At the TechEd conference this week in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft will
unveil a simplified network architecture that will appear in Windows NT 5.0
next year. Before NT 5.0 is released, however, Microsoft will improve
networking in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95 with a series of add-ons. These
add-ons include the following:
- "Steelhead" - a software-based routing technology.
- Active Telephony - an ActiveX-based object model for telephony.
- Microsoft Management Console network management "snap-ins."
- Native ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) support. An early version of
this support is now available in the NDIS (Network Driver Interface
Specification) 5.0 Device Driver Kit (DDK).
- A networking upgrade pack for Windows 95 - this add-on for Windows 95
will include new network drivers and the ability to remotely access
private networks over the Internet. It also features Winsock 2.0 and
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) and fixes to the TCP/IP stack.
- Communications Server - an add-on package for Windows NT 4.0, due this
year, that includes Internet Proxy Server 1.0, a RADIUS (Remote
Authentication Dial-In User Service) client, Telephony API 2.1, and
token-card support.
The next version of TCP-IP, version 6, is not expected to be available for
the launch of Memphis (the next version of Windows 95) or Windows NT 5.0.
The next version of PPTP, known as L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), will
not be available in Memphis, but will be included in Windows NT 5.0. Expect
more news this week as Microsoft announces and demonstrates these
technologies for the first time