David L. Andrews
Windows 95 has many enhancements that should improve its network manageability compared to previous versions of Windows. However, network managers moving to Win 95 will have to wait for a few important components. Other features will require an
upgrade to NT
.
Win 95's improved networking capabilities include built-in support for network protocols TCP/IP, NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, and PPP; easier configuration when used with Plug and Play-compliant hardware; and protected-mode, 32-bit clients for NetWare and Microsoft networks. But work progresses in other areas.
One area of Win 95 that should improve soon is its support for non-Microsoft networks and NetWare 4.x. Although Win 95 supports NetWare 3.x (and NetWare 4.x through bindery emulation), neither Microsoft nor Nov
ell currently have Win 95 clients that support NetWare Directory Services (NDS). Microsoft and Novell are both addressing this by developing separate NetWare clients that support NDS. Network OS vendors Banyan Systems and Digital Equipment also say they will release 32-bit clients for Vines and PathWorks this fall.
Other developers are addressing programming interfaces for desktop management. Although Microsoft is a member of the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF), the company is reportedly developing its own interfaces for collecting and reporting information about PCs on a network. The DMTF, which also includes Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Novell, Digital Equipment, and IBM, has defined standards for several groups of components, including software, PC, and network interface cards. Specifications for other types of hardware are still in progress.
Sources report that Microsoft is encouraging network management vendors to write to OLE interfaces that will pull information about PCs from the Win 95 re
gistry.
Although this effort could compete directly with the DMI, it appears that Microsoft will support other management techniques through a foreign name space that will map the DMTF's Management Interface calls as well as those made by SNMP-based programs into OLE calls.
Programs such as Site Inventory 4.0 from McAfee Associates (Santa Clara, CA) or CA-Paradigm Problem Manager from Computer Associates (Islandia, NY) currently have to resort to a combination of querying the Win 95 registry and low-level "sleuthing" to discover what software and hardware components are on any given PC. These vendors say it would be easier if they could query PCs in a standard way. But there are many standards, including the DMTF's, Microsoft's, and another one from Compaq.
"Microsoft's not supporting DMI is not a big thing, because we've had to build the discovery service [of CA-Paradigm Problem Manager] outside of the DMI anyway," says Yogesh Gupta, CA senior vice president of product strategy. "But as DMI
becomes a viable standard, we'll support it." For other companies, the lack of DMI support in Windows 95
is
a big deal.
The DMI specification calls for a service layer to be present on a PC. This service layer, which DMI proponents feel should be integrated into all OSes, is a small program that resides locally on a PC and collects information about products, manages the information in the local PC's Management Information Format (MIF) database, and passes it to management applications when requested. DMI advocates had hoped Microsoft would include a DMI service layer in Windows 95, but that didn't happen. "That leaves us with a short-term problem -- how to deliver those management capabilities," says Ed Arrington, chairman of the DMTF.
One solution is for PC vendors to add the service layer themselves, as Digital Equipment (Maynard, MA) did with its new line of Celebris GL PCs for Win 95. But not all PC vendors are supporting DMI.
Other more robust management features available no
w in NT, such as support for event logging, are not planned for Win 95, say Microsoft officials. The event log provides a way for device drivers, applications, and the OS to record useful data for administrators.
Jamie Lewis, president of the Burton Group (Salt Lake City, UT), a network consulting firm, says it would have been helpful if Microsoft had put event logging into Win 95. But, he says, "Windows 95 is an interim step toward Windows NT. NT was built to be that kind of robust environment." Lewis says event logging is just one example of how, in the long term, Microsoft will target consumers with Win 95 and businesses with NT.
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Microsoft has begun testing a very early version of the Windows NT Advanced Workstation Shell Update Release (SUR) that adds the Win 95 interface to NT.
Microsoft says it was going to wait until the next major upgrade of NT -- code-named Cairo -- to add the Win 95 interface but decided to accelerate that effort when customers said they wanted a consistent user interface between NT and Win 95.
The company is not saying exactly when it will release the SUR. Support for Plug and Play is currently slated for the Cairo release of NT.
Still a Work in Progress
