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Integrating Windows NT and UNIX

During FY1999, the Distributed Systems Group (DSG) and Office Systems Group (OSG) of the High Performance Systems section of SCD have been actively investigating, testing, and implementing solutions targeted at the integration of Windows NT into a traditional SCD UNIX environment. At SCD's 1998 spring retreat, a list of five items that particularly concern SCD users was formulated: A list of recommendations was drafted by DSG/OSG and approved by the SCD Desktop Advisory Committee (SDAC). The overall objective is a seamless integration of Windows NT/UNIX where users can go back and forth between different operating systems; and process textual and graphical data in different formats without work disruption.

Some of the solutions, such as backups, had a straightforward solution. Other problems, like running PC applications on a UNIX system are still being studied for the optimal solution (see Dual-boot and Single-boot below). During FY1999, a new Sun file server was acquired that has a number of high-availability features to ensure extended uptime. Some of the features acquired with the new server include dynamic reconfiguration that allows failed system cards to fail over to hot-standby cards, dynamic routing of networks in case of a network failure, and redundant hardware components to minimize downtime.

The file server is running SAMBA, software that allows the sharing of files between Windows and UNIX systems via Microsoft Networking. The advantage of this approach is that no additional software needs to be installed on Windows systems. OSG and DSG have also settled on Hummingbird's Maestro, which allows Windows NT users to NFS-mount UNIX filesystems. An advantage of this approach is that Windows users can see and modify UNIX file permissions, as appropriate. Over the next year, the Sun product Cascade will be evaluated; it will allow file service to Windows-based clients in the native Windows format (e.g., mapping to pseudo devices, extended permissions).

During FY1999, OSG and DSG have configured single-hardware-based platforms, either Sun hardware or Intel-based hardware, for users. These have been configured in either dual-boot configurations for users wanting to run UNIX and Window applications on native hardware or in single-boot configurations. In both of these configurations, the problems of interoperability between UNIX and Windows are being addressed.

Dual-boot configuration

During FY1999, DSG and OSG evaluated methods of running both Windows NT and UNIX operating systems on a single hardware platform. The potential benefits of this include major reductions in hardware costs and system administration overhead. There are two approaches to having UNIX and Windows NT on the same hardware platform. The first approach is having the system boot up either UNIX or Windows NT during the startup sequence. Once the system is running either operating system, the operating system cannot be changed until it is brought down and rebooted. A number of Intel-based workstations were configured with the capability to boot and run either Redhat Linux or Windows NT for SCD users, thus accommodating most general user requirements.

Single-boot configurations

While the dual-boot approach does allow the user to run UNIX and Windows NT natively on a single desktop, a number of SCD users prefer to run Sun hardware and the Solaris operating system or run Windows NT on an Intel-based system exclusively. This is more problematic since it requires adding the capability to share file and information across UNIX and Windows NT platforms. During FY1999, a number of products were introduced to the SCD user community to accomplish this objective.

Interix (previously known as OpenNT) is a product designed to allow users to run a UNIX environment on a Windows NT system. This includes such things as UNIX shells (C shell, Bourne shell), UNIX scripting languages (PERL, awk, etc.), and other features. Interix is already deployed on a number of NT systems in SCD. Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, allows client systems running the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to control Windows applications running on Terminal Server and see the results. RDP is analogous to the X-Window protocol on UNIX systems. RDP is proprietary to Microsoft and is only implemented for clients running various flavors of Windows.

Citrix has a product, Metaframe, that replaces the protocol in Terminal Server with their proprietary ICA protocol. Citrix has ICA clients for Windows, Macintosh, and several flavors of UNIX, including Solaris and Linux. The licensing issues associated with Terminal Server/Metaframe are complicated: licenses must be purchased for each user for access to Terminal Server, for each Windows application, for NT Workstation (!) and for Metaframe. Windows 2000 Server will include the features of Terminal Server.

Running PC applications on a UNIX desktop is needed for interoperability between the PC application and the UNIX operating system. Three different solutions were made available to users to integrate PC applications into the UNIX desktop. The first is Sun's StarOffice product, which is similar to Microsoft Office software in functionality. StarOffice allows users to edit and generate PC documents directly on their UNIX workstation and save documents in PC formats such as Microsoft Word. Applix was also made available to users that has the same functionality as StarOffice but is available on Linux systems in addition to Sun systems. Applix is a mature product (e.g., a number of available fonts) and was well received by the users. The third solution was the installation of an Intel processor on Sun workstations that have PCI-based systems. This card allows users to create a native Windows NT window and run PC applications -- such as Microsoft Word -- natively on the system.

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