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NetWare 5 comes bundled with a good set of applications, much as NT and Unix do. However, neither NT nor NetWare bundles NFS connectivity. The DNS and DHCP server included with NetWare 5 can be managed from within the NDS tree.

If Novell can deliver the promised features in NetWare 5--such as virtual memory, e nhanced kernel and complete integration of IP into NDS and file and print services--it could position itself as a strong contender in the enterprise.

Unix
There is no single specific product or program called Unix. Unix is more of a specification than anything else. There are many flavors of Unix, and some of these, such as SunSoft Solaris and HP-UX, are sold with hardware solutions and bundled integration and support services. The decision of which Unix to implement is governed by two primary factors: which Unix your application vendor uses and which flavor is already in your enterprise.

One of the major hurdles Unix faces is its very diversity of flavors. Application vendors must choose which Unix to write their code to because the effort to support any additional flavors can be as resource-consuming as porting the application to NT. Therefore, many Unix users find key enterprise-class application support lacking.

A bevy of Unix offerings, besides Sun's and HP' s, provides viable solutions. IBM's AIX, Digital Equipment Corp.'s Unix and a handful of Intel-based Unixes--Linux, Caldera and SCO Unix, for example--all enjoy strong followings.

SunSoft Solaris
Not to be outdone in the workgroup and departmental computing arena, SunSoft offers Solaris 2.6 with Intranet Server Extensions 1.0. It builds on the recently released Solaris 2.6, and its features rival those found in NT and NetWare. Included in this product are an IMAP4 server, an HTTP server and SunScreen SKIP encryption. However, any company running NT or NetWare (which is a great majority of the corporate world) will not see Intranet Server Extensions as any sort of competition.

In addition to IP services support, Intranet Server Extensions 1.0 supports SMB (Server Message Block), NCP and AppleShare via Sun Link, allowing a variety of clients to easily access files and printers on the Solaris system. These features are not new, but now have been bundled for easier insta llation. In its NetWare support, to consolidate servers, Intranet Server Extensions lets a single system appear on the network as multiple NetWare systems. And, of course, NFS (Network File System) support is standard--there's no need to turn to third-party support. The bundling of these services addresses one of our criticisms in our previous state of the NOS report regarding connectivity to other NOSes. It should be noted that neither NT nor NetWare bundles an NFS server in its core OS.

Another criticism we had of Solaris, and of many Unixes in general, was the difficulty of getting Unix installed and reconfigured. If you don't know what you're doing, it's slow going. SunSoft and its parent company, Sun Microsystems, have taken that complaint to heart and created Solaris Web Start. Web Start is a Web-based program that takes the user through the installation and configuration of the server. One drawback is that you can't use that same Web-based interface to perform additional administration of the local or remote system. SunSoft has indicated that it will introduce postinstallation configuration via Web Start later this year.

In our lab, we found the server easy to install. We were able to connect to it using our various NT and NetWare clients and to share files without any problems. Despite being put under a moderately heavy load, DHCP, DNS, HTTP and IMAP4 exhibited no problems. The bundling of IP services, such as those just named, is not limited to Intranet Server Extensions. Microsoft and Novell also have bundled in almost everything but the kitchen sink.

Performance is often synonymous with Sun and its UltraSPARC servers. Sun's complete line of UltraSPARC systems ranges from a single-CPU model to the Enterprise 10000, which can support up to 64 CPUs. Interestingly, the best performing Sun system for TPC-C is not a 64 CPU system, but a cluster of 22 UltraSPARC 250-MHz processors. Sun also offers lower-end systems, such as the E450, that offer comparable price/performance to the Windows-Intel platf orm. In addition, SunSoft's Solaris x86 runs on any Intel-based system.

To ensure that Solaris remains the corporate Unix platform of choice, Sun also offers Sun Cluster 2.0, which is part of Sun's Full Moon initiative. This product offers higher scalability and increased uptime (see "High-Availability Options," page 54).