Microsoft is dedicated to easing the challenges of supporting enterprises with mixed technologies.
A Commitment to Interoperability
Microsoft is dedicated to easing the challenges of supporting enterprises with mixed technologies.
- By Aubrey Edwards
- May 01, 1999
You know how valuable Microsoft products and technologies
can be to your users. And Microsoft knows that the enterprises
you support may also include non-Microsoft technologies
such as Unix or IBM.
Supporting interoperability in those mixed environments
can be both a challenge and an opportunity. Microsoft
is committed to easing that challenge and boosting that
opportunity.The company’s promise that Windows will
interoperate with existing platforms and technologies
can have many benefits for you. Your users can reduce
the cost and complexity of building and supporting heterogeneous
environments. They can also enable best-of-breed deployments
on Windows NT and the continuing use of existing platforms.
And, users can leverage existing investments, for example,
using Windows to extend mainframe data to the Web.
Microsoft’s interoperability strategy is based on
a four-layer framework that covers network, data, applications,
and management integration. Microsoft’s approach
includes supporting key standards that can provide interoperability
to other platforms, such as IP for communications and
LDAP for client/server directory service (including Windows
2000 Active Directory support for LDAP). Microsoft encourages
third parties to increase interoperability between our
solutions and theirs. For example, we’ve worked with
Unisys to adapt COM TI technology to work with Microsoft
Transaction Server (MTS) and the Unisys mainframe environment.
Clearly, our bridge-building work to other popular platforms—Unix,
IBM, and NetWare—is at the heart of our strategy.
For example, Windows NT Workstation and Server 4.0 enable
broad interoperability with Unix-based systems—across
the network, data, applications, and management layers.
We provide full support for TCP/IP and support for DNS
that you’ll find even more comprehensive in Windows
2000. Our Services for Unix software provides access to
Unix file systems through NFS technology, supports Telnet
clients and servers, and provides one-way password synchronization
to keep passwords synchronized between systems.
Of course, there’s more to Unix interoperability
than Telnet and NFS, such as enabling tighter integration
with third-party applications. For example, we provide
an OLEDB driver for Oracle databases on Unix, and we worked
with Unisys on Microsoft Transaction Server’s support
for the Tuxedo TP environment on Unix. We also support
comprehensive services for interoperability with IBM-host
environments, especially through Microsoft SNA Server,
which provide data and application integration as well
as terminal and print support. For example, you can build
data warehousing applications that use Microsoft SQL Server
to connect to IBM host databases such as DB2 or IMS. The
latest release, SNA Server 4.0 Service Pack 2, enables
access to the mainframe using TCP/IP rather than traditional
SNA protocols. And we provide transaction support between
Microsoft Transaction Server and IBM CICS or IMS environments
through the COM TI technology.
Finally, we’ve built NetWare interoperability into
the Windows platform over the past few years. Moving forward,
we’ll add directory interoperability between Active
Directory and NDS, including the ability to synchronize
the two directories.
For more details on Microsoft interoperability, please
visit the Microsoft Web site at www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/features/interop.asp.
There, you’ll also find links to online, self-paced,
and instructor-led training that can help you take advantage
of these new opportunities in interoperability.
About the Author
Aubrey Edwards is the infrastructure manager for Microsoft’s Platform Integration Group.