Installing mysql on window

GoInvest Invests in Windows 2000 Infrastructure - Product Information

With only 42 employees, GoInvest.com's rollout of Windows 2000 was on a much smaller scale than the hundreds or thousands of seats required for the typical enterprise deployment. But this small dot-com's implementation of Windows 2000 could serve as a useful example for IT managers looking to migrate to Microsoft Corp.'s (www.microsoft.com) new operating system.

GoInvest.com, a small software development company, provides online tools, data, and information to financial institutions and businesses. The company aggregates a great deal of data into a warehouse and provides a simple and extensible API for clients to adapt the data for their own use or to repackage it for their clients.

In January, GoInvest was running a hodgepodge of various servers, operating systems, and client software. The company had both Windows NT and Red Hat Linux on Dell Computer Corp. (www.dell.com) machines. GoInvest's databases ran both Window NT and MySQL, workstations at GoInvest ran Windows NT, and its Web server was Apache on Red Hat Linux.

Before the public rollout of Windows 2000 in February, GoInvest executives met with Microsoft and decided on a migration plan. They chose to go with Windows 2000 Advanced Server, IIS 5.0 for the company's Web server, and SQL Server 7.0 -- all on Dell's PowerEdge dual and quad processor servers. The desktops would run Windows 2000 Professional.

The first step in the migration was to shift the company's servers to a unified Windows 2000 platform. To do this, the company needed to invest in more technology, both hardware and software infrastructure. GoInvest accumulated servers for its Web server farm and database server tier. Finally, it installed Cisco Systems Inc.'s (www.cisco.com) Local Director load balancing software.

Since GoInvest already had a software infrastructure in place, the first step to Windows 2000 migration was software migration. The company moved all of its CGI scripts from Perl on Apache Linux to ActiveState Perl for Windows 2000. Once the software was moved, manual testing of all the scripts was performed to ensure they functioned properly on the new platform. Microsoft assisted in the testing phase of the migration. After the manual testing, GoInvest performed functional testing of the CGI scripts once they had been migrated, then replicated the testing environment and duplicated it into several servers for load balancing and failover.

After functional testing came load testing, which actually had to be performed twice for GoInvest's migration. Load testing investigates the servers' strengths, capacities, and other server functionality. The first time GoInvest performed the load testing the company had not yet installed Cisco's Local Director. GoInvest performed the initial load testing with Microsoft software included with Windows 2000. It repeated the tests after installing the Cisco software.

After load testing, it was time for GoInvest to become an early adopter of Windows 2000 and deploy. The total time of software migration was three worker-days. "The migration was pretty painless," says Mohammed Rashid, GoInvest's CTO.

Currently, GoInvest runs its network on Dell PowerEdge 4300 dual and quad Pentium III machines, with Cisco infrastructure software for firewall, load-balancing, intrusion-detection, and routing functions. Windows 2000 handles IIS and SQL Server 7.0. GoInvest's financial search engine, FinancialFind.com, runs on SiteServer.

The migration is complete, and Rashid reports that the network's stability is high, "Close to 24x7," he says. "Moving to Windows 2000 gave us that path [to go to 24x7 availability]." Rashid points out that it took a massive accumulation of hardware and software for the company to optimize Microsoft's and Cisco's failover capabilities for constant availability.

In addition to failover capability, Windows 2000 -- specifically Windows DNA -- gave GoInvest room to grow its network. The company's network is three-tiered, with a database tier on the back end, a middle tier designed for application server usage and business logic processes, and the front-end tier for presentation -- including Web servers and CGI scripts. Rashid reports that it is easy to add and remove servers from each tier. Additionally, because GoInvest mostly distributes its services in the form of open, extensible APIs, it has almost the entire middle tier of servers in which to expand. Rashid says the company is planning to implement an alert system, which would alert users to prices of certain stocks. Such a business logic system would reside in the middle tier.

A small business such as GoInvest would seem to be a good fit for Red Hat Linux servers. Why, then, did GoInvest decide to become an early adopter of Windows 2000? According to Rashid, "Apache Linux is a skill in itself." Had the company stayed with Red Hat, it would have eventually had to run a hybrid network, as it had been doing before its Windows 2000 deployment. The IT department would have to perform and maintain the integration of Linux and Windows NT/2000 systems.

"Microsoft gave us the impetus in terms of licensing and free software to go with them," Rashid added. With that consideration, GoInvest studied both options and decided that a large Windows 2000 framework would be easier to deploy and administer than a similar framework running Apache Linux.

Rashid reports that Microsoft's support, software, and technical assistance greatly influenced the company's decision to adopt Windows 2000.

How has GoInvest adapted to its new network environment? While the user environment has been easily learned, there were some initial issues with network management and server security. Some problems regarding the assignment of passwords and understanding the security model popped up. It was "definitely different from the Windows NT world," Rashid notes. He also points out that IT managers need to improve their knowledge of how Windows 2000 provides security and user permissions. Rashid adds that Microsoft's support with these initial problems was helpful and well-received.