Microsoft's entry into a new market is usually as subtle as a large man screaming "Cannonball!" and leaping into a swimming pool. Inflammatory anti-Sun Microsystems comments from Microsoft president Steve Ballmer aside, Microsoft took a different route with Windows Datacenter Server.
Microsoft slid into the high-end server operating system market like a fullback ducking behind blockers for an end run. The aggressive go-getters in Redmond are letting respected enterprise partners like Unisys, IBM and HP do most of the talking about Datacenter Server when it comes to selling it to skeptical glasshouse administrators. Two years after releasing Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, and on the eve of the launch of Windows .NET Datacenter Server, Microsoft seems satisfied enough with the results to maintain this uncharacteristic approach.
The essence of Windows Datacenter Server is shaping up to be the Windows Datacenter Program and pure scalability. Through the beta and release candidate cycles of Windows .NET Server 2003, Microsoft has been boiling the Datacenter edition down to its core components. That process has involved furious shuffling of features between the Datacenter Edition, which follows Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, and the Enterprise Edition, which succeeds Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Compared with Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows .NET Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, will be moderately more scalable in 32-bit configurations. It will support the same 32-processor SMP maximum. On memory, its 32-bit support will double to 64 GB of RAM. Its 64-bit support will be set at 128 GB of RAM, a massive amount by today's standards and at current memory prices but nowhere near the theoretical maximum of a 64-bit system.
Few customers seem to be taking advantage of the scalability of Windows Datacenter Server, thus far, as a major database platform. Microsoft itself is the only recent case study on the vendor's homepage that is using Datacenter for pure single-system scalability. Nonetheless, benchmarks indicate the operating system is strong in the scalability area on paper and in the lab.
A consultant at Avanade, Microsoft's joint consulting venture with Accenture, says privately that in many cases Datacenter's benchmark numbers earn Microsoft a foot in the door on enterprise contracts that it otherwise wouldn't be considered for. Once inside, Microsoft shows customers their requirements can be met with more standard, and lower cost, hardware and software. In any case, Microsoft has progressed right up the scalability ladder since launching Datacenter Server in September 2000.
Microsoft recently changed the licensing terms for its Windows 2000 Datacenter Server to create a situation where customers could buy the high-end operating system on servers with only four processors at a lower price. Previously, the smallest licensing package available to the computer manufacturers who then sell Datacenter to customers, was an eight-processor pack. Microsoft also offered 16-processor and 32-processor license packs for Datacenter Server.
Datacenter is only sold as part of complete server systems that include hardware and the operating system so that the computer manufacturer can maintain tight control over drivers and other components that might cause a system to fail. The method also ensures that customers have one support number at the computer manufacturer to call in case of a problem, whether it involves the hardware or the operating system. The eight-processor packs are used by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and others for Datacenter systems. Unisys uses the 16-processor and 32-processor license packs for its ES7000 server.
A new worm with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) capabilities and the ability to grant hackers backdoor access to remote systems is being actively propagated across the Internet, according to Internet Security Systems. The Slapper worm is a modified version of the earlier Scalper worm and targets systems running the Linux OS and the open-source Apache Web server. The worms exploits a previously disclosed flaw in the Secure Sockets Layer 2.0 (SSLv2) handshake process, ISS said in a security advisory Saturday.
According to ISS, the DDoS capabilities associated with this worm are very powerful and have already been used to attack and disable high-profile targets. Binary and source code versions of the worm are available and are being actively circulated, which may lead to the development of more powerful variants, ISS said.
Microsoft on Monday will announce new tools for building software for cell phones and personal digital assistants. The software maker will debut a second test version of its .Net Compact Framework, a programming infrastructure for writing Web services software for mobile devices.
The software will be built into a forthcoming new version of Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net development tool package, allowing programmers for the first time to use the same tools to build software for PCs, servers and mobile devices. Previously, programmers needed to buy or download a separate development tool package for mobile devices. The more general .Net Framework for software that runs on PCs and servers is already built into Visual Studio.Net.
Also this week, the software maker is releasing a test version of its latest Visual Studio.Net tools suite, code-named Everett, with the .Net Compact Framework built in. While the final version of .Net Compact Framework should be completed this fall, Everett should be released by the end of the year or early next year, Rasmussen said.
Microsoft's acquisition of XDegrees, a small company known for its secure peer-to-peer technology, could help bolster the software giant's .Net Web services plan, according to analysts. Microsoft acquired Mountain View, Calif.-based XDegrees last Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the company said little about any plans for XDegrees' technology, except that it has "natural synergies with Microsoft's focus on storage," according to a press release.
Analysts point to a key role that XDegrees could play in several of Microsoft's upcoming products as part of its .Net software plan--specifically, in a new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn. One of the primary goals for the Longhorn architecture is to improve the ability of Windows and Office applications to find, access and share documents. XDegrees technology seems tailor-made for that application, said analysts.
.NET is a difficult technology to explain to non-programmers because .NET is developer-oriented technology. Many of the features of .NET don't make sense unless you know a lot about software development. From a marketing standpoint, however, understanding the essentials of .NET shouldn't require expertise in software engineering any more than buying a car requires a degree in mechanical engineering. What is needed is a consideration of other markets where technically abstract concepts are communicated to a non-technical audience.
NET is, in a nutshell, a set of technologies designed to enhance developer productivity, with special emphasis given to the needs of programs in a networked environment (i.e. the Internet). Developers build their programs using building blocks found in .NET. .NET also acts as a controlled environment within which programs can run. This controlled environment makes certain common programming errors that have security implications, such as buffer overruns, impossible, while greatly expanding the number of security options available. In short, a "development framework" like .NET leads to code that has fewer bugs, is more secure, has more features, and is easier to build.
A new worm that attacks Linux Web servers has compromised more than 3,500 machines, creating a rogue peer-to-peer network that has been used to attack other computers with a flood of data, security experts said Saturday. The worm seems to spreading fairly rapidly, according to security firm Symantec, which early Friday detected about 2,000 infected computers actively attacking, a number that climbed to 3,500 late Friday. The company's security personnel could not be contacted for comment Saturday. "It is confirmed through various sources that this worm is in the wild and actively attacking other servers," the firm warned its newest advisory Saturday.
The worm targets Apache Web server installations on a variety of Linux systems, including those from Red Hat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake and Slackware. By exploiting a security hole in the Apache OpenSSL module that enables a widely used encrypted communications service known as the secure socket layer, the worm can copy itself to new servers.
A worm spreading among Linux servers late Friday takes advantage of a flaw discovered more than a month ago in a program designed to strengthen the privacy of Internet communications. Designated "Linux.Slapper.Worm" by security firm Symantec, the self-replicating program may have originated in Europe and threatens Linux servers that offer an encryption feature known as Secure Sockets Layer, the standard method for encrypting sensitive Web traffic, through a common extension to the open-source Apache Web server. "At this time over 3,500 computers have been observed performing this activity," said Symantec in its advisory.