Telnet server linux

Linux on the SPARC Platform

Companies of every sort are rushing to dotcom their businesses, creating extraordinary opportunities and challenges for service providers. Providers are proliferating by the thousands and users are becoming accustomed to inexpensive, yet high-quality, access to the Internet. As a result, these providers need ways to quickly differentiate themselves in order to grow their piece of the market and sustain profitability -- without driving up costs. One of the most viable strategies for doing this is to add services to meet increasingly sophisticated customer demand.

While services are multiplying, service providers must be sure to maintain telco-quality performance and reliability, even in the face of increased complexity. As the Internet reaches into more homes each day, customers are demanding the same level of high availability they have come to expect in the telecom world. Increasingly, businesses and consumers want nonstop operation, similar to traditional telephone service: When a phone is picked up, there is always a dial tone.

To manage the requirements of maintaining telco-quality while adding increasingly complex services, service providers are looking to their system integrators for new solutions. The more innovative system integrators are also encouraging small- to medium-sized service providers to adopt a modular approach to the network, as this will further lower costs and maximize availability. Toward this end, these system integrators are developing simpler, more affordable server "appliances," as well as custom configured servers.

What Are Server Appliances and Configured Servers?

Server appliances and configured servers are designed to support a single service. This enables service providers to add customized point solutions when they need them, which leads to a more modular infrastructure. These server appliances complement configured servers by creating a logical division of duty. As a result, infrastructure tasks can now be offloaded from the general-purpose server to a server appliance or a configured server.

Server appliances are single function servers created in mass quantities to address a widespread need in the service provider market. Configured servers, on the other hand, are individually tailored by a system integrator to meet a specific, individual service provider's needs. Eventually, a configured server may become the basis for a server appliance if there is enough demand for its particular configuration in the larger service provider market.

Because integrators tailor these servers for a single specific application, they use only those elements necessary to support the targeted service. Consequently, they offer high compute density at an affordable price point, making them ideal for specific network infrastructure tasks, such as Web, e-mail, LDAP and Domain Naming System (DNS) services. They also leverage industry standards as much as possible to lower costs and achieve faster time-to-market (see Figure 1 on page 33).

It is, however, the total overall cost benefit to the end user that makes server appliances and configured servers such a compelling solution. A single server for each service means increased simplicity for the service provider when managing and servicing their applications. Now, the service provider can simply add a server appliance or configured server for new services it wishes to deploy -- without disturbing existing services. This smoothes the way for easy adoption of new services.

Last, but not least, the server appliance and configured server strategy isolates single points of failure, minimizing the impact of equipment failure. Having one service per server makes it easy to perform maintenance and identify and troubleshoot any problems. It also helps the service provider to maintain superior availability and quality of service.

For example, the failure of a single machine within a DNS server appliance array will gracefully degrade the array's ability to handle DNS requests. Other services residing on separate server appliances or configured servers -- such as Web hosts, e-mail servers and the like -- remain unaffected. This is in contrast to running several services on a single, monolithic server where a failure would cause the loss of multiple services.

A configured server offers some additional benefits above and beyond those shared with the server appliance. These single-function servers are optimized for an individual service provider's specific application needs, ensuring the service provider gets exactly the performance required. Essentially, they provide differentiated functionality in a modular, single-function device -- something that leading service providers find very appealing.

When based on open standards, configured servers can be made extensible, allowing them to be updated or modified as the service provider's requirements change or grow. This means a configured server can be quickly re-deployed as the needs of the customer shift, helping service providers keep pace with changing customer requirements.

The Linux Appeal

Many system integrators view the Linux operating system as an option when creating low-cost, single-function server appliances. To appreciate why Linux is attractive to service providers, it is important to understand that the service provider industry has its roots in the Internet and networking spaces. The infrastructures for these two industries are dominated by UNIX-based operating systems, which offers a robust, highly developed software environment that can easily scale to keep pace with growing needs.

Since Linux is a UNIX-based operating system, it is a natural fit in the service provider space. And Linux now includes some of the capabilities found in more mature, robust UNIX operating systems. For example, Linux supports true multi-tasking, virtual memory, multiuser capability and shared libraries. It is also rich in operating system technology, supporting a wide range of operating system capabilities, including memory protection, process and threads, and extensive networking facilities. Moreover, Linux is designed to promote uptime and availability by providing runtime protection among all the applications running on top of it, as well as by isolating the operating system itself

Linux is evolving into a stable technology, making it a fairly competitive solution for commercial use. Even though Linux is open source, several companies now offer packaged Linux-based operating systems complete with documentation, installation procedures, and a range of utilities and development tools. Just as important, many of these Linux distributors offer full technical support, consulting and training. Although the more mature UNIX operating systems offer hundreds, and even thousands, of applications, Linux is now supported by an ample selection of applications for infrastructure services. For example, Red Hat Linux includes the Apache Web server, a DNS server, a Usenet news server, a proxy server, an e-mail server, an FTP server and a firewall.

The Building Blacks

To meet the demand for server appliances and configured servers, integrators are aligning themselves with computer platform vendors that can provide the critical building blocks. Integrators prefer a flexible compute platform that can be quickly customized for new services, while delivering the highest level of availability, performance and scalability. The more complete the solution, the better, as this streamlines the integration effort and simplifies maintenance and support for the service provider. Sun Microsystems offers one platform solution, along with the strategic relationships system integrators require when developing a complete service delivery platform.

The hardware component of this offering is based on the SPARC processor family. System integrators are also offering the Linux operating system running on SPARC processor-based products. Sun works with the Linux development community to make sure that the Linux operating system is optimized for the SPARC architecture. By providing the technology, tools and teams for multiple models, Sun gives system integrators everything they need to create a total service provider solution.

To lower costs and reduce time-to-market, server appliances and configured servers should be designed with standards-based hardware and software. That way, system integrators can quickly and cost-effectively build solutions for all types of service providers.

Sun PCI- and CompactPCI-based board platforms deliver one of the industry's highest compute densities. Sun's 64-bit UltraSPARC processor family drives the SPARCengine Ultra AXi PCI boards, the multi-processor SPARCengine Ultra AXmp board, the new SPARCengine Ultra AXe board, and the SPARCengine CP family of CompactPCI boards.