Choosing the Right Internet Appliance

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Choosing the Right Internet Appliance

• Dave Piscitello, Core Competence, Inc.
• David Strom, David Strom, Inc.
• Atlanta 98, 10/22 1015 am

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Our backgrounds

• We write about and test products for a living.
• We consult for some of the vendors involved.

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What is an Internet Appliance?

• Pre-packed hardware and software
• Simple to setup, use and manage
• usually with a web browser
• Dont have keyboards or monitors
• Integrate into existing Windows and other NOS
  environments
• AppleTalk, IPX, UNIX/NFS
• Serves a variety of needs

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Target applications

• Small business Extranet
• SOHO/ROBO Intranet server
• Discussion Forum server
• Workgroup file/CD ROM sharing
• Firewall, VPN server
• Remote access router
• Remote access server
• Office email server

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Six categories of appliances

• Shared network storage
• Web server
• eCommerce server
• Security server
• Intranet applications server
• Communications server

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A partial taxonomy
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General state of appliances

• Almost plug and play
• User interfaces intentionally limited
• Matching categories and needs not easy
• Setup of users and groups may be tedious
• Most not well integrated with NOS access controls
• Not an issue if this is first/only server
• Scalability?
• Units designed for small/branch office needs

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What features do you need?

• Ask yourself, ask your vendor
• If web or other Internet/Intranet server,
• How extensible? Expansion slots? Type?
• Type of built-in OS? Type of server software?
• How many ways to upload files to your web?
• If communications server,
• Types and number of network interface(s)?
• If security server,
• Firewall features? What VPN? Client software?

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Appliances Pros

• Simplicity over NT UNIX servers,
• especially for organizations with little orno OS
  admin expertise
• Reduced total cost of ownership
• Appliance may cost less than software to provide
  equivalent features
• Vendors seek to user-proof appliances
• limited access to OS, not as easy to shoot
  yourself in the foot
• Often more secure out-of-box than OS servers

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Appliances Cons

• Cant find and manage on corporate net
• not issue for those that support SMB/AppleShare
• May need more than browser to manage
• telnet, configuration wizards and monitors
• Separate Access control, authentication
• Difficult to apply uniform user and group access
  controls across appliances and NOS systems
• How scalable are CPU,disk, networks

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Products demonstrated

• Cobalt Microserver Qube 2700WG
• Ramp Networks WebRamp 300e
• FlowPoint 2200 SDSL Router
• Encanto e.go Commerce
• For more information, this report on
• strom.com/pubwork/iapps.html
• www.corecom.com//ia