http://www.microsoft.com/BackOffice/reading/unixint.htm (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)
About the Microsoft Business Systems Technology Series
The Microsoft Business Systems Technology Series consists a of number of inter-related white papers dedicated to the task of educating IT professionals on technological issues surrounding Windows NT and the Microsoft Back Office family of products. While current technologies used within Microsoft products is often included, the real purpose of this series is to give the reader an idea of where major technologies are going, how Microsoft is leveraging off of those technologies in ways that are complementary and what this means to information technology planners doing real world IT implementations.
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Users: Integration Shifts Focus to Tasks, Not Technologies
3. MIS Managers: Move Forward While Leveraging Existing Investments
4. System Administrators: Integration Offers Consolidated System and Network Management
5. Developers: Integration Speeds and Simplifies Multiplatform Development
Appendix A: Third-party Contacts
Organizations are efficient when they focus on their business goals instead of on the technologies they use. For this purpose, it is necessary to increase application usability and reuse, enable easy access to data from different sources, and reduce development time. UNIX systems are already present in the enterprise in significant numbers while advances in information technology are occurring on inexpensive PCs. MIS organizations must move forward, but also leverage their investments in UNIX systems, so many must integrate existing UNIX systems with the Microsoft® Windows® family of operating systems. Integration, in this case, means enabling network connectivity, cross-platform development, object services, messaging, database access and system management across Windows-family and UNIX systems.
Users get network connectivity between Windows-family and UNIX systems through technologies and products like Network File System (NFS), LAN Manager for UNIX (LMU), TCP/IP, and the X Window System™ protocol. Microsoft® has made the Windows application programming interfaces (APIs) available to developers on UNIX systems through the Windows Interface Source Environment (WISE) licensing program. With WISE products, users will be able to run shrink-wrapped Windows applications on UNIX systems. Microsoft's object technology, OLE, will also become available on UNIX systems through WISE. Users and developers get cross-platform database services between Windows-family and UNIX systems through Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) and Open Data Services. Users can send and receive email between the Windows-family and UNIX systems using products like Microsoft Mail and Microsoft Exchange Server. System managers can manage heterogeneous systems using Microsoft Systems Management Server and third-party Windows-family based Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) software such as OpenView and NetView®.
Users benefit from integration since they can focus on solving business problems without worrying about hardware and software details. Developers benefit since they can leverage their platform-specific knowledge for multiple platforms. System administrators can manage heterogeneous systems easily and remove administrative problems for users and developers. Integration helps MIS managers and corporate purchasing reduce costs for software, hardware, software maintenance, and training.
Aligning information strategy with business goals is one of the foremost challenges of IT organizations. Therefore, it becomes important to provide easy access to information from multiple sources, reduce software development time, increase application usability and re-use, and incorporate new technologies while leveraging existing assets. More than 2.5 million UNIX systems are installed in businesses, while Windows is the desktop operating system of choice, with an installed base of more than 60 million.
Early implementations of client/server technologies in MIS organizations occurred on UNIX systems and this led to a major investment in UNIX systems. Meanwhile, major advances in information technology are happening on inexpensive PCs running Windows and Windows NT™. MIS organizations must move forward with new technologies while still leveraging their previous investments in UNIX systems. It is therefore necessary to integrate existing UNIX systems in enterprises with Windows family systems.
UNIX systems also have a significant presence in financial, scientific, engineering, and academic organizations. These organizations are also increasingly turning to Windows and Windows NT systems, which must be integrated with existing UNIX systems.
At a minimum, integration of Windows-family and UNIX systems must provide simple network connectivity between the systems. Users must be able to access files across platforms over a network, and applications on different systems must be able to communicate with one another.
Better integration will facilitate cross-platform application development, object services, database access, messaging, and system and network management.
With cross-platform application development, developers will be able to write platform-independent applications. Cross-platform object services let software components communicate across platforms easily and make users more productive. System administrators will be able to manage heterogeneous systems easily if system-management software can provide, in one place, management information about heterogeneous systems. Cross-platform database and messaging services provide users with a means for easy, platform-independent information exchange.
This paper is organized into sections for the following readers:
Throughout the paper, "Windows family" refers to Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT.
Contact information for third-party software vendors is provided
in Appendix A.
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