Reliability Summary - Comparing Sun Solaris 8 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Technologies

Reliability Summary
For the data center, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server provides comprehensive assurance of complete system reliability. By ensuring that the system delivered to the customer has passed the testing and qualification levels required by Microsoft before the initial installation, Microsoft and its partners can easily guarantee the 99.9% and higher uptime levels. An approved Microsoft Datacenter Server system also covers third party hardware and software, not just the core components.
Solaris on the other hand is certified and guaranteed only to a limited set of Sun hardware, and there is no provision for third-party hardware or software. In addition, the support options offered by Sun are also limited only to Sun hardware and the Solaris OS, making the resolution of problems the responsibility of the customer in combination with the hardware vendor and Sun.
Solaris 8 provides some good reliability features, but the support is limited to a very small range of system configurations supplied by Sun, and support is particularly limited on Intel hardware. Using additional software, Solaris also supports RAID via software and some hardware-based solutions. There is limited support for hot-swap devices on UltraSPARC hardware, and no solution for Intel hardware. There is also no built-in UPS integration on any Solaris platform.
Windows 2000 provides the best all-round support for the reliability features built into the majority of modern hardware platforms. Clustering is supported using the inexpensive SCSI interface, and support for RAID is built into the operating system on a hardware and software level using the same tools required when managing all disk storage.
When a failure does occur, Solaris, via additional software, provides automatic reboot facilities when an individual component fails. This is only supported on the high-end data center UltraSPARC servers; support is not offered for Intel-based systems. Solaris offers little in the event of complete system failure, with no standard reliable Backup/Restore service, and only limited system recovery features.
Windows 2000 includes NTFS, a highly resilient file system that can recover and repair itself automatically—even after a complete power failure. With built-in backup software and advanced system recovery tools, including the ability to save configurations and repair the operating system from floppy disk or CD-ROM, Windows 2000 is the most resilient of the two operating systems to software or file system failures.
Manageability
The modern network is no longer controlled from a central location. Entire networks are not supported from a single server or managed from a single console; furthermore, they are often not even supported by multiple servers in the same location. The distributed network with multiple servers spread over different floors, buildings, and even continents is now considered to be normal practice. To manage these disparate services, you need a simple way of controlling and monitoring your network without needing to visit each machine individually.
Managing server resources is one problem; the other is managing the resources provided to the desktops of your users. You need to be able to control user’s access to applications and to shared resources and ensure that they cannot upset the configuration of their desktop machines, which increases support times and therefore increases TCO.
Management Interface
Windows 2000 uses the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), an application originally included in the Windows NT Option Pack. MMC provides a simple unified interface for configuring all aspects of the operating system. Using a combination of wizards and property dialogs, it is possible for any experienced Windows user to control all aspects of the Windows 2000 operating system.
The MMC uses the same interface for controlling all aspects of the operating system. Each subsystem and service is available through a series of extensions, called snap-ins, that provide the template for controlling the service. Individual sets of extensions can be configured within the MMC, allowing an administrator to set up different management extension collections. For example, it’s possible to create an extension set purely for controlling security and another for managing network-based services such as printers and shared folders.
The MMC is completely network capable. Individual snap-ins can provide the facility to manage the services of a remote machine over a network. This means that you can use the same MMC interface and application from a single desktop machine to control the services and facilities of remote machines. The MMC is optimized to use the minimum of network bandwidth. That makes it perfectly suited to managing services over Wide Area Networks and remote access services.
For ease in remote configuration, Windows 2000 also supports a Web-based interface to certain parts of the operating system to allow better control of remote systems. For example, the printer queues on a Windows 2000-based server can be monitored from a Web browser, and individual jobs can be paused or re-assigned.
In addition to the support offered natively by Windows 2000 for operating system configuration, the MMC also allows third parties to provide snap-ins that control the applications and systems they support. For example, it’s possible to control Microsoft Exchange server using the MMC either locally or remotely. This further simplifies the management process because the system administrator only needs to be familiar with one management system.
The base Solaris 8 package does not come with a unified interface for managing different aspects of the operating system. Instead, most systems management tasks are handled by manually modifying the various text files controlling different elements, using a text editor such as vi or EMACS. There is an administration tool supported by the X Windows GUI that allows for easier modification of certain databases, but it is limited to modifying the user, group, host, and printer configuration.
For more extensive management tools, the Solaris 8 Easy Access Server includes a Web-based management tool that allows browser-based management of most of the facilities of the system, including user and groups, DNS configuration and even some aspects of the security of the individual machine. However, the interface is very non-intuitive and slow to use. In addition, because the management interface sits on top of the operating system, it is possible to make modifications to the system configuration files without the changes being reflected in the information available from the browser.
Both Solaris 8 and Windows 2000 support Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), a system designed by the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) to make the management and monitoring of individual machines accessible over the network. Integrating the access rights and group policies into Active Directory further enhances support on Windows.
A summary of the management features for each system is given in Table 8 below.
Table 8: Management Interface Features
|
Feature
|
Solaris 8
|
Windows 2000
|
Command-Line Based Management
|
Y
|
Y (partial)
|
GUI-Based User/Group Tool
|
Y
|
Y
|
GUI-Based Network Tool
|
Y
|
Y
|
GUI-Based Printer Tool
|
Y
|
Y
|
GUI-Based File Sharing Tool
|
N
|
Y
|
GUI-Based Service Tool
|
N
|
Y
|
Extensible Management Tool
|
N
|
Y
|
Remote GUI Management Tools
|
Y (partial)
|
Y
|
Unified Management Tool
|
N
|
Y
|
Web Based Management Interface
|
Y (with EAS)
|
Y
|
WBEM/DMTF Compliant
|
Y
|
Y
|
|