisco Systems, Oki, Motorola, Seagate, Sony, Toshiba and Xerox Corp. were working on developing Jini-compliant products, only a handful of products have been developed with the technology, including a 4D Networks content-distribution system in Japan, and a project to wire together military centers using technology developed by Echelon Corp.

One of the chief reasons, according to an attendee of the recent JavaOne conference in San Francisco, has been the lack of standard interfaces for tasks like printing, which Sun has left up to developers. Sun has also not delivered on promised applications like a HAVi-to-Jini bridge that Sun, Philips, and Sony were said to be developing in 1999. The last "Jiniology" column written in JavaWorld was in December of 2001.

"Sun's vision is that Jini was a great platform, but there was one problem—it needed a Sparc (processor) to run it," Celebi said.

Ubicom competes with embedded server providers like GoAhead Software Inc., which requires a 60 Kbyte memory footprint and additional operating system, and Allegro Software Development Corp., whose ROMPager engine and toolkit runtime routines take between 9 Kbytes to 25 Kbytes of ROM code, with 4 Kbytes of ROM data, 1Kbyte of basic engine RAM and 3 Kbytes to 5 Kbytes of RAM per simultaneous HTTP request, according to the company's web site.

Ubicom claims that its IP2002 gives designers a faster time to market than competing designers. The company has already designed the "PhantomServer," a small PCB about the size of an unfolded matchbook, that houses the IP2022 chip. The board consumes only about 100 milliamps at 5 volts. The 16-bit IP2002 delivers 120 MIPS at 120-MHz.

Ubicom PhantomServer

However, since the IP2022 contains a variety of on-chip interfaces, Ubicom has also paired it with an 802.11b radio to add wireless capability to the PhantomServer. A corollary device can place a Bluetooth radio on the back of the PCB to deliver a hybrid Bluetooth/802.11 solution. The chip contains interfaces to 10/100 Ethernet, USB 1.1 devices, and a Bluetooth controller, along with a standard I2C serial interface.

"An interesting example would be a networked presentation projector," Celebi said. "What's the most expensive part to replace? A $500 lightbulb. Why? Because people just leave them on and walk off and forget about them. By putting an embedded Web server in there, an IT manager can remotely shut it down."

The company's next platform, dubbed "Mercury", will follow the usual faster-smaller-cheaper roadmap, Celebi said, with additional interfaces including one to a cellular baseband processor for mobile handset applications. The company claims between 400 and 500 companies are using the IP2002 embedded processor for design work, which has been shipping since December.

How to Install Apache Web Server on Windows

Source: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/51070-a-web-server-for-your-pocket