Networking breakthrough, Mangosoft's Medley may transform the file server concept
The clustering capabilities provided by Mangosoft Corp.'s Medley do nothing less
than challenge the very notion of what a file server should be.
In PC Week Labs' tests of a beta edition, we were impressed that Medley
could take a portion of disk space from a group of Windows 95 PCs and create a
single network drive. But we were downright incredulous when we discovered that this virtual
file server also is fault-tolerant--data files were still accessible even when some of the
participating computers were offline.
This kind of simple-to-install-and-implement clustering solution is proof
that great things still come from startups. Networking heavyweights such as Novell Inc. and
Microsoft Corp. have been spending millions of dollars on such clustering products, but still
haven't made them available to customers.
Like other Windows clustering products, Medley is not a complete clustering
solution--it only clusters disk space, not CPU processing power. In addition,
Medley currently supports only small workgroups. But network managers should keep it on
their radar screens because with planned enhancements to support Windows NT and the Microsoft
Domain directory service, Medley could well become a must-have product for any network.
Large servers might still have a place in a Medley network, but they would
be acting as processing behemoths, running client/server applications, such as databases, or
groupware systems, such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange. Medley offers file storage only and
ignores the need for such other services as sophisticated print queues and remote access.
Hold that thought
Unfortunately, network managers will have to wait awhile for Mangosoft's
brave new world of massively clustered networks. For one thing, the first version of Medley will only work
with a maximum of 25 Windows 95 PCs.
For another, Medley isn't slated to ship until next month--and judging from
the number of bugs we ran into in the Medley beta, the delivery date could be
further off than Mangosoft expects.
We ran into numerous problems ranging from installation bugs and
incompatibilities with the Dell Computer Corp. OptiPlex Pentium Pro PCs in our
test network to serious networkwide crashes, during which all the clustered PCs on the network were
hung when one of the machines in the group was taken offline.
Nevertheless, our tests showed that Medley's innovative clustering
technology actually works. If Mangosoft can work out the bugs, the first
version should be a hit with small Windows 95 networks that are considering the purchase of a file server.
A two-seat starter kit will be priced at $249, and additional licenses will
cost $199.99 per machine. This isn't terribly expensive when one considers both
the cost of a file server and the fact that not every PC on a network needs to have Medley installed in
order to access the network drive.
We were able to share the virtual Medley drives using the standard
peer-to-peer Windows 95 file-sharing mechanism.
Less pain
Administrative hassles were kept to a minimum in our Medley test network,
because we had limited control of user accounts. Rather than requiring creation of user accounts in
the traditional fashion, Medley automatically detected the user IDs and passwords of machines
logged in to the network and added the users to a proprietary security database (which is stored
on several PCs for redundancy).
Each user has total administrative control of the files and directories he
or she creates and can specify which users have read or write access to them.
This simplistic security paradigm is innovative, but obviously is inadequate for larger networks
where administrators usually want total control and need the ability to create groups.
Mangosoft plans to include support for Windows NT domains in future releases
of Medley, which would give administrators far greater control.
For its intended use as a small workgroup product, performance will not be
critical for the first release of Medley: It should have no problem
outperforming the peer-to-peer file services of Windows 95. However, as Medley moves into the file
server space, with Windows NT compatibility (planned for later this year), competitive
throughput will be essential.
Instead of relying on high-bandwidth networking technologies such as Fibre
Channel or separate Fast Ethernet LANs, Medley uses caching technology in an
attempt to ensure that file access doesn't suffer. Because frequently accessed files are cached
locally on individual hard drives, it is not necessary to transfer packets over the LAN.
How well this will work in the actual release of Medley is anyone's guess.
Summary: Mangosoft's Medley is a must-have clustering product for any small network of Windows
95 PCs wanting to share files. Using peer-to-peer services, it is far cheaper than a file server and
much more reliable to boot. If future upgrades support Windows NT in larger networks, as planned,
this product could revolutionize the way companies of any size use servers.
