OS Coexistence
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OS Coexistence: The New World Order Suppliers of Windows NT and Unix systems may believe they’re locked in a battle for the hearts and minds of customers, but many of those buyers plan to use them both. problems that still limit the processing reduced instruction set computing (RISC) By Peggy King load NT servers can handle, some corpo- processors. “Unlike the other major Unix rations are considering NT as an alterna- vendors, Digital sees Windows NT as an he operating system tive platform to Unix for applications opportunity rather than a threat,” says wars of the early moved from legacy systems to client/serv- Michael Goulde, a senior consultant at the 1990s have cooled er environments. Patricia Seybold Group of Boston. off. An unofficial Having enjoyed much success as User companies are running both Unix truce accepts that mainframe alternatives in new enterprise and NT servers for a variety of reasons. Microsoft Windows architectures, the leading Unix vendors Some are using NT to link up their sub- dominates corporate are not eager to provide integration stantial Windows presence. Others wait desktops. Still to be between NT servers and their own more to see whether NT will acquire the scala- decided in some quarters is the role of powerful—and more expensive—server bility and the applications that they TMicrosoft Windows NT as a server OS. solutions. Only Digital Equipment Corp., require in order to deploy it as an enter- Corporate data center customers are whose Digital Unix ranks behind HP-UX, prise platform. Still others prefer to have beginning to use NT servers as alterna- IBM AIX and SunSoft Solaris in volume the two server operating systems coexist, tives to Novell NetWare LANs for file and sales, has welcomed NT into its operat- each doing what it does best. In general, print services. And despite scalability ing system fold, offering both on its Alpha Unix shines in the areas of networking, communications among heterogeneous systems and processing-intensive appli- cations. Windows NT brings to the server qualities derived from Microsoft’s success on the desktop. Over the past two years, industry ana- lysts, independent software vendors (ISVs) and technologists in user organizations have examined the relative strengths and weaknesses of each OS. Goulde sees sim- ilarities between Unix and NT and some differences. “The two technologies are comparable in many key areas: 32-bit sup- port, multitasking, multithreading, secu- rity, integrated networking and support for symmetric multiprocessing,” he says. “The advantages of Unix lie in its maturi- ty, standards support, distributed net- working and scalability. NT’s advantages are its ease of installation, richness of graphical administration and support for a large number of Windows applications.” Jerry Popek, chief technology officer for Platinum Technologies of Oakbrook Terrace, IL, adds that Unix offers better support for database applications, high- availability systems and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networking, while NT offers better compatibility with the Win32 application programming interface (an API specification published by Microsoft) and better support for Microsoft’s own networking protocols. 24 UniForum’s ITSolutions FEBRUARY 1996 Running applications on both plat- Enterprise forms is not the only way to integrate Proprietary them. Additional scenarios for the coex- istence and/or integration of Unix and NT include using one for application devel- Unix opment and the other as the deployment platform; deploying the “native” net- working architecture of one OS on the Windows NT other; using both platforms as file and print servers; sharing database applica- tions in a three-tier client/server environ- Other ment; and using messaging middleware Workgroup NetWare to provide a basic set of services for all users. A look at some of the diverse issues 1994 2004 surrounding Unix and NT coexistence may suggest inklings for the future regard- The server market will yield increasing shares to Unix and Windows NT systems, according to ing integration between the two. research firm Summit Strategies, Inc. puters of Markham, Ontario, Canada, organizations’ demand for Unix as the OS Bridging the Development Divide enable developers working in Unix to base. For example, application developers Younger application developers often gain port their software to NT without having at Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street financial experience developing on PCs, using tools to rewrite it to Win32. To date, most of services provider, use Pentium-based PCs such as Microsoft Visual Basic and Power- the customers for these tools are ISVs who running Windows to create Unix server Builder from Powersoft of Burlington, MA, want to port their products, rather than applications. The firm has chosen Delphi a division of Sybase. But in many large users. from Borland International of Scotts Val- organizations Unix remains the platform Both NuTcracker and Portage imple- ley, CA, because of its facility in reuse of choice for application development, ment Unix APIs, including the system and rapid application development (RAD), especially for those with enterprise-wide calls, on NT. NuTcracker includes utilities according to Jeffry Borror, managing scope, because of its abundance of fourth- provided as part of the MKS Toolkit for director for Lehman Brothers in New generation languages and emerging object- NT from Mortice Kern Systems of Water- York. “Applications developed in Delphi oriented tools. As these once divergent loo, Ontario. On the other hand, NT- are fluid and malleable yet secure,” he development styles and platforms meet in based products, including EXceed/NT says. “They allow reuse down to the com- today’s corporations, cross-platform port- from Hummingbird Software of Markham, ponent level. Unix has better networking, ing tools can help developers who prefer Ontario, and eXcursion for Windows NT but when it comes to RAD the best tools to work in Unix (even if the applications from Digital Equipment, integrate NT and are now on the PCs.” are deployed on a Microsoft OS), as well X-based hosts by providing access to X Despite demand for NT-to-Unix port- as those who would rather develop Unix Window System clients. ing and migration tools, Microsoft sets applications using PC-based tools. Tom Bosanko, president of Data limits on the support it offers to compa- Some companies have decided to Focus, argues that most development nies that want to use NT as a platform for switch existing applications to NT in order organizations will retain their Unix orien- developing Unix applications. It allows to migrate internally developed applica- tation. “We don’t have a single customer source code access only to companies tions to less expensive server platforms; that is replacing Unix with NT. Most of selected to be part of its Windows Inter- nevertheless, they may want to retain their our customers are looking for compati- face Source Environment (WISE) program. Unix development environment. A com- bility between the operating systems,” he Two WISE participants, Bristol Technolo- pany that decides to deploy Unix-based says. “Widespread acceptance of Unix gies of Ridgefield, CT, and Mainsoft of applications on NT has a few options for APIs helps protect investments in Unix Sunnyvale, CA, sell NT-based develop- doing so. It can retrain its developers to training. Interoperability, not replacement, ment environments that allow an appli- write to Win32 APIs, hire new develop- occurs when NT is added to an existing cation written in conformance with Win32 ers or port the applications. Tools such environment.” to be ported to various Unix platforms. as NuTcracker from DataFocus of Fairfax, Conversely, some developers skilled Again, to date the vast majority of cus- VA, and Portage from Consensys Com- in working on PCs have to meet their tomers for these porting tools have been FEBRUARY 1996 UniForum’s ITSolutions 25 OS Coexistence: The New World Order ISVs and development teams within Unix viding integration in environments that track of our remote users who log in on system vendor organizations. have Unix-based enterprise servers. notebook computers,” says White. Microsoft has provided a 32-bit TCP/IP Despite this advance, NT sites with Networking Across Three Tiers protocol stack in NT, but it leaves sup- enterprise networking still have lengthy Perhaps the most typical environment in port of NFS and AFS clients and servers wish lists. Bob Riddle, manager of which OS coexistence is required today to others. Third-party versions of NFS for client/server technology at the University is a three-tier client/server architecture. NT include BW-Connect NFS Server for of Michigan’s Center for the Integration For many companies that have reengi- Windows NT, from the Beame & White- of Information Technology (CIIT) in Ann neered their IT to support distributed com- side subsidiary of Hummingbird Commu- Arbor, hopes that built-in support for AFS, puting, this includes a back-end server, nications, and Chameleon 32NFS from which is rumored to be under develop- typically running Unix; a mid-level server NetManage of Cupertino, CA. MultiNet for ment at Microsoft, will be part of the next for file and print services that uses Unix, Windows version 1.2, a TCP/IP product release of the NT server version. Windows NT or a network operating sys- from TGV, Inc., of Santa Cruz, CA, For “Microsoft-centric” organizations tem (NOS) such as NetWare; and PC includes NFS client support and support that nevertheless have Unix servers, a clients running a Microsoft desktop OS. for FTP clients and servers. Support for product such as Advanced Server for Unix In environments such as these, the net- AFS on NT is available as part of PC-Inter- (AS/U), an enhanced version of LAN Man- work operating system architecture pro- face version 5.0 from the Locus Comput- ager for Unix from the Software & Com- vides the glue that integrates the diverse ing division of Platinum Technologies.