Eyeing The Enterprise

Mission: Penetrate the enterprise. As Windows NT spreads into what has so far been UNIX territory the full-blown enterprise network and UNIX pepares for the imminent face-off, we rummage through theirarmoury.

UNIX vendors are using clustering to achieve more availability. Mainframe vendors generally claim almost 100 per cent availability. IBM, for example, claims 99.9999 per cent availability for its Parallel Sysplex architectures, which averages out to a few minutes per year. No UNIX system can claim as much, but adding RAID devices, clustering interconnects, and software can bring a UNIX system close to 99.99 per cent availability. Even so, downtime for UNIX platforms can amount to as much as an hour or more per year. (Datamation, 1995)

Picture this: Two application servers are duking it out for the enterprise market. One claims it is more mature, stable, scalable and available (in terms of uptime) than the other which is still young and fresh. The other defends itself, and goes about proving, or rather trying to prove, to information systems magazines and opinion makers that they are as good as the best, and cheaper to boot.

We are not talking mainframe and UNIX anymore that battle was won by UNIX long ago, and proprietary mainframe bigots are history even though the mainframe itself survives. Now, its the turn of UNIX to face the attack from Windows NT that has staked claim to its crown jewel the full-blown, enterprise-grade network. The themes are still the same a lack of availability, scalability and security only the protagonists have changed.

And as UNIX did before, Windows NT is gulping up more market than ever before. Amidst nasty rumours that NT is only good for departmental rather than enterprise work, Microsoft sat up and announced the Scalability Day to counter the most often repeated argument that NT is not scaleable.

When an operating system chokes on running on several CPUs, like in transaction-processing systems where it has to handle millions or even billions of transactions, it is not scaleable. The NT kernel does not allow applications to scale well above a maximum of eight processors. Here, in pure terms, UNIX scores. Why? To begin with, it is almost twenty years older than NT, and has had the time to mature. Suns Solaris scales up to 64 CPUs, SGIs version of UNIX Irix scales up to a rip-snorting thousand processors.

Microsofts solution is clustering Clustering involves linking multiple, distinct computer systems (servers) so they act like one. WolfPack, Microsofts clustering solution, will make this possible. But with symmetric multiprocessing and clustering both already available from UNIX vendors, the question is will the customer bite?

Analysts seem to think they just might. True, NT has a reputation for being perfectly adequate for the workgroup and the department but not the enterprise. And they might not be there now but getting there they definitely are.

They have some of the most powerful in the computing world as allies including the likes of HP and Siemens Nixdorff. The presence of HP in the Microsoft camp itself says a lot.

HP has its own version of UNIX, but that hasnt stopped them supporting NT too. A company spokesman has even gone on record saying that they are big enough to understand and promote both the operating systems. There is no denying the future of NT. But how big will that future be?

We posed the question to representatives of both the worlds. And the answers were as polarised as we could expect them to be. Here, RN Raja, Regional Sales manager, SCO which is the worlds largest UNIX vendor, and Neeraj Shaabi, product manager, Microsoft which of course is The Microsoft tell us where they stand, and where they will be a few years from now.

Future of enterprise computing

R N Raja:

There is no denying the growth of NT but that in itself is hardly a threat. Microsoft will be well-entrenched in the enterprise in the future, but one should realise that UNIX is already there, and it is improving too. We believe it will be the age of network computing. In the network computing model, you dont need PCs everywhere.

Microsoft NT is more scaleable than it already was. But still, if you look at the enterprise as a pyramid, NT occupies the vast bottom; Netware, OS/2 and NT together fight for the middle, and UNIX sits at the top. It has been there much before anyone else, and is more mature and tightly integrated.

UNIX already delivers what Microsoft promises to deliver in the future, theres almost twenty years of maturity backing it.

Neeraj Shaabi:

For years there was no other choice other than the expense and difficulty of UNIX when deploying enterprise servers. NT provides them with the easiest OS for their largest and most mission-critical servers. NT, with its built in internet information server, has delivered a quality, rock-solid platform for the intranets and the internet that provides measurable benefits that include ease of use and manageability. Predictions are that NT will see massive growth in the coming years, and the overall growth in the network operating systems market is a result of customer adoption of NT.

Large corporations are deploying Windows NT 4.0 and migrating from UNIX based network operating systems because of scalability capabilities, comprehensive internet and intranet functionality and the low cost that Microsoft windows NT provides for their mission critical applications.

Future ofnetworked applications

R N Raja:

A lot of work is already going on in Java, and in the network computing model, you dont need fat clients anymore. Microsoft does not want that their vision of the future is still one in which applications reside on the fat client and not on the server. There is no denying now that bandwidth is going up.

In the network computing model, UNIX is better as it can scale from a massively parallel supercomputer to a multimedia kiosk. UNIX, even now, is everywhere it is in telecom, it is in process control, in factory automation. Of course, that future means how soon the market will accept the network computing model. Microsoft doesnt like the network computing model at all. They have the NetPC, but that again is just a thinner client. They had to introduce it because they knew that the people are going to fight fat-client based computing.

The enterprise will shift the way of the more MIS friendly network computing than a fat client system.

Neeraj Shaabi:

Microsofts vision for tomorrows networked apps can be articulated through the BackOffice family. It is a comprehensive set of integrated server products to run your business. These server products address every need of an enterprise customer including messaging, e-mail, internet services and system management tools through tight integration. Microsoft will continue to out-invest the R&D budget for any other server OS and provide customers with an advanced platform that continues to deliver enterprise class reliability. Many businesses are transforming their businesses into internet enterprises. To create a cost-effective channel for business transactions in the global market, new tools are required. We offer all the tolls to transact and do business over the internet and create a virtual business community.

Scalability

R N Raja:

We are more scaleable than anything else now. And while we scale up easily to work even on a massively parallel supercomputer, UNIX can even scale down to a one megabyte machine or a kiosk too. That is particularly useful for example, in a bank, the 80: 20 rule applies. There, 20 per cent of the branches do eighty per cent of the work. That is the kind of situation where scalability, whether up and down, is imperative. It is more stable too. Only UNIX can provide the kind of stability and scalability that process control and factory automation requires. Then again, our customers know that NT is scalable NT is improving, and they will get there too, but UNIX is already there, and offers it today.

Neeraj Shaabi:

On the Scalability day on May 20th in New York, Microsoft and major partners demonstrated that the MS BackOffice family of apps can manage the largest enterprise applications such as on-line banking systems, large data warehouses and enterprise mail systems supporting thousands of users running on the NT OS. Enterprises are using NT for mission-critical apps today, and many plan to migrate to it. The enterprise edition of NT offers the power and performance of UNIX systems, with much easier administration and lower costs.

Clustering

R N Raja:

Clustering on NT? They dont have a product WolfPack isnt shipping yet. In UNIX, clustering is available now. SCO is shipping clustering software now, and so are many other UNIX vendors. Clustering is when a server fails, clients automatically move on to the other server. In UNIX, you can even have them using different hardware. You can have a single processor server, a multiprocessor one that is possible, today, in UNIX. In the case of clustering, it is the difference between something that is shipping today, and something that is still on the drawing board.

Windows NT will still sell. But Microsoft asks you to wait till they ship a product that will suit your needs. But by then your requirements have changed and you have moved forward. UNIX delivers working solutions now, they dont ask you to wait. We say we are ahead, and that we are solving the problem today.

Neeraj Shaabi:

We are working with leading technology vendors to develop systems that provide greater availability and scalability through clustering technology. Many enterprise customers have used clustering technology to provide greater availability and scalability for their high-end mission-critical applications. However, these clustering solutions were complex, difficult to configure and were built using expensive proprietary hardware. Microsoft intends to bring clustering technology to the mainstream of client/ server computing.

64 bit computing

R N Raja:

64-but UNIX is already there. The technology already exists. But for the enterprise market, we need something that is more than a technology you need a finished product. We are on the way there, and its part of our roadmap. Its coming. We are working with those like HP too on this so the hardware development too is well. Microsoft promises 64-bit NT sometime in the future but 64 bit UNIX is already here.

Neeraj Shaabi:

Yes, Microsoft intends to support 64-bit data in NT server for the customer who requires efficient access to extremely large databases. This functionality is targetted for availability in the NT timeframe and will be supported on initially on DECs Alpha platforms. Some applications can benefit from 64-bit VLM (very large memory) support.

Microsoft is working on the development of 64-bit NT for Intels future 64-bit processor family, IA 64 or the Merced. This joint effort will have broad industry support too, on the Merced platform.