Business Automation Bulletin 96.2 / February 1996

IT'S YOUR SERVE(R)

Watch Out for the Net

This is the eighth installment of the series of Bulletins covering the changes that have been occurring with computer systems and the effect of these changes on business computer buyers. Past issues covered computer components (chips, RAM, monitors, etc.), printers, data storage systems, networks and network cabling. This issue describes various types of networks and the networking software that controls them.

WHAT KIND OF NETWORK IS RIGHT?

The term "network" can be applied to dozens of different ways of linking computers and computer users together. Of these, Local Area Networks (LANs), which connect computer users in a single building or campus, and Wide Area Networks (WANs), which connect computer users in geographically separate buildings or campuses, are the most common today. LANs and WANs generally have one of the two following structures: "server-based" and "peer-to-peer". Older systems, which are still quite prevalent, use central computer-based structures with "dumb terminals", but many of these are being converted to LANs and WANs now. The Internet is a hybrid structure, a peer-to-peer network that abounds with both servers and "clients" (i.e., user computers that can access and often add to or change the information on the servers).

Server-based and the peer-to-peer structures both accomplish the same end, but they do it differently. Server-based networks use a central computer (called a file server) to store data and perform various other network functions. Peer-to-peer networks let every computer "serve" and be served by every other computer.

In general, server-based networks are more expensive than peer-to-peer networks of the same size because they need a file server and network control software to run (the equivalent of which for peer-to-peer networks is often included in the cost of a basic PC).

But cost doesn't tell the whole story. Server-based structures work better and more efficiently for large networks, and peer-to-peer structures work better for smaller ones. Although there's no universally accepted break point between large and small, any LAN that's ultimately going to have 15 or more computers should definitely be server-based. Those that'll never grow over five computers can safely use peer-to-peer. And for those in the 5 to 15 range, either will do, but server-based networks will generally have a reliability and speed advantage.

InTRAnets: internal internets

A new development within the last year is the use of the Internet structure in private networks. These networks have two main advantages over traditional LAN/WAN designs.

They support dozens of different types of computers (PCs, Macs, workstations, mid-range systems, etc.) easily . . . and without expensive special software.
Users access them with the same Internet "browser" they use for the Web, allowing them to flip back and forth, when necessary, without having to change software.

These networks are called "intranets", not internets, because access to them is restricted to a single company or some other limited group. They're generally integrated with the Internet, allowing their users to get out, but preventing unauthorized Internet users from getting in. They do, however, have drawbacks:

Significant technical expertise and costly "firewalls" (see Bulletin 95.7) are required to control the inbound and outbound access.
If the Internet is used for the wide area communications (instead of high-speed digital lines), it can be very slow.
Very little business-oriented software has been written for Intranets so far.

Nonetheless, Intranets should get much greater usage in the next few years.

NETWORK OPERATING SYSTEMS

The operating system is, arguably, the most critical component in any computer system because it provides the critical linkage between the computer hardware and the software that performs the system's intended functions. Network operating systems (NOSs) perform this same essential function for networks. Although there are dozens of NOSs, two server-based products, Novell's Netware and Microsoft's Windows NT-Server, dominate the LAN/WAN market.

Server-based NOSs

Novell's Netware, in one version or another, is by most accounts installed in two- thirds to three-quarters of all Local Area Networks. The most recent revision, Netware 4, came out about two years ago and took over as Novell's NOS of choice for new installations early last year. Netware 4 is optimized for traditional personal computing applications like word processing and spreadsheets, and its strengths are efficient high-speed data and printer sharing, a world-wide cadre of trained technicians, and powerful support for wide area networks. Its greatest drawback is that it's not optimized to run shared-data applications across the network (such as those used for business and accounting functions). Netware does run these applications, but has more restrictions and runs slower than if it were designed for them.

Windows NT-Server is a newer entrant to the NOS market, taking over for prior Microsoft NOSs that failed to sell well enough to dislodge Novell. NT is a much stronger product than its predecessors and, according to tests, it outperforms on shared data applications by a significant margin. However, NT-Server has two major shortcomings: (1) it lacks the WAN addressing capability (that Netware 4 has), which allows users to communicate and access data as if they were in a single LAN; and (2) NT-trained techs are still relatively scarce (although this is likely to be a short-term problem). On the pricing front, Microsoft is very competitive. Recognizing that in order to win customers, it will have to take them away from Novell, Microsoft set its NT-Server prices at about the same level as a Netware upgrade.

Because of the contrasting advantages of Netware and NT-Server, many large users have installed both of them in the same network, each running on its own server. This creates a double cost, of course, but they've found that in a large network, the performance benefit of using Netware for the traditional PC applications and Windows NT for their business software outweighs the added expense.

A few other server-based NOSs are also in use: Banyan's Vines and IBM's OS/2 Warp-Server being most prominent. However, these products have few advantages over Netware 4 and NT, and the number of trained Vines and OS/2 technicians around is small and shrinking. Thus, these options are most suitable only for buyers large enough to hire their own staff of network support technicians.

Peer-to-peer NOSs

Appletalk is undoubtedly the most widely used peer-to-peer network operating system, but it's proprietary to Apple and doesn't effectively support anything but Macintoshes. One reason why it's so popular is that Apple includes it free with every Mac . . . all you have to do is cable them together and you have a network. Despite this, large Appletalk LANs often convert to server-based NOSs, such as Netware or NT-Server (both of which support Macs quite well in either Mac-only or mixed Mac/PC environments).

The two most popular peer-to-peer PC NOSs are Microsoft's Windows and Artisoft's LANtastic. Like Apple, Microsoft bundled the peer-to-peer capability in with Windows 3.11 and continued it with Windows 95. In practice, this capability provides a very good (and free) option for LANs of up to five or six PCs. Artisoft's LANtastic fits in for larger LANs up to about 12 or 15 users because it has more capability than Microsoft's peer-to-peer options at a price well below that of server-based NOSs. There are lots of other peer-to-peer NOSs out, including Novell's Netware Lite, but none of them can match Win95 or LANtastic for capability and affordability.

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