Solaris ONC+
Network Information Service Plus(NIS+): An Enterprise Naming Service
Contents
-
Summary
Introduction
Client/Server Computing and Naming Services NIS+: Evolution from NIS
Distributed Administration
- Manageable Growth through Hierarchical Domain Creation
Highlights of Distributed Administration Model
High -Performance Replication Security in NIS+ Compatibility with ONC NIS
- NIS Compatibility Mode
Information Transfer Utilities
NIS+ 4.1 Distribution
Name Service Switch Capability in Solaris 2.x
- Interoperability Across Naming/Directory Services
Comparison of NIS+ and other Naming/Directory Services
Appendix A: References
NIS+: An Enterprise Naming Service
Saqib Jang and Vipin SamarSummary
Network Information Service Plus (NIS+), a component of ONC+ in SunSoft's Solaris 2.0 and beyond, is an enterprise naming service designed to replace the widely-installed ONC Network Information Service (NIS) in customer environments. NIS+ is a secure and robust repository of information about network entities, such as users, servers, and printers, enabling efficient administration of enterprise client/server networks. Administration tasks, such as addition, removal, or reassignment of systems and users, are facilitated through efficient addition to or modification of information in NIS+.
An important benefit of NIS+ is scalability: NIS+ simplifies administration of small networks as well as enterprise-wide networks containing tens of thousands of systems and users. As organizations grow and decentralize, NIS+ continues to provide administrative efficiency.
A key enhancement in NIS+ is its update performance. Changes made to the NIS+ info @ a simple naming interface.
SunSoft is working with system and application software vendors to ensure global, enterprise-level, and application-specific naming systems support the federated naming architecture. In addition, the federated naming service interface will be published, allowing developers to easily incorporate their naming systems into the federated naming architecture.
Comparison of NIS+ and other Naming/Directory Services
This section compares and contrasts NIS+ with three other such services: DNS, X.500 Directory Service, and OSF DCE Cell Directory Service.
NIS+ and Internet Domain Name System (DNS)
DNS is a naming service; it obtains and provides information about hosts on the Internet network. DNS supports the model of a hierarchical namespace with autonomously administered name servers. DNS has been very successfully used on the Internet, supporting communication among hundreds of thousands of nodes across many organizational entities. Although NIS+ uses the DNS hierarchical naming model, it focuses on supporting system administration data and other requirements of enterprise networks.
DNS differs considerably from NIS+ in the kinds of information and environments that it supports. Its main strength is in supporting hierarchical database partitions and replicas containing hundred of thousands of entries of relatively static information (e.g., hostname and IP address), and ensuring compatibility in an inter-organization environment. NIS+, on the other hand, is a secure repository of frequently updated administrative information for enterprise networks, such as e-mail aliases, RPC program numbers, and user passwords.
In short, both are complementary naming services, with DNS being used for inter-company communication and NIS+ supporting administration of enterprise networks. SunSoft expects a significant proportion of customers to be using both DNS and NIS+ in parallel. In view of this, both NIS+ and DNS client and server software are being shipped with Solaris 2.x, with the Name Service Switch allowing smooth coexistence between the two services.
NIS+ and OSI X.500 Directory Services
OSI X.500 is an emerging International Standards Organization (ISO) specification for directory services for global, inter-company applications. X.500 directory services are primarily being used for storing "white pages" information about people, such as telephone number and e-mail address. The goal is to enable communication among users in different corporations in an easier manner.
X.500 is similar to DNS in two ways: it is a "global" directory service, facilitating inter-company communication and, as such, it is intended to hold relatively static information. Thus NIS+, being an enterprise service, is a complementary service to X.500. As with DNS, customers and vendors can easily use or offer NIS+ and X.500 together to allow effective support of both enterprise and global application requirements. Mechanisms such as Solaris 2.x Name Service Switch and federated naming are designed to facilitate such coexistence.
NIS+ and Cell Directory Service (CDS)
CDS is the "cell" or organizational naming service within the Open Software Foundation's Distributed Computing Environment. NIS+ is similar to CDS in that both services are designed to address the naming and resource location requirements of higher-level network entities such as users, systems and network services within enterprise networks.
NIS+ provides a significant advantage for the installed base of enterprise client/server networks. NIS+ represents a natural and cost-effective evolution for software and hardware vendors, and for end-user environments supporting NIS. In addition, sites requiring support for DCE CDS can use naming interoperability features, such as the Name Service Switch and federated naming (discussed in the preceding section), to have it coexist with NIS+.
Multivendor Support for NIS+
ONC distributed computing technology (a foundation technology of SunSoft's Solaris 1.0 operating system) has become the de facto industry standard for heterogeneous connectivity and the development of next-generation distributed applications. NIS is a component of the ONC platform. ONC specifications are widely published and the source code can be licensed from SunSoft, Inc. Currently, more than 100 implementations of ONC are available for diverse operating environments like DOS, Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare, OS/2, Apple Macintosh, UNIX System V Release 4, DEC Ultrix, IBM AIX, HP/UX, DEC VMS, IBM MVS and IBM VM. The installed base of ONC exceeds 3.1 million systems, while the installed base of ONC NIS exceeds 2.8 million systems.
The new NIS+ enterprise naming service is a component of ONC+, the next- generation version of Open Network Computing (ONC) in Solaris 2.0 and beyond. ONC+ consists of a set of new and enhanced core services for enterprise-wide distributed computing. ONC+ services, including NIS+, TI- RPC, and enhanced NFS, are completely compatible and will interoperate with the installed base of ONC services, including NFS, NIS, and RPC services.
In addition to offering NIS+ as an integrated component of the Solaris operating environment, SunSoft is actively marketing NIS+ to software and hardware vendors. This is to ensure availability of NIS+ on multivendor platforms and to allow vendors currently supporting NIS to provide the benefits of NIS+ to their customers.
If you fall into such a vendor category and desire to license NIS+, please contact your SunSoft sales representative. If you're a user of NIS and require NIS+ support on multivendor platforms, please contact your software and hardware suppliers for their plans and timeframes for NIS+ support.
Appendix A: References
Some of the references are from the SunOS 5.1 Documentation Set. SunOS 5.1 is the base operating system component of Solaris 2.1 operating environment currently scheduled for release in early 1993.
1. NIS+ Architecture White Paper. This paper presents an overview of the architecture of NIS+.
2. SunOS 5.1 Document Set: Administering NIS+ and DNS (Part Number 801- 2856-10). A technical manual that describes how to set up and administer NIS+ and DNS
3. "All About NIS+", a book to be published by Sun Microsystems Press/Prentice Hall in November 1992. It describes the NIS+ service, compares it to DNS and NIS, and provides instructions for setting up and administering NIS+.
4. SunOS 5.0 NIS+ manual pages. nis(1) manual page provides a high-level introduction to the concepts and capabilities of NIS+.
5. Solaris Federated Services white paper. This paper describes SunSoft's vision for distributed computing and how federated services supports that vision in allowing transparent access to Solaris applications and users to resources across the multivendor, global network.
