Most of us have worked with a variety of electronic mail and database systems during our careers. In this book, we challenge you to consider the components in the Microsoft BackOffice family. This integrated environment provides most of the core
services that you would want when designing a network server. This product family has the advantage of being implemented as a single architecture. This leads to tight integration between components and use of common administrative tools.
There are a number of other, more business-oriented reasons to seriously consider these products. First, Microsoft is devoting considerable effort to this product family. With all its development talent and experience, Microsoft is capable of turning
out quite a bit of software. Many industry analysts who measure sales of the Windows NT Server environment also show Microsoft making great strides in this arena and project that it may soon lead this market. It is always easier to sell your services for a
popular environment than for one which is slowly dying out.
This book is not designed for the beginner who wants to use the Web browser or mail reader that came with the operating system. It is designed for more experienced computer support staff members who are responsible for designing, programming, or
maintaining one or more servers that run BackOffice components. It does not replace the Microsoft online documentation. Instead, it tries to provide both the background material to understand how a BackOffice component functions and the hands-on experience
needed to make it work well.
To accomplish these ambitious goals, this book is divided into the following major sections:
The goal is to provide you with both a broad overview of BackOffice and the details that you will need to implement an effective BackOffice information environment.
Part I, "Introduction to BackOffice" provides a broad overview of the technologies and architecture associated with BackOffice. It is a good place to start when you are trying to see what all the components of BackOffice are and how they fit
together. Key topics in this part include the overall BackOffice architecture, security environment, monitoring environment, and administrative environment. The Internet and intranets are also covered to give you an appreciation for these networked
computer environments, their protocols, and standard services.
With the general overview of BackOffice completed, Part II, "Windows NT Server," deals with the first product in the BackOffice family. Windows NT Server is the basis for the BackOffice family. The other servers are optimized toward only one
operating system—Windows NT. They also use a number of operating system components, such as the monitoring and administrative tools. Therefore, a BackOffice administrator is actually an extension of a Windows NT system administrator. This part covers
planning, installation, administration, tuning, and integration with other computer environments.
With all the groundwork laid, Part III, "Internet Information Server," covers the first BackOffice product that you may want to implement in your environment. The Internet Information Server (IIS) is actually bundled with the Windows NT Server
operating system. It provides three key servers for Internet and intranet environments: a World Wide Web (WWW) server, a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, and a Gopher server (which enables you to search for information on the net). The chapters in this
part cover setting up an IIS installation and the basics of administration.
Part IV, "Exchange Server and Mail," introduces two products designed to accomplish the same basic goal. Microsoft has marketed an electronic mail server product for a number of years known as Microsoft Mail. As the need to provide larger
electronic mail installations grew, Microsoft rebuilt its electronic mail system into a much more robust system known as Microsoft Exchange Server (which strongly resembles a modern database management system). The chapters in this part of the book cover
both Microsoft Mail and Exchange Server from the configuration, interfacing, tuning, and client setup perspectives. The emphasis is on Exchange Server, which is the current product that fits well into the overall BackOffice environment.
Part V, "SQL Server," covers Microsoft SQL Server. SQL, or Structured Query Language, is an international standard for accessing relational database management systems. Microsoft SQL Server is the large-scale, server-based database management
system. It is designed to store the neatly ordered bits of information that are currently stored in databases, such as accounting records, personnel records, and so forth. It is being extended to handle more disorganized forms of information, such as
images and audio data. Part V is devoted to discussing installation, administration, tuning, and application building in the SQL Server environment.
Part VI, "Systems Management Server," discusses a new product in the BackOffice family that is designed to solve the problems associated with a large number of distributed computers located on a local or wide area network. The Systems
Management Server enables information systems personnel to capture the configuration of these distributed workstations, see what is happening on these workstations, and even distribute software automatically. Part VI covers installation and use of this
product in a modern network environment.
Part VII, "SNA Server," covers a topic that is very important in some environments, but is never used in other environments. Organizations that have important data located on IBM mainframes and AS/400 computers usually need an efficient means
to access that information from other computers on the network. The SNA Server product provides the gateway between the proprietary protocols in the IBM environment (SNA, SAA, LU6.2, and a whole bunch of other acronyms that have grown up in the big blue
world) and the protocols that are more common in local area network (LAN) environments, such as NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, and TCP/IP.
Part VIII, "Integrating BackOffice," contains the chapters that should appeal most to developers and integrators. It covers an important concept in the design of the BackOffice family. Microsoft realized that no matter how much time it spent
building a flexible product family, it could not anticipate every requirement in every organization in the world. To deal with this, it built a series of tools and programming interfaces that enable you to use the BackOffice family as the basis for
applications that you develop locally. Part VIII covers the most popular interfaces and also those that have only recently come into being to support Internet/intranet needs.
Part IX, "Finishing Touches," wraps up the book. The BackOffice logo requirements are presented, which enable you to advertise that applications that you develop are compatible with BackOffice. Part IX also covers some resources that you may
want to use to get more information on BackOffice and also get updated files. The final chapter enables me to get out my crystal ball and provide a few guesses as to where BackOffice is heading.
Learning about BackOffice and the related technologies may seem like trying to drink from a fire hose. Microsoft has not stopped its development efforts. There are already beta test versions of products such as merchant servers and search engines that will take their places in the BackOffice product family soon enough. For developers, Microsoft is turning out application programming interfaces far more quickly than any one developer can master them. This book will make your task of keeping up with this flood of information just a little easier.
