Bringing Enterprise-Class Reliability and Scalability to PC Networks

White Paper

Executive Summary

"Sun's PC NetLink software addresses a significant problem customers are having within their Windows NT infrastructures. The lack of scalability inherent in Windows NT Server software has forced an unnecessary proliferation of Microsoft Windows NT server hardware, dedicated to specific functions such as e-mail and administration, in customers' environments. Aberdeen research shows that the resulting complicated and server-heavy networks are causing an extraordinary administrative challenge and significant unnecessary costs for IT." - Wayne Kernochan, Senior Vice President at the Aberdeen Group.

Organizations need to deliver network services and business-critical applications while controlling costs, maximizing uptime, and maintaining flexibility for future growth. LANs and workgroups consisting primarily of personal computers often fail to meet the demands of the heterogeneous, web-centric enterprise. Sun understands this dilemma, and continues to deliver innovative solutions like its new interoperability technology--Solaris PC NetLink software (PC NetLink).

Today, corporate computing environments support multiple workgroups, frequently populated with personal computers connected through a local area network. Many of these workgroup installations have been deployed using Microsoft Windows NT protocols for managing users accounts and resources, hosted from PC servers. Unfortunately, the reliance on PC servers is not without problems--their proliferation has resulted in higher management costs and frequent service interruptions. The regrettable truth is that PC servers remain PCs--they are not scalable, nor are they built for the high reliability and availability needed in enterprise computing environments. If managers could only find a way to move departmental network services from PCs to more reliable, scalable platforms without changing their infrastructure, the benefits would be immediate and obvious.

Sun Microsystems, aware of the need to accelerate the performance and efficiency of heterogeneous enterprise workgroups, has recently announced Solaris PC NetLink software. Fully compatible with network technology from Microsoft, PC NetLink provides the key network services and resource sharing facilities required of Microsoft Windows 3.11, Windows NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98 clients. Not a slow emulation product, PC NetLink is a native implementation of the core Microsoft network services found on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server, but engineered for Sun's more mature, reliable, and scalable servers and the Solaris operating environment. With PC NetLink, IT managers can consolidate the functionality of multiple PC servers onto a single, highly reliable Sun platform with up to 64 processors, permanently doing away with concerns for scalability and growth.

Existing investments in training, hardware and software are preserved with PC NetLink. Transparent to clients, PC NetLink software is installed only on the server and is completely compatible with Microsoft's own familiar Windows management and administration tools. System managers will find that PC NetLink's installation is made easy by the use of point and click install wizards.

PC NetLink software running on scalable Sun servers and the Solaris operating environment finally gives workgroup administrators the ability to configure departmental servers for unprecedented levels of reliability, availability, serviceability, and economy. Indeed, this combination enables enterprises to reach a long sought after goal--the ability to provide PC clients with the functionality they need using fewer, highly reliable servers running in a more robust, proven environment. In short, PC NetLink provides numerous important benefits to growing workgroups:

• Increases the reliability of Windows NT environments
• Transparently provides key Microsoft network services to users
• Reduces complexity and lowers total cost of ownership
• Provides throughput and headroom to accommodate demand and growth
• Supports far more scalable systems than PCs provide
• Runs the robust, reliable Solaris operating environment
• Enables the consolidation of many applications onto fewer servers, reducing management costs and increasing uptime
• Provides simple, familiar installation and administration tools
• Fully Year 2000-compliant

Bringing Enterprise-Class Reliability and Scalability to PC Networks

The Interoperability Landscape and the Growing Importance of Workgroups

Few IT managers would take exception to the assertion that distributed architectures have become a standard model for enterprise computing. Distributed computing, pioneered by companies like Sun Microsystems, offer enhanced flexibility, tighter integration with PCs, greater personal and departmental autonomy, and better scalability than more traditional mainframe-centric approaches.

For many firms, the transition to a full three-tier distributed computing architecture has come through the linkage of existing entities -- departmental PC LANs and corporate mainframes. The all-important glue in this link is the workgroup, or departmental computing system (Figure 1).

Originally, most workgroup systems began as servers to departmental LANs, providing file, print, and applications service to the PCs that make up the vast majority of enterprise desktops. With their role highly compartmentalized and limited to serving the needs of a single, often small, network of personal computers, these systems were typically PCs running PC operating systems like Novell NetWare, Microsoft Windows, Windows95, or more frequently today, Windows NT. As the demands for more integrated services arose, software and hardware to implement more comprehensive links within the enterprise were added, often with limited success.

The transition to a full three-tier distributed computing architecture has come through the linkage of existing mainframes, servers and client systems with workgroup systems acting as the all-important glue.

As a backdrop to these changing technical developments, the nature of business has rapidly changed as well. Global competition has required companies to become more nimble, demanding more flexible organizations that can quickly deploy and redeploy resources in response to changing business needs. This requirement for greater economy and better service has also caused enterprises to forge closer relationships with vendors and customers. Some of these new business challenges include:

The need to implement remote and branch offices with faster access to mission-critical applications and corporate data so decisions can be made faster, customer responsiveness improved, and productivity increased

Responding to the need for increased competitiveness by rolling out new real-time, Web-based applications such as customer service, data warehousing, call centers, and on-line transaction processing services

Using corporate networks and the Internet to expand into global markets and increase service coverage hours

Getting closer to customers and suppliers by creating ÒextranetsÓ that provide them with access to select portions of the corporate intranet In order to implement these changes, MIS directors have turned to more sophisticated distributed computing technologies for help, with the deployment responsibility often falling squarely on the workgroup. In short, workgroups are fast becoming a business-critical component of enterprise computing.

Rethinking Workgroup Computing

This new reliance on the role of workgroup computing should naturally cause concerned managers to revisit the issues of how to best implement workgroup technology strategies. The original move to use PCs as servers to isolated corporate LANs was a natural, and at the time, necessary decision. But with a new, more critical reliance on middle-tier computing, and with the natural evolution of technology, workgroups based on personal computers often come up short.

Today, administrators and MIS directors understand that there are better platforms from which to deploy business-critical computing services. Platforms like Sun Workgroup and Enterprise servers running the Solaris operating environment are recognized as offering far better scalability, reliability, availability, and functionality than PCs running Microsoft Windows or Windows NT.

The promised capabilities of Windows NT aside, platforms based on personal computers simply cannot compete with Sun's broad line of powerful servers and the field-tested reliability and performance of Solaris. Offered the opportunity to build workgroups using advanced Sun technologies, LAN administrators can quickly envision numerous improvements in PC network services:

• Greater scalability and reliability in their own PC networks, with better overall throughput and more headroom to accommodate peak demands and growth
• Simplified management through the consolidation of services onto a smaller number of more reliable platforms
• Lower total cost of ownership through reduced downtime and fewer numbers of systems to manage
• More sophisticated services and enhanced integration to legacy systems, advanced servers, and the World Wide Web to better meet the needs for greater enterprise functionality from workgroups

Implementation Strategies for Enhancing Workgroups

Despite the many compelling reasons to implement workgroup services on Sun platforms, administrators must worry about how to ensure that transitions to new technologies remain seamless, leaving users and processes unaffected. They know that business goes on, and that simply calling a halt to operations while changes are made is not an option.

Today, many enterprises rely on Microsoft network services (directory, file and print, security and authentication, etc.) to link their networks of personal computers together. A major foundation component of modern PC LANs, any transition to more reliable workgroup server platforms will first have to be able to fully replicate the functionality of these services without disruption to clients or servers, and with minimal changes to the basic practices used to keep these networks running.

This is the problem plaguing PC LAN administrators. How can they continue to provide necessary LAN services while at the same time respond to the urgent need to upgrade the hardware and software platforms of workgroup servers? Until recently, there was no convincing answer to this question.

Fortunately, a foundation technology has been developed that allows Sun to deliver robust, reliable services for PC clients on the industry-proven Solaris operating environment and to support open, industry standards as well as volume de facto standard--all while consolidating services and applications on scalable Sun server systems. They call their new software PC NetLink.

PC NetLink -- The New Foundation for the Enterprise Workgroup

PC NetLink is a solution that truly delivers on the demands of the enterprise workgroup. A Solaris-based network product designed to provide native Windows NT services to PC clients, PC NetLink meets rigorous requirements for functionality, performance, security, availability, interoperability, and economy. Delivering seamless integration with existing PC LANs, as well as convenience and ease of use, PC NetLink enables organizations to create new competitive advantages without sacrificing existing investments or disrupting existing processes. By replacing the limitations of the traditional, PC-based workgroup server with more flexible technology, PC NetLink is poised to carry the heterogeneous organizations of today far into the future. Fully compatible with network technology from Microsoft, PC NetLink provides the key file, print, and resource sharing facilities required of Microsoft Windows 3.11, Windows NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98 clients. Indeed, PC NetLink offers the core network services found on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server on the more mature, reliable, and scalable server platforms and Solaris operating environment available from Sun.

PC NetLink Features

Based on AT&T's Advanced Server for UNIX¨, PC NetLink is Sun's next generation PC LAN integration server. A powerful tool for integrating PCs into the enterprise network, PC NetLink provides transparent and seamless access to key Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 services, such as file, print, and directory services, in addition to addressing critical enterprise computing needs:

• Native NT services and tools to manage key server and network functions
• Complete implementation of Windows NT 4.0 MCC on Solaris
• Print, file, directory, and security services hosted on highly reliable, scalable server platforms with up to 64 processors
• Coexistence of Sun Enterprise servers running PC NetLink under the Solaris operating environment with servers running Microsoft Windows NT
• Flexibility to choose from a wide array of Sun hardware and software options (enterprise storage systems, legacy and high performance networking products, Java technologies)
• Compatibility with Microsoft networking protocols to protect investments in existing technology
• Reduced complexity and unlimited client support, lowering total cost of ownership
• Industry-standard networking protocols
• Security and authentication (SAM/SID)
• NetBIOS and WINS protocols
• File and print services (NTFS)
• Service Pack 3 compliant
• Easy to install using point and click install wizards
• All major PC client operating systems supported, including Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 3.11

With these features, PC NetLink provides PC-based network clients with the main Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 services they need running on the more reliable and scalable Sun platform (Table 1).

PC NetLink provides the key features and functions of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 network services on the more scalable and reliable Sun/Solaris platform.

PC NetLink Technology

Organizations with a large number of Windows NT users face one overriding problem--how to control network complexity and consolidate services and applications onto an open, scalable platform that always performs. With PC NetLink, the solution is simple. By implementing Microsoft network services as a native Solaris application, PC NetLink provides PC clients with the services and functionality they need--but consolidated onto fewer, highly reliable Sun Enterprise servers running in a more robust, proven operating environment.

PC NetLink is not an emulation package that attempts to run Microsoft operating environments or applications on SPARC platforms. Administrators can rest assured that the latest server technology from Sun is not Windows NT 4.0 Server ported to Solaris or running under software emulation--it is a combination of key core source code services ported directly to the Solaris operating environment that provide Microsoft Windows NT application programming interfaces and protocols to clients (Figure 2).

PC NetLink consists of core Windows NT Server services ported to Solaris PC NetLink runs as a Solaris application, enabling it to take advantage of the stability, reliability, and availability of the Solaris/Sun platform:

• Implemented in conjunction with standard UFS, enabling UNIX protection mechanisms to be used to secure files
• Multithreaded and tuned to take advantage of Solaris services
• Designed to be migrated into the Solaris kernel for high performance
• Changes to the Windows Registry do not require rebooting of the server

Domains

A domain is a logical grouping of network servers and other computers that share common security and user account information. Not a single location or specific type of network connection, a domain can consist of multiple computer systems that share physical proximity on a small local area network (LAN) or are located in different corners of the world, communicating over any number of physical connections, including dial-up lines, ISDN, fiber, Ethernet, Token-Ring, frame relay, satellite, and leased lines (Figure 3).

Domains are logical groupings of computing resources that share common security and account information.

A domain is the administrative unit of PC NetLink directory services. Administrators create one account for each user within a domain, enabling them to access resources within the domain. By extending the administrative unit from individual servers to an entire domain, PC NetLink saves administrators and users significant time and effort.

Domain controllers manage all interactions within a domain. Consisting of systems running the PC NetLink software or Microsoft Windows NT Server, domain controllers share a single directory database to store security and user account information for the entire domain. Domain controllers can then use the information in the directory database to authenticate users logging on to domain accounts--a strategy similar to the Solaris NIS model widely used in enterprise networks.

Two types of domain controllers are employed in Microsoft NT Server and PC NetLink environments: primary and backup domain controllers (Figure 4).

• The primary domain controller (PDC) for a domain is responsible for tracking changes made to domain accounts. Whenever an administrator makes a change to a domain account, the change is recorded in the directory database on the PDC. Each domain contains one primary domain controller.
• Each backup domain controller (BDC) maintains a copy of the directory database. This copy is synchronized periodically and automatically with the PDC. BDCs also authenticate user logins, and a BDC can be promoted to function as the PDC. Multiple BDCs typically exist in a domain, enabling multiple systems to share the burden of authenticating network logins.

Primary and backup domain controllers share the burden of authenticating logins The domain structure enables PC NetLink directory services to provide several key advantages to users:

• Single user login
  Network users can connect to multiple servers with a single network login. Directory services extend this login to all PC NetLink and Windows NT services and server applications.
• Centralized network administration
  The ability to view the network from any workstation provides the ability to track and manage information on users, groups, and resources in a distributed network. This single point of administration for multiple servers simplifies management of the PC NetLink-based network.
• Universal access to resources
  One domain user account and password is all a user needs to use available resources throughout the network. Through directory services, account validation is extended to allow seamless user access to multiple network domains.

Trusted Relationships

Security in a Windows NT Server environment is provided across multiple domains through a trust relationship--a link that combines two domains into one administrative unit that can authorize access to resources on both domains. Both one-way and two-way trust relationships are required to support organizational needs. In a one-way trust relationship, one domain trusts the users in the other domain to use its resources. More precisely, one domain trusts the domain controllers in the other domain to validate user accounts to use its resources. The resources that become available are in the trusting domain, and the accounts that can use them are in the trusted domain.

If user accounts located in the trusting domain need to use resources located in the trusted domain, a two-way trust relationship is required. A two-way trust relationship consists of two one-way trusts, where each domain trusts user accounts in the other domain (Figure 5). Users can log on to domain accounts from computers in either domain, and each domain can have its own accounts and resources. Global user accounts and global groups can be used from either domain to grant rights and permissions to resources in either domain.

Through the Microsoft Windows File Manager, users from the trusted domain can be given rights and permissions to objects in the trusting domain as if they were members. Users in the trusted domain can browse resources in the trusting domain, subject to account privilege. For example, suppose the Marketing domain trusts the Finance domain of a corporate network. A member of the Finance domain wants to access a file located on a computer system in the Marketing domain running Windows NT Server. When the user attempts to log on to the server in Marketing, the user account information is not transferred to the Marketing domain's user database. Because Marketing trusts Finance, the Marketing domain has access to user information in the Finance domain's user-account database, and grants permission accordingly.

Trust relationships can be established to implement proper security measures

The PC NetLink software fully supports trust relationships between Solaris servers and Microsoft Windows NT Servers:

• Full trust relationships, including full bi-directional trust relationships
• One-way and two-way trust configurations
• Multi-domain trusts
• Administered with the same tools as Microsoft Windows NT

PC NetLink -- All the Network Services PC Clients Need

In order to provide comprehensive service, PC LAN servers must address a variety of needs, provide a standard suite of services to its clients, support popular and standardized protocols, all in a secure environment that is easy to manage. PC NetLink offers all of these.

File and Print Services

The ability to access and print files located anywhere on the network has become a standard requirement in modern enterprise computing environments. Distributed file systems provide clients with transparent access to remote files and directories across a heterogeneous network. No longer needing local copies of files, clients keep them on the server instead, reducing storage costs and ensuring data consistency.

Today, file and print services at the workgroup level are handled so smoothly that most take them for granted. Indeed, administrators only worry about these services when attempting to make them available in multi-vendor environments. It is precisely these circumstances that often result in a push for server consolidation.

Distributed file systems vary significantly in their ability to satisfy key requirements such as scalability from small to large networks, fast and transparent access by geographically distributed users, information protection, ease of administration, and wide support from a variety of vendors. PC NetLink provides the needed file and print services users have come to expect in PC LAN environments:

• SMB and CIFS compliance
• NT file system (NTFS) compliance
• NT Security is maintained automatically
• No change to the client
• Local network print drivers distributed from reliable, scalable Solaris servers
• Printer drivers available on PC NetLink for clients that do not have them installed
• Printers shared on Solaris servers appear as PC printers to client operating systems
• Same deployment model as Windows NT/PC

Directory and Naming Services

Local and wide-area networking enables the integration of existing resources in a heterogeneous computing environment supports distributed applications based on a true client-server computing model, and encourages collaborative business processes. However, the increasing use of computing resources has been accompanied by a corresponding growth in the size of networks, which can consist of tens of thousands of systems across an enterprise.

These trends present new requirements for efficient administration of network entities such as users, systems, and printers. Administrators must be able to support both large and small networks that incorporate systems from a variety of vendors, administration models ranging from centralized control of the overall network to remote administration of smaller domains, authorized access to network resources, rapidly changing network environments, increased automation of administrative operations, and easier and more consistent management procedures.

Directory and naming services are designed to ease the administrative burden of enterprise networks by providing a facility for information about network entities and their users. Administrative tasks, such as addition, removal, or reassignment of systems and users, are facilitated through these services.

Together, PC NetLink and the Solaris operating environment provide a full range of industry-standard directory and naming services to clients:

• NetBIOS
• WINS naming
• NTDS
• DNS naming
• LDAP
• NIS, NIS+ naming
• X.500

Synchronizing Directory and Naming Services

Maintaining multiple directory and authentication services is often difficult, and bi-directional synchronization between incompatible directories is often impossible to achieve. Rather than replicating directory data, distributed environments need to standardize on a single directory and utilize software that maps between them. PC NetLink mitigates this problem by providing import tools which add Solaris name service users (FILES, NIS, NISPLUS) into Windows NT Directory Services. The converse is true as well--similar tools support the import of NT Directory Service users into the Solaris name service. In the future these import tools will evolve into an LDAP-based synchronization solution.

Directory and naming service import tools ease administration by:

• Establishing ownership rights and privileges
• Mapping each NT Directory Service account SID to a UNIX user ID
• Bridging between traditionally incompatible naming services

Administration Services

Mission-critical environments and customer demand are raising expectations of acceptable service levels. As a result, distributed computing environments must be more reliable, available around the clock, and easier to diagnose and service. Systems must run continuously for longer periods of time without interruption. New users must be added easily, problems with file systems quickly rectified, and configurations rapidly adjusted to accommodate changes in network topologies. Disruption of platform availability during routine service must be avoided and critical applications and services must always be available upon demand.

While every organization strives to meet the rising challenge of increased levels of service, it is imperative that the cost of providing these services remain low. To do this, IT organizations must leverage existing limited skill levels and minimize the number of people required to keep the enterprise operating at peak efficiency.

The fact that PC NetLink runs on a Solaris-based platform may raise concern that administrators will need to be retrained to use new management tools. Understanding this, Sun has ensured that administrators can use familiar tools to manage servers running PC NetLink.

PC NetLink administration is accomplished using Microsoft Windows NT Server management tools, including:

• User Manager
• Server Manager
• Event Manager
• Regedit32
• System policies
• User profiles
• Microsoft command line equivalents supplied on Solaris for administration
• PC-style point and click installation with InstallShield

Admin Tool

Admin Tool is a distributed client/server application for administering PC NetLink -- not for administering Windows NT. As such, Admin Tool is a distributed client/server application with a server running on the PC NetLink host, and a GUI process running on an administration client. Admin Tool enables administrators to rapidly complete key tasks associated with the maintenance of Solaris servers running PC NetLink:

• Login/logoff
  Allowing PC NetLink administration functions from a remote client, the user must be authorized by the PC NetLink server. The PC NetLink Admin Tool supports a mechanism for logging into the system, and logging off when the user is done.
• Server start-up and shutdown
  The PC NetLink software includes a service which is comprised of a set of co-operating server processes. This service is what allows the UNIX platform to operate as an NT Server. PC NetLink enables administrators to start up and shut down the server, and determine if it is running without requiring knowledge of UNIX processes and command line procedures.
• Domain configuration
  The PC NetLink software enables Sun systems running the Solaris operating environment to operate as a server within a Microsoft Windows NT domain. The PC NetLink Admin Tool provides administrators with a means for naming servers and attaching them to domains, as well as configuring them as Primary or Backup Domain Controllers.
• Policy configuration
  Administrators employ a wide variety of configuration parameters to control operation and policies. The PC NetLink Admin Tool enables administrators to configure parameters, and provides appropriate context to aid the understanding of the impact of each policy parameter.
• Access Control List (ACL) management
  The Access Control List (ACL) is a security mechanism that defines access permissions in Windows NT environments. The PC NetLink Admin Tool supports the management of ACLs stored on the Sun server, including data initialization, pruning obsolete entries, and performing check and repair operations.

User Manager

Designed to support Windows NT servers, the User Manager provides a platform upon which the enterprise can base its administrative and management operations to ensure all systems and the services they provide are highly available. A powerful tool for managing the PC LAN, the User Manager enables system administrators to configure and manage user services through an easy-to-use graphical user interface (Figure 6).

The User Manager enables administrators to configure and manage domain users and groups through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface With User Manager, administrators can configure and manage a number of services:

• Users and groups
• Machine access
• Domain controllers
• Audit policies
• Home directories
• Access control
• User passwords
• Directory information
• Trust relationships

Server Manager

The Server Manager is an application that enables administrators to view and manage domains, workgroups, and computer systems. With Server Manager, administrators can perform all the tasks needed to ensure the system remains operational through a familiar, easy-to-use graphical user interface (Figure 8). In particular, administrators can configure servers, query services, remotely control Windows NT services, and configure and manage resource sharing and quota policies.

The Server Manager enables administrators to view and mange domains, workgroups, and computer systems

Event Viewer

The centralization of administrative resources helps ensure effective enterprise management. With the need to lower operating costs and reduce administrative overhead, IT organizations are finding that administrators need tools that can automate tasks and quickly alert them to problems. The Event Viewer accomplishes these goals and aids system, application, and service availability by providing a host of fault and event management features (Figure 8):

• Traps and displays all errors and exceptions
• Displays event logs for security, systems, and applications
• Displays event descriptions and details
• Sorts events by timeframe
• Filters events so that only those with specified characteristics are displayed
• Searches for events
• Windows NT error codes provided
• Windows NT style event log

The Event Viewer enables administrators to view event details important to maintaining smooth operation of the network.

By alerting administrators to problems (and potential problems) as they arise, error and fault conditions can be isolated and resolved quickly, minimizing--and potentially eliminating--system downtime. In addition, the ability to perform repair and restoration actions automatically reduces the amount of involvement required by the administrator and shortens repair time, thereby increasing system, data, application, and service availability.

Security Services

Large and small organizations alike rely on advanced security mechanisms to protect their networks and consequently their business. Indeed, many industries, including engineering, finance, health care, and government, need the highest levels of network security and guaranteed privacy. Workgroup servers must support a host of security mechanisms to ensure users are authenticated and granted access only to the areas of the system in which they are permitted.

PC NetLink offers a logical administrative model that enables efficient management of large networks. Administrators can set up domains and trust relationships between them to centralize user account and other security information, making the network easier to manage and use. Every user needs only a single account that provides the user with access to resources anywhere on the network. Enhanced features that support discretionary access control permissions on individual files, directories, and resources are included. Comprehensive auditing capabilities give administrators a fine level of control over user and resource permissions and auditing.

Specific security features found in PC NetLink include:

• Windows NT style user and group definitions as well as Solaris Access Control Lists (ACLs)
• Full Support for Security Access Manager (SAM) and Security ID's (SID)
• Small implementation of the Windows Registry
• Full support for account lockout
• RC4 Encryption
• Password and User Sync with Solaris NIS maps and NIS+ tables

Sun and PC NetLink -- Revolutionizing PC LAN Servers

With PC NetLink, organizations can finally increase the scalability and reliability of PC networks by utilizing high performance Sun systems with their outstanding reliability, availability, and serviceability features. Teamed with the highly available and powerful Solaris operating environment, PC NetLink gives PC networks what they need to be full players in a business-critical computing infrastructure--Windows NT services running on highly scalable and reliable platforms.

Scalable Platforms from Sun

With Sun systems running PC NetLink, organizations can revitalize the workgroup without replacing traditional LAN capabilities or disrupting operations. Offering a coexistence strategy that delivers mid-tier computing solutions without sacrificing traditional LAN technology, Sun offers a new vision for departmental computing through its comprehensive workgroup and Enterprise server product line. Sun servers provide scalable, symmetric multiprocessing capabilities, offering from one to 64 high-performance UltraSPARC processors, up to 64 GB of physical memory, and up to 20 TB of disk storage, ensuring that workgroup and departmental systems can provide needed performance for peak demands as well as virtually unlimited future growth (Figure 9). Furthermore, Sun servers support advanced clustering, increasing service availability to over 99.99 percent.

Scalable server and storage solutions from Sun Sun's family of servers incorporate a host of features designed to deliver the high performance and scalability needed by mid-tier computing environments:

• SMP UltraSPARC architecture
  Sun's workgroup and Enterprise servers are the among the first symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) server systems to employ the UltraSPARC microprocessor. UltraSPARC conforms to the 32-bit SPARC V8 and 64-bit V9 specifications, ensuring binary compatibility with existing applications and delivering exceptional performance in virtually any workload.
• High throughput bus architectures
  Sun systems employ bus technologies like the packet-switched Gigaplane and UPA interconnect. Designed for high capacity and reliability, both Gigaplane and UPA substantially improve raw system bus performance. With separate paths for address, data, and control lines, Gigaplane and UPA offers high utilization of potential peak bandwidth. Scalable Platforms from Sun
• Innovative system board design
  Each CPU/memory board in the Enterprise servers houses up to two CPUs along with memory. This modular architecture allows systems to be expanded in either processing power or memory capacity, or both, for optimal performance in demanding environments. Likewise, all Sun servers provide unmatched I/O expandability and performance, an extremely important requirement for high performance file and applications service.
• Compatible product line
  All Sun Enterprise and workgroup servers share a common architecture and run the same operating system. Differing only in capacity and expandability, they ensure that investments in system infrastructure--software, training, applications, peripherals--are applicable across a wide range of environments and applications. In addition, Sun's binary compatibility ensures scalability without affecting existing networks and domain infrastructures.

Reliability, Availability and Serviceability

With the workgroup shouldering more mission- and business-critical applications, workgroup servers must offer higher levels of availability than ever before. Sun servers boast many of the reliability, availability, and serviceability features usually found only on mainframe systems:

• Fast system recovery, through Automatic System Recovery and Power On Self Test (POST)
• Enhanced system reliability, through a simple system design, sophisticated environmental monitoring, and a new software enhancement called CPU Power Control
• Improved data integrity with ECC circuitry and parity checks
• ÒNo outageÓ servicing, enabled by enhancements such as Alternate Pathing, Dynamic Reconfiguration, and hot-pluggable and hot-swappable components
• Robust diagnostics support through a comprehensive diagnostic tool (SunVTS)
• Intelligent systems monitoring and management with built-in hardware monitors, Enterprise SyMON, and remote console capabilities
• Remote System Control (RSC), enabling systems like the Sun Enterprise 250 to be rebooted remotely.

High Performance, Scalable Storage from Sun

As workgroups increase in size and number, they demand better scalability and performance from their storage systems. The Sun StorEdge Array series can provide workgroups with the highest volume RAID product line in the industry, scaling in capacity from 126 GB up to 20 TB (when coupled with Sun's Enterprise 10000 server), and in performance up to 25,000 I/O operations per second. Sun's storage system lineup also includes a selection of tape libraries, autoloaders, and drives for backup and archive.

The Solaris Operating Environment

Microsoft Windows NT continues to proliferate on PC LANs, with many organizations attempting to consolidate them into a larger IT infrastructure capable of supporting enterprise needs. Despite these attempts, Windows NT often falls short in its ability to meet enterprise-wide deployment requirements. Fortunately, these features are readily available in Sun's industry-leading implementation of UNIX, the Solaris operating environment.

Every Sun server runs Solaris. Solaris ensures stable programming interfaces, full support for multiprocessing and multithreading, application compatibility across the entire Sun product line, effective use of UltraSPARC capabilities, and easy integration of emerging technologies--all necessary to extract the performance and scalability needed by growing workgroup and departmental computing environments. For this reason, Solaris remains the sole foundation for all Sun workstations and servers, and upon which the PC NetLink software is built.

The Solaris software environment is a 32-bit operating system, based on industry standard UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4), and is built to enable high-performance client-server applications in a distributed, networked environment. Solaris provides unlimited, transparent access to systems, servers, printers, remote databases and other resources, with the scalability to support virtually any mix of application and peripherals. As the world's #1 UNIX environment, Solaris commands an installed base of two million users and supports over 12,000 applications--the most applications available for any UNIX operating environment today.

With Solaris, integrated, global wide-area network connectivity, PC desktop integration, PC-LAN connectivity, enterprise management features and powerful development tools come together in a strategic software solution for businesses who want to sharpen their competitive edge with a powerful, integrated business network.

Managing Solaris and Sun Systems

Now more than ever, companies depend on networks to conduct business and to communicate with people around the world. An increasing number of companies are looking for an easy-to-use, flexible, and cost-effective solution for managing their network computing environment that will improve productivity and control operating costs.

While the PC NetLink software includes a comprehensive suite of tools to configure and manage its services, additional products are available to help manage the Sun platform. Sun has long understood that powerful tools are a critical component of effective network management. As a result, Solaris includes support for products designed to ease the administration of a range of environments, from single systems to entire enterprise networks:

• Sun Enterprise SyMON, a comprehensive tool that provides a single point of management for all Sun systems, the Solaris operating environment, applications, and services for data center and highly distributed computing environments. With Sun Enterprise SyMON, IT organizations can efficiently manage and arbitrate between users, applications, and resources.
• SunVTS, a graphical diagnostic tool designed to help monitor and diagnose system problems. With SunVTS, system administrators and users alike can perform runtime diagnostics, isolate faults, and obtain status information on all devices, enabling the swift resolution of failures.
• Solstice Site Manager and Solstice Domain Manager, tools that help organizations manage complex, heterogeneous environments by addressing the scalability, cost, and management consistency requirements of growing enterprises. Together, Solstice Site Manager and Solstice Domain Manager provide:
  • Advanced event management.
  • Consistent platform for all sizes of environments
  • Low-end platform for small sites
  • High-end platform that can scale to a large number of managed nodes
  • Distribution between platforms
  • A reliable platform
• Sun Enterprise Volume Manager, a software management solution that helps users manage disk array subsystems, enabling users to more easily address their storage management, administration, availability, and performance needs.
• Sun Enterprise Backup, an easy-to-use backup and recovery solution for small heterogeneous computing environments that reduces administrative overhead, improves data reliability and accessibility to users and applications, and reduces the overall cost of ownership.
• Solstice AdminSuite, a unified suite of tools for administering distributed systems, providing such functions as Solaris user account management, host management, group management, administrative data management, printer management, file system management, disk management, and serial port management.
• Web Start, a browser-based installation tool that enables the easy installation of Solaris and other Sun bundled software. Default and customized installations are supported.
• Third-party enterprise management tools, such as those from Computer Associates and Tivoli, facilitating the monitoring and management of networks, servers, applications, databases, and other critical resources.
• Sun service and support, providing leading-edge, mission-critical, global services in a variety of levels, from answer center support to 7x24 coverage. Organizations can select the program that best fits their needs to take advantage of Sun's expertise in the areas of skills development, IT planning and integration, system and network management, ERP integration, and Internet, intranet, and Java implementation. Indeed, Sun Professional Services helps organizations design and develop custom enterprise resource solutions that ensure deployment goals are achieved.

Summary

Workgroups are fast becoming a business-critical component of enterprise computing. This new reliance on the role of workgroups is causing organizations to revisit their implementations. Indeed, workgroups based on personal computers are coming up short, and organizations need more reliable and scalable platforms from which to deploy business-critical computing services.

Sun has provided foundation-level products for mission-critical computing for over 15 years, and stands prepared to deliver the solutions needed to advance the effectiveness of workgroup computing environments. The combination of PC NetLink software running on scalable Sun servers and the Solaris operating environment finally gives departmental computing administrators the ability to configure workgroup servers for unprecedented levels of reliability, availability, serviceability, and economy.

Indeed, this combination enables enterprises to reach a long sought after goal--the ability to provide PC clients with the functionality they need, but consolidated onto fewer, highly reliable platforms running in a more robust, proven operating environment.

• Increases the reliability of Windows NT environments
• Transparently provides key Microsoft network services to users
• Reduces complexity and lowers total cost of ownership
• Provides throughput and headroom to accommodate demand and growth
• Supports scalable systems running the robust Solaris operating environment
• Enables the consolidation of many applications onto one server
• Provides simple, familiar installation and administration tools