Hydra hype to hit Comdex
Microsoft multiuser NT to drive Windows terminals.
By John Cox
Network World, 11/10/97
Each fall at the mammoth Comdex show, Microsoft chooses a product theme. The apple in its eye this year is Hydra, NT Server software designed to drive Windows terminals.
The company this month will launch a beta version of the software - weeks ahead of schedule - with the help of hardware makers Neoware Systems, Inc. and Tektronix, Inc. The companies will showcase their new devices at Comdex/Fall '97.
Microsoft may need the extra beta time to prove to customers that Hydra will work as the enterprise-level application server of choice for thin desktop clients.
The early code also will give customers a chance to adjust their expectations: They are likely to find Hydra is a bare-bones server lacking the administrative tools and features such as clustering and load balancing that will be essential to large-scale, thin-client deployment.
Microsoft plans an elaborate Hydra debut next week at Comdex in Las Vegas. A Hydra Pavilion will showcase Hydra server-based software running a range of Windows office and business applications.
The Hydra software will add multiuser capability to Windows NT 4.0. Hydra is based on software licensed from Citrix Systems, Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Citrix created its own multiuser NT server, called WinFrame, based on NT 3.51. Citrix is developing the Hydra server for Microsoft.
Customers will be able to set up a Hydra server and use it to run 32-bit Microsoft applications. End users then can access the applications via low-cost Windows terminals instead of full-blown Windows PCs.
Hydra is widely seen as Microsoft's attempt to combat the potential appeal of Java-based network computers by offering a low-cost desktop that is more easily managed and maintained than Windows PCs.
Early evaluators said Hydra has very basic features compared with what is available in WinFrame. The evaluators also said Microsoft's T.Share protocol, which links the desktops with the server, at this stage is slower than Citrix's Independent Computing Architechture (ICA) protocol.
Citrix WinFrame, and presumably Hydra, both have several characteristics that could pose problems for customers considering large-scale, thin-client de-ployments. WinFrame needs a lot of CPU poer, memory and disk space.
Some applications might require changes to run on the server, and WinFrame does not fully support multimedia applications. In addition, WinFrame can make heavy bandwidth demands on WAN connections.
WinFrame requires a major investment in server resources, ac-cording to George Morris, technology planner with Bell Mobility, a wireless services provider in Toronto. Bell Mobility has about 120 WinFrame servers in production and about 1,500 users connected to them. ''Yes, it's resource intensive, but the prices of those resources have been
dropping like a stone,'' Morris said.
Bell Mobility uses Citrix software to cluster fairly cheap, lightweight, dual-processor servers. No more than 12 users are on each server, minimizing the effects of a server failure.
This clustering feature will initially be missing from Hydra. ''Hydra is a pretty basic product,'' said one user who evaluated the early code.
Adding weight to Hydra
To flesh out Hydra, users will have to rely on Citrix's Picasso software, which is now in development. Picasso will run on the Hydra server and will add features such as ICA client support, encryption, clustering and load balancing.
Both Morris and Citrixs Chairman and founder Ed Iacobucci acknowledged some applications might need changes at the source-code level
to run on WinFrame and Hydra. But Iacobucci said such changes are rare. And even if they are needed, they may be simple to do,
according to Morris. It all depends on the application.
If applications are doing heavy-duty number crunching, they can slow server performance, Iacobucci said. ''But typically these applications
are running on bigger server systems and their power mitigates this effect,'' he said.
Citrix recommends an average of 20K bit/sec of network bandwidth per WinFrame session. On a low-bandwidth WAN link, which still is
typical for many corporate networks, a few users could saturate the link. But so would almost any traditional client/server application, said Citrix officials.
Also at Comdex, Windows terminal vendors will showcase their wares. Some will be running early versions of the client operating systems
based on Windows CE 2.0. Neoware, of King of Prussia, Pa., will un-veil two NeoStation 200 terminals, both with a Motorola PowerPC
processor, 1024-by-768 resolution and a PCMIA slot. Pricing has not been finalized.
Tektronix, of Beaverton, Ore., also will announce a Windows terminal, with the same resolution. It is priced at $1,195 and includes a
15-inch color monitor. |
