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Net Integration Technologies NITIX Autonomic Linux Server OS

Net integration price quote: NITIX Autonomic Linux Server OS. Total: $1,999 for 25 users. (including MySQL database server).

Net Integration Technologies awed us in 2002 with its Net Integrator Mark 1 server appliance (one of our Best of the Year products, January 2003), and this small company awes us once again. Its newest concept is innovative: a complete server OS on a chip. You plug it into the IDE slot of your server, and you're ready to go. Still, only an experienced IT administrator should handle installation. By the time you read this, NITIX should also be available on CD, with all the same features found on the chip version.

The chip must contain an amazingly clean bit of code; it's all of 16MB in size. By contrast, Microsoft's SBS 2003 requires 4 gigabytes of hard drive space. But therein lie both the beauty and the catch of NITIX. It is a good fit only for companies that are interested in a very simple, highly automated system and want to spend little time thinking about backup, security, and IT in general. If you're looking for a system that integrates complex databases or third-party CRM solutions, this is not for you.

Key Features

Our version of NITIX was customized to run on a Sun Fire V65x.

NITIX is essentially a very stripped-down and hardened version of Linux. The OS can function as your core infrastructure server, delivering file sharing, e-mail (including Web mail), a Web server, an FTP server, and a DNS server. Net Integration provides free dynamic DNS listings for customers, so you can host your own domain even if your ISP provides dynamic IP addressing only. File sharing services are available via NFS (Network File System) and SMB (Server Message Block), ensuring compatibility with attached Linux/Unix and Windows clients.

Though the integrated Web mail client is easy to use, it lacks much of the sophistication found in SUSE's Web interface and doesn't come close to the quality of Microsoft Outlook Web Access. Aside from access to your e-mail, the Web mail interface is limited to fairly simple contact management and calendaring functions.

NITIX provides little in the way of collaborative options, so if you rely heavily on features such as group scheduling, shared contact management, and task scheduling, especially for remote users, you'll need to install Net Integration's ExchangeIt! software. This comes bundled with the OS but must be installed separately, as does the client side of the application. ExchangeIt! enables the collaborative features found in Microsoft Outlook or the Linux desktop product Ximian Evolution. But NITIX does not contain any file management features or built-in team workspaces or discussion groups.

An aspect of NITIX that particularly intrigues us is the Expression Desktop and Expression server-side module. Using a boot CD-ROM or a USB memory token (for systems that can boot off a USB device), you can load the Expression Desktop even on legacy hardware, without needing to configure hard drives. Using this means of loading the desktop provides that all drive mappings and your e-mail will be instantly available from the Expression servera simple solution for setting up PCs in places where workers need just a limited set of applications. Key applications included with Expression are Galeon as the default Web browser, OpenOffice 1.1, and the Ximian Evolution e-mail client.

Core OS Management

Installation of the core OS should be very simple for an IT person. Once the NITIX chip is physically installed, on boot-up the server accesses the chip as though it were booting off an ordinary IDE hard drive. The server then copies the OS and all included services to the hard drive and fires up the OS. Core system functions remain on the chip's nonvolatile memory, enabling the OS to provide Internet and firewall services even if your main hard drive dies.

You would usually set up NITIX with two network interfaces: one for your external network and one for your internal network. This enables the OS to handle NAT (Network Address Translation) automatically. Net Intelligence, a discovery and setup system, also works automatically to identify the subnet connected on your LAN and WAN and configure itself with a valid IP address. NITIX will not configure itself with an IP address that already exists on your network; instead, it automatically enables or disables its built-in DHCP server based on its discovery results.

For an IT person experienced with a simple network, configuring NITIX is just as easy as installing it. All configuration tasks are performed using the server's Web interface. In it you handle everything from creating user accounts to managing the system. And we really like the included balloon help.

NITIX configures a gateway and provides a built-in firewall, which allows users to plug the server directly into a cable or DSL modem. While traditional IPsec (IP Security) VPNs require the configuration of users, security settings, and your firewall, NITIX handles all of this internally.

Access and data security were also of paramount importance in the design of the OS. NITIX utilizes two hard drives, storing incremental backups onto the second hard drive every 15 minutes. This procedure is enabled by default and requires no user intervention. Should the first hard drive fail, simply replace it and the system will rebuild itself automatically.

Unique to NITIX is the DoubleVision feature, which provides load balancing across multiple WAN links. If one link fails, the feature reroutes traffic to a working connection.

Web-based services are provided by the integrated Apache Web server, which can serve public content to the Internet and reserve personal Web space for internal users. The Web server, which also provides access to Web-based e-mail, includes SSL 128-bit encryption and support for CGI, Perl, and PHP4 scripts, in case you need to supply dynamic content.

NITIX is an attractive option because of its simplicity, but anyone looking for complex features will need to look elsewhere.