What's Microsoft Up To

Mr OLTP has some old Microsoft sales literature. It says that what you can't do on a PC isn't worth a candle and that the Mainframe is dead because everybody's got a PC and it's so powerful and everybody will have their own Database too. So there.

Things seem to have changed somewhat lately. The things that the Mainframe are good at are now recognized by Microsoft as being wholesome as well as lucrative. So Microsoft wants a piece of it too.

Microsoft's main platform in this arena is its server operating system Windows NT. This now can be found on some very powerful computers, even though its architecture base is shrinking. It now supports SMP, although currently the number of CPUs is relatively modest. Work is in hand to give it a clustering fail-over ability (Wolfpack) and rumours and vapourish announcements promise both NUMA and MPP real soon now. It is soon to be an enterprise class operating system running on machinery that will be a Mainframe in all but name.

Bill discovers (or is that invents) OLTP

On this operating system, besides any Relational Database that any third party may put on it there will be Microsoft's own, SQL Server. SQL Server already has an ability to do Two Phase Commits and will acquire parallel lock management and query composition to allow it to scale to enterprise class dimensions.

What all of these big computers need is Transactions and this is where Viper comes in. Viper is the code name for Microsoft's Transaction Manager. An early version has already been launched, called rather surprisingly Microsoft Transaction Manager (MTS) 1.0. This appeared to have been something of a place holding exercise, it had limited functionality and can't coordinate Transactions properly. However, Microsoft is serious about this (they've hired Jim Gray, eminent expert in OLTP and co-author of [Reuter & Gray], for example) MTS 2.0 is a complete Transaction Manager. It is based around DCOM, Microsoft's DCE like RPCs and OLE (now known as ActiveX). Transaction control with Resource Managers (RM), including SQL Server, is through Transactional OLE with provision for XA. SQL Server has already acquired an XA interface for working with other TPM. MTS will thus be able to co-ordinate Transactions across both SQL Server but other RM too. The Transactional model employed is flat and unchained (so rather like Tuxedo and Top End in this respect).

While Microsoft is still working on its TPM, and associated Reliable Queue, Falcon, other software manufacturers, realising that Microsoft has a bank-able brand and is serious about this have been putting their own TPM on Windows NT. MTS continues to evolve, and has undergone a recent confusing name change. It is now the Transactional aspect of COM+, the latest incarnation of DCOM

It was thought likely that when MTS is a stable sale-able product Microsoft will leverage the Windows brand to establish this TPM. It is likely too that they will take the cat and throw it firmly into the pigeons either by aggressive pricing or, as has been seen with Web browsers on the desk top, an all-or-nothing bundling. MTS will be renamed as being the Transaction component of COM+, the enhanced DCOM in Windows 2000, the next Windows NT. The release of this operating system and its associated pricing policy is awaited by all in the industry with interest.

Until MTS is firmly established on Windows NT it is unlikely that Microsoft will attempt to put it on other platforms. In the medium term, if a heterogeneous environment is desired or has been acquired then the use of other more widely available TPM will still be mandated.

MTS, A Closer Look

We've had a closer look at MTS, and will no doubt be writing more on this as Windows 2000 enters the market place.

Date: 1999/07/04 08:34:50