An alternative to BackOffice
If you use Windows NT Server 4.0 in your enterprise, you need applications to build your information infrastructure. You need a database server, an email server, and a remote control and management package. If you do not want to use Microsoft's BackOffice, your choices are limited. You can try to incorporate components from various vendors and hope they interact. Or you can check out IBM Suite for Windows NT.
IBM Suite is a collection of packages that adds more NT functionality than BackOffice offers. IBM Suite's middleware components help you get the maximum leverage from your system.
Features
IBM Suite is available in two configurations: department and enterprise. I tested the enterprise version.
IBM Suite for Windows NT. IBM designed IBM Suite for small business environments. It consists of five primary modules (Intel's LANDesk Manager, Lotus Domino, IBM's DB2 Universal Database—UDB, IBM's eNetwork Communications Server, and IBM's ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager—ADSM).
LANDesk Management Suite 6.1 is an integrated application you use to manage your network workstations and servers. This application duplicates the functionality of Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS). You can remotely control the PCs on your network to streamline the diagnosis and solu-tion of problems. LANDesk lets you remotely inventory hardware and software, monitor server status, meter software, and distribute packages.
Lotus Domino, powered by Lotus Notes, provides messaging support. This component offers a comprehensive client/server message-center system with MIME binary attachment capabilities and useful calendar and scheduling features. You can integrate the messaging system with other mail systems (e.g., the Internet via Simple Mail Transfer Protocol—SMTP—or various mail-transport agents).
DB2 UDB 5.0 is a Web-ready, multimedia database engine you use to store and manage your corporate data. The database is fully multimedia enabled, letting you store items such as text, image, audio, and video data, with binary large object (BLOB) sizes as large as 2GB. A full set of administrator utilities makes database management easy. A comprehensive journaling system protects your data against system outages.
eNetwork Communications Server helps users bridge communications between dissimilar networks. For example, users can access SNA applications on your company's mainframe computer system via an SNA gateway feature. eNetwork includes features such as 3270 and 5250 terminal emulation and support for X.25 gateways on WANs.
ADSM is a mission-critical backup and restore utility that protects your company's business information. The package lets you use your latest backup tapes to recover the system. ADSM is fully network aware, so you can back up data over your network. The server automatically moves your backup data to the most cost-effective device available (e.g., tape, disk, optical storage).
IBM Enterprise Suite for Windows NT. IBM Enterprise Suite builds on IBM Suite's five modules, with four additional modules (IBM TXSeries, IBM MQ Series, IBM's DB2 Connect, and IBM Net.Data). These modules provide functionality in large enterprise environments.
IBM TXSeries replaces IBM's Transaction Server. TXSeries includes the latest versions of IBM's CICS and Encina TP monitors, which are middleware products that facilitate transactional connections across diverse networks. The product also includes IBM's CICS Internet Gateway, Lotus Domino Go Webserver, the CICS link for Lotus Notes, and the CICS Gateway for Java. These components let products communicate with one another, and they let you deploy applications on your corporate intranet or Internet Web site.
IBM MQSeries is a message-oriented middleware component that lets your business applications exchange messages with 25 operating system (OS) platforms. Queue managers accept messages that your programs generate via various APIs that MQSeries supplies. An application program on one platform places a message in a queue that the MQSeries queue manager manages, and an application on another platform retrieves the message. This process lets your applications interact without directly communicating.
DB2 Connect is an add-on to DB2 UDB. This component lets you access your distributed mainframe-based databases over your network. For example, if you have a DB2 database running on your IBM ES/9000 mainframe system, DB2 Connect lets you connect and retrieve data from the database. You manage connections through APPN, SNA, and TCP/IP (for OS/390 systems).
IBM Net.Data helps you build dynamic Web pages using data from various enterprise sources. This application lets you use Web macros (written in a language that combines HTML and SQL) to build dynamic HTML documents. You retrieve data from various sources, such as relational databases and flat files. These data sources (e.g., DB2, Oracle, Sybase) can reside on any platform.