As part of its expected pact with Compaq Computer Corp we anticipated yesterday, Microsoft Corp has committed to implementing some of Tandem’s high-availability and clustering software technology in future versions of Windows NT to fulfill the very largest enterprise OLTP requirements. Money, people and intellectual property will be exchanged, though Microsoft declined to say how much it will be paying. The work, including scaling and partitioning services, won’t be available until post NT 5, which will probably give Unix vendors more rope to try and hang NT with. Not that it’s unexpected. Tandem’s been working since before it was bought by Compaq to re-host its technologies – the ServerNet interconnect and NonStop database, middleware and services – on NT. Microsoft suggested its focus will be the financial industry, currently the domain of Unix. The NT server market’s supposed to be worth some $9bn this year according to IDC. While the Unix market is at least three times as large as NT, NT is growing at some 30% a year versus 12% for Unix. The rest of the announcement focused on interoperability between Compaq’s Digital Unix and NT. Microsoft effectively chose the operating system as its preferred flavor of Unix – it’s closest to where Redmond is going, Compaq wants us to believe – a move clearly designed to help the Texan retain its DEC customer base. Some of what was announced is already fact, and what’s actually new had to be teased out of the company in a round of subsequent calls. Come on Compaq, if you’re so committed to Digital Unix why does the interesting stuff get buried? Demonstrating just how important Unix really is to Compaq’s strategy perhaps, its VP marketing for enterprise servers (we won’t name him to save his blushes) claimed not to know what the Bravo Unix project is and referred us to DEC’s long-time Unix chaperone Tim Yeaton. He said there’ll be a new release of Digital Unix this year incorporating COM and some interoperability services bundled instead of marketed as layered products in the AllConnect program. Concurrent with NT 5, Microsoft’s Active Directory, Kerberos security model and other management services will be integrated with the operating system, enabling Digital Unix servers to manage NT networks and NT consoles to manage mixed NT/Digital Unix networks. The OEM partners in the Bravo Unix project to develop a new version of Digital Unix for use on Intel IA-64 and Alpha will also get their hands on the work. AT&T Co’s Advanced Server for Unix, which DEC already sells, provides NT 4.x network services, file and print services and its domains-based security model on Unix. It’s the same ASU that Sun Microsystems Inc yesterday announced as its Project Cascade. Even Bravo Unix users will still need ASU for NT file and print services, Yeaton says.
