The next version of BackOffice will add Site Server and Transaction Server. The former is designed to help resellers and others launch Web content and manage intranets with tools to analyze usage patterns. Transaction Server will support electronic transactio
ns, scalability services, and connection management.
Windows NT Integration
Thanks to NT 5.0's Active Directory technology, BackOffice administrators will be able to centrally add users to the NT directory and to individual applications in the BackOffice family. Thus, end users will log on once to access all BackOffice applications running in their company, rather than logging on to each individually, as is now the case.
Clustering will move beyond basic failover (i.e., when a SQL server goes down, a companion server automatically takes over) to include rollover capabilities, easily adding additional servers to boost performance when the current system is overworked.
Integration Among BackOffice Applications
According to Murari Narayan, a BackOffice product manager, next year's BackOffice will streamline internal plumbing that lets applications communicate. The result: Less code may be necessary to couple SQL and Exchange to get the messaging system to automatically send an
electronic order form to a parts supplier once a SQL alert warns that an item in inventory dropped below a preset threshold.
Also promised: OLEDB and Active Data Objects will make it easier for reseller-written applications to access multiple types of data, such as structured SQL information, unstructured messages in Exchange or Notes, and documents that are stored on file servers.
Mix and Match
Full BackOffice suite.............................$2418
SQL Server 6.5 (five users).......................$1346
Exchange Server 5.0 Enterprise Edition.............$826
Systems Management Server (five users)............$1073
SNA Server (five users)...........................$1298
Proxy Server.......................................$966
New Stuff in Next BackOffice
