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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stormweaver who wrote (18941)	8/26/1999 11:33:00 PM
From: Prognosticator	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

1. Security of Information. * Files/data that are key to my business or personal information sitting out on some server somewhere. IP snooping could allow hackers to save all information Trying to circumvent this with encryption would be VERY processor intensive for the large amounts of data we'd be talking about. That's what https is for. You use online-trading and banking, how personal is that information? 3. Servers - points of failure. In this model a server could represent thousands of user contexts. A dead server could therefore represent thousands of down users. which is why you should use Solaris and not NT in your servers :) (sorry, cheap shot, but hard to resist). Our uptime for our 4-processor Solaris server is on the order of 60 days, and that's still not ideal. Our single-processor NT desktops are lucky to make it a week. On a more positive note I do think that some traditional and a few new desktop applications can be realized in a web context (as thin apps). I just don't think they're ready to push MS aside. Microsoft will simply buy all the good solutions with the money from their de-facto monopoly. But they will then screw them up, much in the way they are messing up WebTV with their Windows-centric agenda. Then a new set of companies will start up to do the same thing, and Microsoft will buy them. Until the DOJ stops them. P.

To: Stormweaver who wrote (18941)	8/27/1999 12:54:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

<But, even if we had a server centric office solution as functional as MS office> Maybe you've been missing my soft sell, we already have one:-) <we'd face these hurdles (at least):> <1. Security of Information. * Files/data that are key to my business or personal information sitting out on some server somewhere.> If you are on a corporate network, they are sitting out on a server somewhere anyway. Most server farms have security that is heads and shoulders above nearly all small, medium, and large corporations, ex. 24 hour armed security guards, temperature and humidity control, seismic rack mounts, motion sensors, fire alarms, etc. You should go to the Exodus web site and see what they have to offer. Microsoft and Yahoo host their servers there. <* IP snooping could allow hackers to save all information Trying to circumvent this with encryption would be VERY processor intensive for the large amounts of data we'd be talking about.> We have implemented the inherent security of the Java Servlet model, which is just as secure as the SSL method that you use to transfer your financial information and passwords with through your browser. SSL can be used as well, but it would be redundant. <2. Network - a bottleneck & point of failure. When the network is down everyone is down! Also until we have a true 'webtone' specification implemented there is no guarantee for a level of service on a network. We are 5-10 years away from having global webtone.> Our NuoMedia model gives the end user the ability to save data to the client machine, which should add a feeling of comfort. We also will use mirrored sites in disparate geographic locations that would minimize the effects of network failure (it can't be eliminated at this point, but this is a problem everyone shares, even those on a local client server system - at least we can minimize its effect). If the network goes down in your particular area, we cannot help that, but if it is in the area of one of our servers we can get around that with some hard work. <3. Servers - points of failure. In this model a server could represent thousands of user contexts. A dead server could therefore represent thousands of down users.> This again is avoided by using multiple, redundant server sites. This is how Microsoft.com and Netscape stay afloat with more stability than any internal Fortune 500 network. I have thought through much of this. The advantages definitely outweigh the downside, eventhough I must admit that this is not an easy endeavor.