The real NT Server (Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0)

Member Name: IanPaterson

Product:	Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Date:	01/08/00 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well known, stable, versatile

Disadvantages: Still expensive

Having worked with NT server since it was first introduced some five years ago now, I have seen it grow from a temperamental mystery into a stable viable workhorse for commercial application. There were some security issues around with the advent of trojans like BackOrifice, but most AV tools will clean these out. In five years of various deployments, no NT system I have ever worked on has been compromised, even with web deployment with IIS 1,2,3,4. Security is as good as your administrator, thats what I believe anyway.

The future for NT is not so bright these days since 2000 was finally released. The 2000 bandwagon is probably groaning under the weight now of application and hardware vendors so NT will have to take a back seat. In the commercial world, I am sure this will not be true. 2000 needs to be proved, service pack 1 has just been released weighing in at a hefty 85Mb! There has been to much investment in the past five years in client-server topology for that to change overnight.

The problem I have found with NT server through history is the lack of what are now standard features compared to 5 years ago. Today, everyone wants e-mail and secure web browsing over ISDN or leased line. NT is fully capable of supporting the hardware but sadly lacks the utility support. There is not standard SMTP service although this is available as standard in IIS 4.0, there is no POP3 service to collect it from! No proxying features or web connection sharing. But, it is still a solid foundation for commercial LAN deployment having a whole raft of supporting applications.

I think I can safely say that there is almost nothing you cannot do with NT server. As long as you load the latest service pack that is!

NT will live on for a lot longer and for good reasons.

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