Thin server appliances drive OS shakeup
1999-10-28
Bringing ease of installation and administration, thin servers look set to steal a sizeable proportion of the server market. Market analysts are predicting that between 3 and 8 billion dollars will be spent on such devices by 2003. For speed, usability and cost reasons, thin server manufacturers are keen to keep operating systems as scaled down as possible, prompting an inevitable shakeup in the OS market.
What is a thin server? Also referred to as a server appliance, a thin server is a server which does a limited number of jobs and does them (at least, this is the intention) extremely well. Examples are:
• Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices for file management, manufacturers including Network Appliance and Hewlett Packard.
• Email servers, from Compaq and Mirapoint,
• Web Proxy servers, from Novell (using Compaq hardware),
• Database servers, from Oracle.
The thin server model is attractive to the IT Manager, for two reasons. The first is that it enables additional resource or specific functionality to be added to a network simply and effectively. The second is that it moves away from the multi-purpose server model, where servers often have conflicting demands and incompatibilities posed by the different packages they run. The target market for thin servers is seen as the small business with less than a hundred people, but this need not be the case: Yahoo email, for example, boasts the logo “powered by Network Appliance.”
As for the operating system, there is no consensus on an ideal platform for a thin server. Neither should there be – the thin server operator is more interested in the functionality than the platform, which is largely hidden. Network Appliance devices use a proprietary kernel, flavours of Unix are visible in both Mirapoint and HP’s offerings, Compaq’s email servers run Microsoft Exchange on NT and Novell’s proxy, unsurprisingly, runs NetWare. Mentioning no names, this is nonetheless a blow to any software vendor whose marketing depends on promoting the relative advantages of its own operating system. In fact, the main issue for the OS vendors appears to be who can secure the best deals with the hardware companies. Not coincidentally, this trend bears a striking similarity to the Symbian/Palm/WinCE wheeling and dealing in the handheld and mobile device arena.
We have seen very little from Microsoft and Intel, since their thin server alliance announcement in April. Intel were hugely successful with their “Intel Inside” campaign, but this was as much down to their incumbent position in the PC market as anything. Just as with set top boxes, games consoles, mobile phones and PDAs, in the device-driven, thin server market it is unlikely that “WinTel Inside” will have the same cachet.
(First published 28 October 1999)