Chapter:Chapter 01 – What is an Operating System and Why is it Important?
Subsection: 02. What is OS/2 Warp?
Document Number:03
Topic: Warp Server
Date Composed: 10-30-96 08:13:23 AM Date Modified: 11-16-98 08:06:02 AM
OS/2 Warp Server
The Warp family of products includes the most sophisticated and best-performing server on the market today. Warp Server integrates all of the legacy network environments a business might have, and provides incredible performance as well.
OS/2 Warp Server, which I have been using since its release in February of 1996 is IBM’s business server solution for customers ranging from small businesses to large enterprises. It provides a powerful foundation for application serving, file and print sharing, and a wealth of integrated features including systems management, backup and recovery, remote access, enhanced TCP/IP support, advanced print function and LAN Internet access.
WARP Server Features
OS/2 Warp Server delivers an integrated platform for the emerging application server environment as well as a complete set of traditional file and print services. Warp Server provides an integrated packaging of OS/2 Warp, LAN Server 4.0 (with some enhancements and fixes), SystemView for OS/2, remote access, advanced backup disaster and recovery, and a new printing capability that allows, among other things, printing postscript files on non-postscript printers.
Because OS/2 Warp Server is based on OS/2 Warp, it possesses the same 32-bit, preemptive multitasking capabilities of Warp. It offers reliable crash protection, runs OS/2 and DOS applications and contains IBM’s own WIN-OS2, which provides support for 16- and 32-bit Windows applications.
File and Print Services
OS/2 Warp Server provides an easy-to-use, graphical, drag-and-drop administration model. This model enables network administrators and resellers to quickly install, set up, configure, and manage a network. It offers tight security that is flexible enough to be customized to the needs of any business by assigning various privileges down to specific files on the server. Warp Server provides protocol stacks for NETBIOS, TCP/IP, IPX-SPX, and TCPBEUI.
OS/2 Warp Server also uses the powerful High Performance File System (HPFS) and Warp Server Advanced offers the HPFS386 file system which provides even faster performance for file servers, local security on the server, and fault tolerance. HPFS also saves disk space.
Advanced Systems Management
OS/2 Warp Server contains systems management features that ensure a high degree of performance and reliability. With OS/2 Warp Server, administrators can remotely manage computers across the network. This enables them to quickly
address network issues by monitoring or through remote control of any computer on a LAN without leaving their desks. Alerts built into OS/2 Warp Server warn administrators of predictive hardware failures such as low disk space and exceeding the CPU threshold.
Remote Access
OS/2 Warp Server features a full set of remote access capabilities. With OS/2 Warp Server, organizations ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations can now quickly access vital information via this integrated remote functionality. Ad hoc networks between two standalone computers can be set up, as well as LAN to LAN connections. Road Warriors now have access to the corporate network from any location with a telephone.
Advanced Print Function
Printing over the network is an important task for organizations of all sizes. OS/2 Warp Server includes new printing enhancements that enables users to send postscript documents to nonpostscript printers such as Hewlett-Packard and
LexMark. OS/2 Warp Server’s advanced printer functionality is also compatible with high speed host printers in a mainframe connected environment.
Client Support
OS/2 Warp Server supports all popular network clients, including OS/2 Warp and OS/2 Warp Connect, DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh. OS/2 Warp Server also supports gateway functionality to NetWare and Microsoft servers by allowing OS/2 Warp Server clients to access non-OS/2 Warp Server resources. LAN Server for Macintosh is also available as an additional product.
Note: The Macintosh client and LAN Server for Macintosh (LSM) are NOT shipped with Warp Server.
Warp Server Performance
Warp Server’s performance is outstanding. An independent test conducted by PC Week Labs shows that OS/2 Warp Server running on a single processor outperforms both Microsoft Windows NT Server and Novell Netware 4.1 running on four-way SMP (symmetric-multiprocessing) equipped servers. Tests show OS/2 Warp Server running on a single processor system had a peak performance of 56M bps (megabits per second), outperforming Windows NT Server by up to 26 percent in file and print services. Windows NT Server running on a four way SMP system performed at a maximum of 44 Mbps, while Netware 4.1 placed last. The testing was conducted with Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation’s newly released NetBench 4.01, with file and print services running on a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet network.
SMP Feature for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced
OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP outperforms Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51 by more than 25 percent in capacity. OS/2 Symmetric-multiprocessing provides support for more users by allowing software servers to exploit multiple processors with the same server software installed. The SMP feature for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced is optimized for 2-way and 4-way SMP systems, the dominant SMP platforms today, but has the ability to support up to 64 processors – far more than any other SMP offering in the market. Ziff-Davis Labs observed a 90 percent improvement in throughput when adding one processor, and a 300 percent improvement when adding three processors. This scalability is significantly better than that of Windows NT. The SMP feature not only supports 32-bit SMP-enabled applications, but also offers increased performance for non-SMP applications.
Warp Server for e-bisiness (Aurora) – 1999
This new version of Warp Server (Code name Aurora) called Warp Server for e-business, will become available in early 1999. It will have a number of new and very interesting features.
- Full Y2K compliance out of the box. Previous versions of Warp are Y2K compliant after installation of fixpacks.
- Support for Eurocurrency.
- A graphical interface for defining and managing National Language Support (NLS) Locales. A Locale is usually a country.
- Netscape Communicator 4.04.
- Lotus Domino Go Server for hosting web sites.
- WebSphere Application Server 1.1.
- NT Server Management. This will allow management of NT domains and servers from an OS/2 system including the ability to keep OS/2 and NT accounts synchronized. Users will be able to log on once and have access to both OS/2 and NT server resources.
- I2O support. Intelligent I/O means that so long as a device supports I2O there will be no need to wait for the vendor to provide an OS/2 version of the device driver.
- SMP support.
- Network File System (NFS) for sharing files across networks.
- Logical Volume Management will allow users to create logical volumes that are not location dependent. For example a user can create a D: drive and weeks or months later move it to a different physical hard drive and still refer to it as D:. LVM also allows logical volumes to span multiple physical disk drives and gives users the ability to expand the size of a logical volume on the fly – without rebooting the system.
- The Journaling File System (JFS) provides faster performance, higher disk capacity, improved scalability, and faster recoverability.
Warp Server for e-business uses the object oriented user interface (OOUI) of Warp 4 for its user interface.