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Is NT needed at CERN?

Is NT needed at CERN?. Andreu Pacheco LHCb / CERN. Question about Windows-NT. The future of Windows NT at CERN is being questioned. Has CERN to support Windows-NT as a strategic platform for computing? Has LHCb to support Windows-NT?. Answer.

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Is NT needed at CERN?

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  1. Is NT neededat CERN? Andreu Pacheco LHCb / CERN

  2. Question about Windows-NT The future of Windows NT at CERN is being questioned. • Has CERN to support Windows-NT as a strategic platform for computing? • Has LHCb to support Windows-NT?

  3. Answer • There are strong arguments to say that Windows NT has to be supported at CERN and specially in LHCb. YES

  4. Market trend • The PC platform is the most extended and purchased in the world • Microsoft is a leader of the market as shown in the stock price.

  5. Documentation • The Windows NT operating system and all the Microsoft layered software is completely documented by Official Microsoft Manuals as well as third party books. • All the updated Microsoft documentation is directly available from the Web if you are a MSDN member. • A database with Microsoft “papers” dedicated to specific subjects is also available accessible through a search engine.

  6. Training • One of the specific problems of the HEP community is due to the lack of training on Windows NT platform. Microsoft provides a training program with exams and certificates for users of Microsoft products called MSCP. Assisting to a course is not enough! • The choices are Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Solutions Developer, Professional and Trainer with Internet options.

  7. Software availability • There is a huge amount of available commercial software for all possible needs. Complete range of solutions. • The competence in the market keeps the prices down. • Every day more commercial products are being developed in a NT platform and then ported to other platforms. • Most of the components can be reused as plug-and-play between applications. OLE/DCOM.

  8. Productivity • Developer productivity seems to be increased by using the NT platform. • Visual Studio provides a complete development environment for programmers of C++, Fortran and J++ and allows integration of object-oriented design tools. • Programmers do not start from scratch, a complete set of components are available.

  9. Maintenance • Software and hardware maintenance can be fully outsourced. • Software updates through the Microsoft Developer Network Subscription every three months in CD-ROM and from their web site. • Big investment and commitment from Microsoft to provide a low cost solution to maintain and upgrade a large amount of NT workstations. Multi-user and clustering solutions coming soon.

  10. Cost • The cost per seat of a complete NT workstation is affordable. Using as example the current Microsoft Prices for the University of Oxford for licenses per workstation: • MS Office Pro (Excel,Word,PowerPoint, Access, Outlook) costs 200 CHF. • Microsoft Project 98 costs 140 CHF. • Microsoft Visual Studio (C++ compiler) costs 300 CHF. • Microsoft FrontPage98 costs 100 CHF. • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 costs 35 CHF.

  11. Current Drawbacks • Windows NT and most of the new products from Microsoft are brand new and still full of bugs.New versions coming every month! • At CERN the NICE/NT solution to maintain NT machines seems to introduce a new degree of instability to the users. No good for real development environments. Low user support.

  12. Conclusions • Windows NT should be supported by CERN and LHCb: • Market leader today. • Extensive documentation official and third party. • Training program. • Complete development environment (Visual Studio) with a large number of existing and reusable components. • Broad range of third party software available. • Maintenance can be outsourced and costs can be kept low. • Affordable cost of hardware and software.

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