Chapter 10. Working with PCs | Solaris System Management (New Riders Professional Library)

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O NE OF THE TASKS FACING SYSTEM MANAGERS today is how to get the best out of the computer hardware as well as reduce the overall cost of ownership ”while at the same time continuing to provide a reliable, efficient service to the customer. Offices and computer rooms are often overrun with vast numbers of PCs acting as Windows servers to the office environment, making it not only difficult to support and administer, but extremely costly as well. Coupled with this problem is the dilemma that PCs need regular upgrading or replacing to keep up with new versions of software that are constantly demanding more resources.

The PC is here to stay, and Windows NT has definitely made a significant impression on the desktop market. For quite some time, Sun Microsystems has been working toward the integration of PC functionality with the high performance range of Solaris workstations and servers.

The evidence that PC integration is becoming more of a strategic issue is demonstrated by the significant improvements that have been made in recent years and the investment that companies such as Sun have made in this field.

The Microsoft range of Windows operating systems certainly provides a popular desktop environment, but the hardware lacks the reliability or scalability that can be provided with a Solaris-based Sun workstation or server. To this end, Sun and other companies have marketed products to interact with, and support, the services offered by these operating systems.

Many organizations are also looking at ways of consolidating the desktop space, finding it unacceptable for users to need both a PC and a UNIX workstation on their desks to carry out their daily duties . The advent of products such as KEA!X, from Attachmate, solves this problem, allowing the full CDE graphical environment to be run as a window on an existing Microsoft Windows desktop.

This chapter looks at a number of products that can either be purchased or downloaded from the public domain and contribute to the success of merging UNIX and PC environments. The first section looks at interoperability products that allow significant integration between the two. The second section discusses PC connectivity products, such as X Window System software that runs on a PC, as well as some terminal emulation products.

The final section looks at the StarOffice suite of software that is freely available from Sun Microsystems and is being used in an increasing number of establishments. This section also discusses Sun's innovative program to deliver office software via the Web: the Webtop solution.

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