Services Sell Operating Systems
May 17, 1999
By Gregory Yerxa
The battle of the network operating systems has developed into a familiar story--with a twist. The aging NetWare and its directory sidekick, NDS, face a challenge from Microsoft's promised, but as yet undelivered, Windows 2000 and its Active Directory Services (ADS). Even in light of this year's release of NetWare 5, few applications fully use NetWare's powers. Meanwhile, the certainty of Windows 2000 delivering on its promises before 2000 grows slimmer every day. The twist? Dark horse Linux emerges from the shadows as a powerful OS with a growing market share.
Which will be the NOS of choice? The IP-based NetWare 5 is certainly a step in the right direction. But like its predecessors, a lack of application support may mean that while existing customers re-enlist, new ones aren't drawn in. NetWare's move to IP will almost certainly facilitate additional application offerings in the long term, and its time-tested NDS is only getting better. Applications need a stable directory beneath them to fully throttle the network, and NetWare's NDS clearly is the only reliable working directory available.
But that doesn't stop Microsoft from challenging NetWare with Windows 2000 and ADS. While ADS has given the term "beta cycle" new meaning, it's also likely that ADS will one day pose a genuine threat to NDS. Our tests found Beta 2 of the OS to be fairly stable, but a resource hog (see "NT 5.0: Everything But the Kitchen Sink," www.networkcomputing.com/921/921f1.html). Furthermore, that release's security and administration weaknesses point to Active Directory's immaturity. However, with so many applications written specifically for Windows9x and NT, ADS may have enough steam to get through the early years and become as reliable as NDS.
And then there's Linux. Surprising to some and a no-brainer to others, Linux has received the backing it needed to muscle onto the short list of favorable application server platforms. Network Computing included a Linux test bed in our review of IP-based security auditing tools (see "Holy Intruders!: IP-Based Security Auditing Tools," www.networkcomputing.com/913/913r1.html).
Network Services
The transformation of OSes to application servers becomes more apparent every year. Thanks to improved directory services, the growth of the Web and better application support, NOSes are working more seamlessly than ever with the client base as application servers.
Network administrators can now create robust Web applications with minimal effect on their existing networks. Web-application middleware provides seamless access to data stores through standard access methods, such as ODBC and SQL. The technology has evolved into an easy-to-use, easy-to-learn form, and is being deployed rapidly in even the most complex environments. Without platform-specific restrictions, Web applications are springing up everywhere. This year, we tested Salvo Server 4.0 and Salvo Impact 2.0, Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition and IBM Corp.'s WebSphere Application Server. Site Server's excellent integration with Web server software--particularly in the way it deals with dynamic content--is a sign of things to come in Web management suites.
Web content-management tools and suites are also slowly coming of age. Log-analysis tools, such as Marketwave's HitList Professional, can help managers weed through the hundreds of megabytes of data sent to log files in back-end databases, while content-management tools help eliminate broken links as well as excessive download times. The best content-analysis tools incorporate rudimentary site and log analysis; upcoming products will feature more refined content-analysis and publishing capabilities (see "Site Management: Content Analyzers Trip the Link Fantastic," www.networkcomputing.com/921/921r1.html).
Turnkey Internet services and products are more widely available than ever before. Touting easy installation and management, products and services range from basic e-mail packages to Web toasters such as Microtest's WebZerver and Internet Products' The InterGate Solution (see "Turnkey Internet Servers: Becoming the New Workgroup Sensation," www.networkcomputing.com/911/911wgr2.html).
Load-Balancing
Beyond site- and content-management, products that scale your Web server infrastructure are much more prevalent and evolved than they were a year and a half ago, when we did our first review of load-balancers. These products have begun to show real value in the enterprise by providing redundant configurations and a level of fault tolerance to satisfy any Web administrator. Products such as Alteon's load-balancing switches, AceDirector2 and AceSwitch180, and RadWare's entire load-balancing line ease management woes by providing scalable, redundant solutions for multiple technologies (see "Seven Web Load Balancers Score With Round-the-Clock Access," www.networkcomputing.com/913/913r2.html).
Load-balancing doesn't stop at the WAN either; global load-balancing and content-management solutions are close behind and developing quickly. Products such as Resonate Global Dispatch and Cisco Systems Distributed Director provide global load-balancing, and other vendors have added this functionality to existing products.
Load-balancing technologies also open many intelligent packet-level opportunities. With wirespeed processing, the possibilities for additional services--including Layer 4 filtering policies, Layer 2 load-balancing and NAT-based features--are limitless. With some vendors already implementing services in silicon, speed and performance is seldom an issue. Some vendors can already handle gigabit speeds.
|
Here
Here
REPORTS
ANALYTICS
Follow 
