By William Fellows
Sun Microsystems Inc does not expect it will need access to native Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) source code in order to be able to support Microsoft Corp’s Active Directory in Cascade, its NT replacement services. Sun believes the world is changing in such a way that it won’t be long before de facto industry standards groups such as IETF and DMTF drive the creation of interoperable directory-enabled network schemas. It is confident that Microsoft and other directory vendors including Novell Inc will need to re-focus what it describes as application-specific directory services as open or at least interoperable services. The proprietary model won’t work, Sun says.
Sun’s Cascade, productized as PC NetLink, is a version of AT&T Co’s Advanced Server for Unix, which effectively implements Windows NT 4’s authentication, directory, and file and print services on Solaris. The idea behind it is to turn NT users into Sparc customers by enabling users customers to support and manage their PC networks using a fewer number of Solaris servers than the number of NT servers they would otherwise require. Because AT&T (and therefore Sun) did not gain access to NT 5 source code, it had looked likely that Sun was going to have a problem implementing Active Directory support in Cascade. It claims that there is no problem, and claims Microsoft has already revealed some of the code needed to tie into Active Directory. If Microsoft had simply extended the NT 4.x directory model in Windows 2000 then it would have had a problem, admits Sun. It’s getting all of the Microsoft service update packs for NT 4.x via AT&T
What it will need, it concedes, is a mechanism for storing and forwarding COM objects but at the end of the day its long-term directory strategy is based upon its NIS services and the Netscape directory technologies. Cascade is a tactical solution for Sun to drive server business, the company admits. It acknowledges the product has some shortcomings – Cascade stores NT data on Solaris as a separate data in a separate file system; NT and Solaris processes can’t be shared and while Cascade can be administered through a Window GUI, it must itself be configured from a Solaris management system – but at the end of the day wanted to offer service based upon a native Microsoft environment, not the clone provided by Syntax In TotalNet. Sun says it will continue to sell the Syntax work as it provides some capabilities Cascade doesn’t. Sun claims to have 300 Cascade beta sites
