The Enterprise Attitude

Every Enterprise Computing System Is Critical

As I begin my column about putting Windows NT to work in the enterprise, Iwant to talk about what I call the Enterprise Attitude. It's animportant idea that will be the foundation for future columns and understandingit will help you be successful--both in applying the information that you gethere and in any enterprise-computing project.

What's the Enterprise Attitude?
Let's start with a definition. My working definition for EnterpriseComputing System (ECS) is any combination of computing software and hardwareupon which a business depends.

For example, an organization with only a single machine that does billingmust consider that single machine to be an ECS. The logic is simple: If thissingle machine goes down, so does the business.

You might argue that this definition makes distinguishing between the smallaccounting system and the 100,000-node network impossible. That's exactly whatI'm getting at. When the computing resources are mission-critical to thatcompany, they comprise an ECS. In other words, whatever the EnterpriseAttitude is, it must apply to every business computer installation.

Let's look at an example to see what can happen if you ignore thisidea--even if you have a large organization. A Midwestern insurance company'score applications (policy billing and record keeping) ran on a pair of midrangeboxes. The company's MIS people were quite proud of this setup because allaround them organizations were downsizing and experiencing a variety ofproblems, mostly from badly designed and implemented systems. The MIS peoplebragged that their core applications--their mission-critical ECS--were safe on asolid, proven platform.

Also in this organization was a PC LAN that used Novell servers. This LANran on an incorrectly installed cable plant and wasn't protected by the normaldata-integrity measures of high-quality backup and power protection that any ECSrequires. The LAN was used for such things as word processing and spreadsheetsand was ignored because the core applications were safe on the ECS.

One day, the "non-critical" LAN crashed--hard--and took threedays to recover! During the recovery time, most of the employees couldn't dotheir jobs. The midrange systems continued to crank out the invoices, but thepeople who supported the customers didn't have access to the data that they usedevery day to do their job. The bottom line was that the company had downsizedwithout paying attention; the ECS now included this poorly implemented LANsystem. The crash created a rude awakening for MIS.

Not everything in enterprise computing scales from the bottom to the top.For example, the economy of scale that comes from a 1000-node network means thatsome components that allow automation (e.g., network management systems) areaffordable. Furthermore, those components are mandatory in these largernetworks. In a 10-node network, some things are too expensive, and you must usemanual methods. However, you must meet the same goals for both installations,regardless of the compromises that each imposes.

Because every ECS is critical to the organization it serves, how do youensure proper handling of the system? The Enterprise Attitude is simply:

Can NT Do It?
As an industry, we have come to expect that desktop computing is capable ofhandling certain kinds of tasks. We no longer have serious questions about itsvalue. At this time in computing history, designing a new ECS that does notincorporate desktop computing is difficult to imagine. On the other hand, manyof us still question ECS's ability to function as the core of a mission-criticalsystem, particularly in the online transaction processing (OLTP) and largedatabase arenas. If you are implementing a system of this sort--something reallybig, mission-critical, and real-time--is using NT consistent with the EnterpriseAttitude? Yes.

When I first started in the enterprise LAN business, Novell NetWare was theonly option that we could take seriously. NetWare version 2.x had severelimitations and bugs, but Novell people worked hard and continuously improvedtheir product. Today's NetWare is an excellent product.

However, in industries such as managed health care and financial markets,where OLTP is the life's blood, NetWare isn't the core application platform.(Don't misunderstand, NetWare is used in these organizations and is doing anexcellent job in a mission-critical role--as a file-and-print-services platform.You will find some examples of OLTP and database applications running underNetWare, but not often.) Even with NetWare so widely implemented--it hasmillions of network nodes--providers of serious client/server computing systemshaven't adopted it. These industries and others like them depend on midrange andmainframe applications that have been developed specifically for them. Theapplication providers in these industries are now moving to NT instead ofNetWare.

Designed for a Purpose
NetWare is a fast network operating system (NOS) and is exceptional atproviding file-and-print services to desktop clients. From its inception,NetWare's developers moved in this direction. The original idea was reflected inNovell's implementation strategy: the redirector. The NetWare redirector wasdesigned to intercept and redirect system calls for disk access. To itsdesigners, a NetWare server was a big hard disk off in the distance. NetWare hasalways done an excellent job of offering access to file-system resources fordesktop clients.

Later, Novell decided that client/server computing was also important, andthe company set out to include this capability in NetWare. Novell tried variousways of running programs on the server. However, no matter what the companytried, the end result was, by definition, just an addition to afile-and-print-services system.

On the other hand, Microsoft's NOS offering, LAN Manager, never did well atall. Its market share was so small it was practically nonexistent. When the timecame for a client/server platform, there was no legacy system to preserve. Yes,NT is LAN Manager-compatible, but that's at the Server Message Block (SMB)protocol level, not at the binary level.

When designing NT, the people at Microsoft adopted the Enterprise Attitude.They set out to create a platform capable of excellent print-and-file services,while including a genuine and serious client/server capability. They carefullyused the knowledge of designers of previous enterprise operating systems tocreate the NT available today. This system offers the capabilities of a modernmultithreading operating system with genuine scalability.

When large-enterprise, vertical-market application developers looked at NT,they saw something that they have never seen in NetWare: an operating systemlike the midrange and mainframe operating systems they already used, not a fileserver that could be made to run programs. The proof that NT is different liesin the fact that these developers are adopting it. Vendors who traditionallyprovide tools to the "big iron" world are moving these tools to NT.Many-thousand-node systems in production use are based on Alpha servers runningNT, and others are in the implementation stage. This move is a vote of greatconfidence in NT. You don't bet your billion-dollar business on something newunless you have a great deal of faith in it.

Windows NT and the products that run under it are the future of enterprisecomputing. Now is the time to realize the vision of distributed computing, andNT is the tool to do it.

Serious Business
If you get the impression that I think enterprise computing is seriousbusiness, you're right. I also think it's a lot of fun. Exploring newtechnologies and solving technical problems can be rewarding. That's the kind ofthing that I'll be doing in this column.

If you have some enterprise advice or a solution that you find particularlyinteresting, let me know. I'd like to pass it along to other readers. Until nextmonth, keep up your Enterprise Attitude.