“The battle of the network operating systems has developed into
a familiar story–with a twist. The aging NetWare and its directory
sidekick, NDS, face a challenge from Microsoft’s promised, but as
yet undelivered, Windows 2000 and its Active Directory Services
(ADS). The twist? Dark horse Linux emerges from the shadows as a
powerful OS with a growing market share.”
“Applications need a stable directory beneath them to fully
throttle the network, and NetWare’s NDS clearly is the only
reliable working directory available.”
“While [Windows 2000 with] ADS has given the term ‘beta cycle’
new meaning, it’s also likely that ADS will one day pose a genuine
threat to NDS. Our tests found Beta 2 of the OS to be fairly
stable, but a resource hog … Furthermore, that release’s security
and administration weaknesses point to Active Directory’s
immaturity. However, with so many applications written specifically
for Windows9x and NT, ADS may have enough steam to get through the
early years and become as reliable as NDS.”
“And then there’s Linux. Surprising to some and a no-brainer to
others, Linux has received the backing it needed to muscle onto the
short list of favorable application server platforms.”