Fwd: Not your average client/server network
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Not your average client/server network
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:51:11 -0500
From: "NW on Linux" <Linux@bdcimail.com>
NETWORK WORLD FUSION FOCUS: PHIL HOCHMUTH
on LINUX
Today's focus: Not your average client/server network
07/26/00
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Today's focus: Not your average client/server network
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By Phil Hochmuth
Progeny Linux, which just emerged last week, has been working for the
last few months on a system it calls Linux NOW - Network of
Workstations. It?s exactly what the name implies: a system of
decentralized workstations that share a common file system and
distribute processing tasks, creating an entire network without a
central system server.
The model for this type of system is not new. Groups of workstations
have been tied together in educational ranks for research purposes for
many years. Linux NOW, however, is the first commercial implementation
of this networking model. The attraction of the system, developers say,
is its scalability. Essentially, it is a network that becomes more
powerful, stable and productive the more user machines are added -
where in many networks, the opposite is more often true. Over 1,000
workstations can be networked together this way.
Based on the Debian Linux distribution, the system is unlike standard
client/server or host/terminal environments in that there is no one
server or mainframe that users log on to and where common system files
are stored. Instead, the file system, kernel, processing workload and
network storage for all users is distributed throughout all the
machines on the network. This design, in essence, could provide the
ultimate system of load balancing and system clustering.
In systems such as Linux NOW that were used in the past, the biggest
headaches were security and the integrity of the distributed file
system. Progeny is trying to address some of these problems by creating
a single network "image," or an illusion of a centralized computer
system. The code, kernel and file system for it is really distributed
across hundreds or thousands of Linux workstations.
One of the main challenges Progeny is trying to address is security. In
a decentralized network of distributed workstations, every client is
actually a part of the "server,? giving users a multitude of access
points to important system and configuration files. While an answer to
this security conundrum is still in development at Progeny, the
company?s goal for Linux NOW is to have a network in which users to log
on to a ?system? where user rights and access policies are enforced,
thus keeping important system files behind a protective curtain.
Ian Murdock heads Progeny. Murdock founded the Debian Project (the name
Debian, incidentally, is derived from the first names of Ian and his
wife Debra). The company is one of the more open-source-oriented Linux
start-ups to come along. Debian has long been one of the few Linux
distributions to hold out from widespread commercialization, which has
kept venture capitalists away from the technology in the past. However,
the company?s technology was enough to attract the interest of Bruce
Perens, who is chairman of the board at Progeny. Perens, a
high-profile leader of the Debian Project, has worked for several years
in helping to bring open-source technology into the world of commercial
software. Progeny aims to ship Linux NOW by year-end.
To contact Phil Hochmuth:
-------------------------
Phil Hochmuth is a writer and researcher for Network World, and
a former systems integrator. You can reach him at
mailto:phochmut@nww.com.
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Got a technical question related to Linux on your corporate
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http://nwfusion.experts-exchange.com/. Another network
professional may have the solution to your problem.
Read more about Progeny Linux:
http://www.progenylinux.com
Find out more about Debian, the technology behind Linux NOW:
http://www.debian.org
Learn about Sprite, the predecessor to Linux NOW?s distributed
networking model:
http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/Research/Projects/sprite/retrospective.html
Archive of Linux newslwtter:
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/linux/index.html
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