Looking Beyond IIS 3.0
Microsoft released a public beta of Internet Information Server
(IIS) 3.0 in November. If you haven't rushed to the Internet to download IIS
3.0, point your Web browser to http://www.microsoft. com/iis. According to
Microsoft, more than 20,000 developers, including corporate developers, solution
providers, Internet content providers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and
strategic partners beta-tested IIS 3.0.
IIS 3.0 is designed to simplify building both server-based Web applications
that feature rich and dynamic content, and custom turnkey solutions that work
with any Web browser. IIS 3.0 includes support for multimedia streaming,
enhanced dynamic indexing, and improved site management for corporate intranet
and Internet sites. The new version is compatible with a variety of third-party
tools, including the Microsoft Visual Basic programming system, Borland
IntraBuilder and Delphi, Powersoft PowerBuilder, and Micro Focus Visual Object
COBOL.
What's New in IIS 3.0:
Active Server Pages is an important new
feature of IIS. Previously known by the code name Denali, Active Server Pages
lets you combine HTML, scripts, and components to quickly build powerful
Web-based applications. Active Server Pages includes support for Visual Basic
Scripting Edition and JScript and is compatible with any active scripting engine
including Perl, Rexx, and Python, and other CGI-based languages. Additional
built-in functionality includes easy Web access to enterprise-quality databases
such as Microsoft SQL Server. Wizards, browser capability detection, content
navigation, and application state management components are also included.
Microsoft NetShow provides an open software platform for delivering live
and on-demand multimedia content over the Internet and corporate intranets. You
get live multicasting of audio and data and on-demand streaming of stored audio,
video, and "illustrated audio" (audio synchronized with images, URLs,
and scripts). Highly efficient streaming media engines scale to thousands of
users. In addition, NetShow supports the ActiveMovie Streaming Format, which
allows advanced multimedia authoring and synchronization.
Microsoft Index Server 1.1 is a built-in search engine that provides
full-text or property-based searches, hit highlighting, and retrieval of all
types of information in any format, including HTML and Office or text documents.
The index is dynamically updated when documents change, and security is tightly
integrated with NT.
The FrontPage 97 Web authoring and management tool server extensions offer
one-button publishing and graphical site management tools to keep information
organized. These extensions are fully integrated with FrontPage 97 for the
desktop.
Java virtual machine (VM) is included in IIS 3.0. It lets you run
Java-based components on the server.
On to K2
Before Microsoft could put its gold seal on IIS 3.0,
the company was already working on its next-generation Web server, code-named
K2. Release of this version is expected by the middle of 1997.
K2 will expand on IIS 3.0 in several ways. K2's management console will
expose settings traditionally buried in the Registry, so you will be able to
program the server at higher levels. The K2 console provides access to features
such as the pooling of Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connections and their
timeouts, the caching of Internet Server API (ISAPI) applications, and filter
mapping. The administration console will also let the administrator view the
virtual name space with a Web browser.
K2 technology will link Internet standards more tightly to NT. For example,
K2 will let Internet-based X.500 certificates access NT directories, opening
them up to intranet or Internet users.
K2 will integrate Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) into NT 5.0
Server. As a result, you will be able to create virtual private networks over
TCP/IP networks.
As these functions move IIS toward the role of an application server,
tighter integration with NT's transaction processing will be a priority. The
Transaction Server will be native to NT 5.0. IIS will sit one ring outward from
that layer.
IIS 2.0 continues to ship as part of NT Server 4.0. IIS 1.0 for Windows NT
Server 3.51 is also available at http://www.microsoft.com/iis.
—Valda Hilley
Transactivating NT
When Roel Pieper, president and CEO of Tandem Computer, announced
his company's Internet Transaction Processing (ITP) initiative amid all the
lights and sounds that a Broadway business show could muster, he made the
following remark: "NT? Stands for 'Needs Tandem.'" He was referring to
the partnership between Tandem and Microsoft. And these announcements, made at
the beginning of November, are in many ways the end of the first act in an "I'll
scratch your back, if you scratch mine" arrangement that began in May 1996.
Tandem wants a gateway into the high-volume market for its transaction
processing servers, famous in high-end financial IT infrastructures for
scaleability, availability, and "as near as you get to 100 percent"
fault tolerance. Once and for all, Microsoft wants to shed the persistent rumors
of Windows NT Server's questionable scaleability and availability that keep
echoing around the ears of financial service IT managers. The combined profile
of the two companies seems ideal to create a perfect solution to the problems of
a burgeoning world of massive-volume transaction processing.
NT in the Financial Services Community
NT Server has had a shaky
start in trying to penetrate the IT departments of financial service
organizations. Two main factors are at play in the ambiguous response to its
presence in the server market. The first is the position of ensconced, legacy
mainframes, which over many years have successfully supported mission-critical
applications and databases. Getting into these trusted and proven back office
environments is hard for NT. And the second factor is the availability and
scaleability crisis. Adding to this burden for NT is the high speed with which
Microsoft brings products to market. Such speed rings a bell of caution in the
conservative minds of IT banking professionals. No one in this sector wants to
risk being first, so the word has been, "Don't be a Microsoft guinea pig."
However, over and against this cautionary note sounds the mighty voice of
the Microsoft marketing machine, which has undoubtedly beaten the efforts of
IBM, its main rival. The result is conflicting conversations in the corridors of
IT departments. On one hand, the IT director wants to stick with OS/2 because it
is known and robust. On the other hand, business managers are nervous that OS/2
will fall to NT, so that two or three years down the line, they will no longer
find applications or support for the legacy system. The push here is for
Microsoft.
The one area of financial service IT in which NT can already claim success
is the branch network. This much will please Microsoft developers because NT
Server is explicitly designed as a network operating system for file sharing,
applications support, communications, and increasingly, Internet and intranet
sites.
Precise statistics to support these suggestions are difficult to find.
Various surveys have considered the penetration of NT Server across horizontal
markets. For example, International Data Corporation's recent Server
Operating Environment Forecast Update reported that, with 1.5 million units,
NT will surpass NetWare as the market leader for server shipments by the year
2000. At that point, estimates suggest NetWare will have 1.4 million units in
the market, UNIX will have 928,000, and OS/2 will come in a poor fourth with
498,000.
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