Special Focus: Microsoft rounds up NT 5.0 allies

Microsoft Corp. isn't going it alone with Windows NT 5.0.

While it might seem the company has few friends these days, given all the fuss over its business practices, the next major release of NT Server will include more than a half-dozen components built by Microsoft partners.

Both long-standing allies and newfound cohorts are contributing code that will handle chores such as online backup and disaster recovery, volume and storage management, disk defragmentation and directory migration.

"[To save time and money], it just makes more sense to augment the NT infrastructure with software from other vendors who are experts in their fields," says Jonathan Perera, lead product manager for Windows NT.

Industry analysts say forging relationships with other vendors to enhance NT is a savvy business move on Microsoft's part.

"Microsoft is mature enough to recognize when someone else has already invented a perfectly good wheel," says Randall C. Kennedy, a senior analyst at Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif.

In fact, Microsoft is no stranger to shipping foreign code inside the NT box. For example, the company has shipped backup utilities from Seagate Software, Inc. with NT since Version 3.51 hit the streets five years ago.

But NT 5.0 Ÿ expected to ship late this year or early next year will have more non-Microsoft code than ever before.

Storage story

One wheel Microsoft won't rebuild for NT 5.0 is software that lets network administrators manage the reams of data generated by new NT applications. The bundled storage, data and media management wares will be written by HighGround Systems, Inc., Eastman Software, Inc. and Veritas Corp.

Highground, a Boxborough, Mass.-based start-up, built the Microsoft Removable Storage Manager (MRSM) for NT 5.0. The server software oversees how applications store data on removable storage devices, such as tape drives and optical libraries, and then retrieve that data.

Highground also is building separate products that tap into the base MRSM technology shipping with NT 5.0. These products will make it easier to manage multiple storage devices across an NT network.

Seagate, based in Heathrow, Fla., is supplying the manual online backup utility for NT 5.0, as the company did for earlier versions of NT. In addition, Seagate built NT 5.0's single-server disaster recovery software.

Building on these base services, Seagate will write more advanced tools for automating the backup process and providing networkwide disaster recovery services. They will be sold separately from NT 5.0.

Microsoft chose Eastman Software, of Billerica, Mass., to build NT 5.0's hierarchical storage management (HSM) tools, which allow companies to migrate legacy data off NT servers onto tape and optical drives.

Eastman will offer a separate product that provides hooks to many backup software packages and allows network managers to create HSM policies across NetWare and Unix servers, says product marketing manager Jeff Drescher.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas will supply the only non-Microsoft kernal-level code. The software will allow an administrator to allocate disk space as well as create and modify disk partitions. An add-on product from Veritas will automate disk management across servers and handle performance and I/O tuning capabilities.

Powerful vendors Computer Associates International, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc. are among the other companies contributing code to NT 5.0.

CA built the Microsoft Directory Migration Tool, which will help users move data from existing Novell Directory Services trees and NetWare 3.X binderies into the much anticipated NT 5.0 Active Directory.

Separately, Cisco is integrating its Layer 2 Transport Protocol and IP Security technology into the Microsoft operating system. This support will let users access NT 5.0 servers more securely over the Internet.

Another NT 5.0 addition is a manual file defragmentation utility from Executive Software. This tool reassembles files that have been fragmented by NT during the storage process and cuts down on the time it takes for a user to access files. Executive Software separately will deliver an NT add-on product for letting administrators schedule defragmentation policies across networked machines.

Partner gains

For Microsoft, its partnerships result in an operating system arguably better equipped for large-scale enterprise networks. The partners, meanwhile, receive two major benefits: They gain instant visibility at NT shops, and they get a head start in product development.

"We certainly didn't do this for the money we could get from Microsoft," says Mike Ivanov, product-line manager at Seagate.

Seagate gains more by getting an early look at the NT 5.0 code, Ivanov says. This enabled the company to start developing its NT 5.0 backup and recovery products early and should allow Seagate to deliver those products to market ahead of rivals, he says.

But having your product bundled with a Microsoft operating system can be a double-edged sword, Kennedy says.

"On the one hand, you gain widespread exposure for your technology," he says. "However, you also put yourself in a position of having to differentiate your retail products from the bundled versions Ÿ not always an easy task."

Many users are not adverse to having free utilities bundled in with their operating system. But they do say that Microsoft's endorsement doesn't necessarily compel them to buy separate products from Microsoft's partners.

"To me, bundleware basically amounts to which vendor cut the best deal with Microsoft," says Josh Turiel, director of information services at adlife, Inc., in Norwood, Mass. "That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best product."