Microsoft has made no secret of its determination to expand into the data center, but this growth may not happen by the company's own hand.
Today, one of Microsoft's partners, Vintela Inc., Lindon, Utah, plans to release software that lets IT administrators bring the functions of Microsoft's Group Policy to Unix and Linux systems so they can be centrally managed by a Windows administrator. The software, called Vintela Group Policy (VGP), lets IT administrators apply the same policies to those servers as they would to any Windows server.
|  | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
There are some companies that are ready now. A security adviser for one major Connecticut insurer, who asked not to be named, said he is interested in using VGP to manage his Network Information System (NIS) mappings. NIS is a Unix-based distribution naming service, which lacks security and cannot be easily extended.
"We want a central location for managing this information so it's not in the hands of a local administrator," the security adviser said. "We want to map it back to our overall strategy and administration model we use for Windows."
A limited tryout is planned
The insurer has tested the software for only about three weeks. The company will start small, on just a few servers. And if it works well enough, the software could be installed across hundreds of servers in the enterprise.
 |
||||
|
|
|||
|
||||
Today, administrators need two approaches to manage Windows and Linux. Even with VAS and VGP you still have to do that, but at least the software provides one-stop administration, said Jeremy Moskowitz, a Wilmington, Del.-based author and consultant.
Moskowitz said the only option that is remotely similar can be done using Samba, the open source suite, to let Windows, Linux, Unix and other clients and servers communicate. Samba uses the TCP/IP protocol to link to Windows clients and servers as if the host were also a Windows server.
New approach to directories needed
Samba might be tricky for some and there are few tools to help make the job easier. There is one developed by Nitrobit, an Offenbach, Germany-based software company. That product uses Group Policy to let Windows clients talk to Linux servers.
For a product like VGP to be successful, customers will have to start thinking about creating global directories as opposed to platform directories, Meta's Ferengul said. Active Directory might no longer be used just for the Windows platform, for example. And other directories could be expanded outside of their stovepipes, Ferengul said.
The approach won't be cheap. VAS 2.6, which is available today, is licensed per server and per Unix-enabled accounts in Active Directory. It costs $200 per server and starts at $25 per user account in a 10-user pack. VGP 1.0 pricing starts at $50 per server and $5 per user.
Join the conversationComment
Share
Comments
Results
Contribute to the conversation