New Utilities To Simplify OS Juggling Act

IT managers looking for relief from the high cost of maintaining multiple desktop environments can turn to a variety of new utilities for juggling operating systems.

The latest are from Aelita Software and VMware. Aelita has begun shipping Aelita Delegation Manager 3.0, which lets network administrators share the responsibility of managing mixed Windows NT, Windows 2000, and NetWare networks. VMware plans in February to upgrade its software which allows users to run two or more operating systems concurrently in an Intel-architecture desktop, and switch between them without rebooting.

The tools are the latest in a broad landscape of products designed to help users manage multiple operating systems, said Michael Silver, an analyst with GartnerGroup. The Aelita product competes with products from a half dozen other vendors, including Novell and Mission Critical Software, which also offer the ability for administrators to delegate authority. The Aelita software is specialized in that it's designed to run on very large networks.

"There are a lot of people that have Windows NT domain structures that are totally out of control," Silver said. "They need products like these as they think of moving to Windows 2000, or even if they are just trying to simplify their current domain structure and manage it more centrally."

The Aelita software is a migration tool for users looking to change from Windows NT to Windows 2000, and support a mixed network during the transition.

But the Aelita software isn't just for users looking to make the transition to Windows 2000. Sierra Health Services, a Las Vegas-based HMO, is considering Aelita for a help desk managing 5,000 users on Windows 95 and Windows NT.

"We're trying to restrict IS staff to doing specific job functions like resetting passwords," said Steve Forman, acting security supervisor for the company. Forman is looking at the Aelita software to allow help desk staff to have some control over NT servers without having to give them the keys to the kingdom.

The VMware software allows organizations to run multiple operating systems on a single machine. Customers start by installing a primary operating system as usual--either Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Linux--and then install VMware on top of the primary operating system. VMware creates a virtual machine on top of the primary operating system, and users then install the additional operating systems on top of the VMware virtual machine. Additional operating systems can be Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows 9x.

The new version of the software, due out in February, will include support for additional devices, as well as performance increases. With the current version, performance on secondary operating systems can be 5 percent to 30 percent slower than it would be if the operating system were installed natively on the machine; the new version will improve performance by 10 percent. The software is priced at $179 per PC.

The software is designed for help desk staff--to replicate the environments of end users--and for engineering and technical staff who want to run Linux but also need access to Windows for office productivity apps and other specific applications.