Discuss about the Operating Systems.
Operating System or OS is software that connects a user to the system which gives common services to all the programs in the system. Everything requires the OS to run except for the firmware. OS can be termed as the bridge between the users and the computer that helps in performing the task with ease. It is the most important program that needs to be installed in the computer so that the computer can run any kind of third party programs and applications. It also helps in performing the basic tasks such as it controls the input and output, keeping track of files in the directories, manages space and also helps in controlling the peripherals such as keyboards, mouse and many more. It also helps in running multiple applications at a time also it makes sure that applications does not crash. With larger systems, the operating system has even greater task to perform like handling multiple things at a same time, performing critical tasks and allows multithreading so as to allow multiple applications in different space. There are different types of operating system such as Single and Multi-Tasking OS, Single and Multi-User OS, Templated, Embedded, Real-time and Library. Operating systems can be classified into different types like Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS and Solaris (Jobs et al., 2014).
A Computer Operating system offers Multi-User Operating system that allows several users to work on different systems or terminals so that they can access the shared OS all over the terminal. The problem with this is that it is quite complicated and are necessary as per the requirements of different users those who are connected on the same network. Multi user OS gives access to users who are in the same terminals that gives them the access to the terminal as well as to other systems on the same system such as the scanner and printers. It is very much different from the Single User OS as in Single user, only one use in charge of the whole network while on Multi user; different users are able to share on the same network and access different peripherals from distance.
The operating system is the most important thing as it gives multiple users to access the same terminal while using only one OS. It is also manages memory and keeps track of the processing of different kinds of application and programs that run on the system. It also recognizes the peripherals and also helps in handling the user interaction and helps in checking the data requests. It is very important for the system which is accessed by multiple users as it requires the system to work properly and all the request that are send should be acknowledged as fast as it can so that the work goes smoothly and if there is any difficulty performing the tasks, the OS can notify the users. These are mainly used by the mainframes and the main problem with the multi user OS is that, if for some reason the system fails, it would affect hundreds of users who are connected with the network. Multi users allows all of them to access the common data and process them at the same time in a single system which are connected with a bigger system through wired connections tough nowadays wireless connection is also possible (Stallings, 2014).
Businesses and offices often use the Multi User OS where there are multiple users who need to share the same information but cannot be installed particularly to each computer. The OS should be capable of handling all the tasks effectively and should fulfill different kinds of needs and requests that the users make. Multi User OS has a huge responsibility on the OS as it needs to give all the users the same resources in order to work efficiently by managing the usage of the resources and keeping the allocations for resources separately. This act ensures that it is does not hinder with the effort of another user and even if there is any error, it does not affect the whole system or different users who are connected to the network. For this reason, it becomes quite complicated as it needs to allocate resources to different users so that they can do their work without any problem so it becomes more difficult to implement as in the case of Single User OS, the OS needs to handle all kinds of operations and requests from a single user (Kim, Lee & Sohn, 2016).
Multi user allows the users to share the same document over the same network without using any external drives and it can be sent to any level of the organization that are connected over the same network. Multi user OS also allows the users to access different files from different systems and if any changes are required it can be done without any problem. Also, if there is any problem with a single system, it does not affect the other systems that are connected to the same network. The main advantage of using this kind of OS is that it offers time sharing which ensures that no two tasks are executing at the same time. If there is a queue, it ensures that the task with less time is executed first so that others need not to wait for the one who will need the maximum time (Karlsson & Eriksson, 2014). The operating system gives isolation to each process from other users which gives them the freedom to execute all the tasks concurrently.
There are few disadvantages also using the multi user operating system that if the network collapses, every system connected with the network will go down and no tasks will perform. Also, using this OS gives other users to access the files from different system which can be quite dangerous as this gives other users the authority to manipulate the data or even steal it. Connected to the same network means if there is an attack on the network, every single system will have to suffer and all the personal files will get stolen.
Microsoft released a group of server operating system under the brand name of Windows Server. The first windows server edition that was released by Microsoft was named as the Windows Server 2003 however the very first server edition that was released for the public were Windows NT 3.1 which were later followed by advanced Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows Server 2000 Server (Stallings, 2014). The Windows Server 2000 was the very first server to include Active Directory, DNS Server, DHCP Server, Group Policy and many other features which are used today (Walter & Karlsson, 2014). The Windows Server is broadly classified into four major era known as the NT Era (1993-1996), Active Directory Era (2000-2005), The Visualization Era (2008-2013) and Cloud Era (2016- to present).
1993
The first ever server that was released by Microsoft was the NT Server 3.1 which was based on a 32-bit architecture. It was released on 27th July, 1993. It is an extension for the very look alike Windows 3.1. It was developed by Microsoft with the help of IBM and was intended to rewrite as OS/2 operating system (Stallings, 2014).
1994
The second iteration of Windows Server was released on 21st September, 1994 and was named as NT Server 3.5. It aimed in improving the performance and stability issues that were present in NT 3.1. With NT .5, the very first Workstation and Server were introduced in the market. With the introduction of these, the NT changed to NT Advanced server. It also included Winsock and TCP/IP which is a vast improvement from the previous version.
1995
The third installment from Windows server line up was the NT Server 3.51. The version was released in the year 1995 in the month of May. It was an incremental update from the previous version but there were some major changes like the inclusion of PowerPC Architecture. It also included client/server support, PCMCIA support; NTFS file compression, 3D support in OpenGL, persistent IP routes which uses the TCP/IP and ToolTips.
1996
The fourth iteration was released on 31st July, 1996 and was named as the NT Server 4.0. It included the Windows Shell and also used the notation of “My”. There were some enhancements like high resolution color icons, wallpaper stretching and many more features. It was the final release which supports the Alpha, MIPS or PowerPC architecture (Walter & Karlsson, 2014).
2000
Windows Server 2000 was a major release and was the 5th version in the Microsoft Server lineup. It was released in the year 1999 on 15th December and later it was retailed on 17th February, 2000. It was officially the last version to use the Windows NT designation. It was released with 3 versions namely Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter which was aimed to work with the Windows 2000 Professional desktop OS. It was also a major release because it had the very first Active Directory Services along with NTFS 3.0, EFS, DFS and many more (Tulloch & Team, 2013).
2003
The 6th version of Windows Server family was released on 24th July 2003. It included XP GUI, improved performance and stability, better security features and an enhanced Active Directory Service. Microsoft also incorporated the .NET Framework and .NET branding. It supports the functioning of older apps and better deployment tools to ease the working from NT 4.0 (Walter & Karlsson, 2014).
2005
The next iteration of the Windows line up was the Windows Server 2003 R2 which was released in 6th December 2005. It was released for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. The key features that were included in this version were Centralized management tools, enhanced DFS, improved WAN data replication, better extranet support, password synchronization, storage manager and many more nifty features (Stanek, 2013).
2008
The 8th version of the lineup was named as the Windows Server 2008 which was released on 27th February 2008 and is the direct successor of Windows Server 2003 R2. Server Core was introduced for the very first time which was officially the back bone for the Windows Server with no shell, no IE, no .NET Framework. Also it included the Active Directory roles which were used for identity, certificate and other management services, Self-healing NTFS and Hyper-V (Schauland & Jacobs, 2016).
2009
The 9th version of the Windows server was named as the Windows Server 2008 R2. It was released on 22nd October, 2009. This version of windows server was built on the same kernel as Windows 7 and incorporated the new 7 GUI. It was the first server OS to have the 64-bit architecture. With the inclusion of 64-bit, many new features were added like heavy improvements in virtualization, Active Directory, a new IIS (7.5), better power management, added PowerShell 2.0 to the server core (Messenger & Strecke, 2013).
2012
3 years later, the Windows Server 2008 R2 got replaced with Windows Server 2012 which was a major update over the previous version. It featured the 8 GUI. It was officially released in September 2012. It came with pack of new features like the Server Manager, IIS 8, it got the ability to switch between Core and GUI, n newer version of Hyper-V and the introduction of Resilient File System (Ferrari, 2017).
2013
Next is the Windows 8.1 which was a minor update over the previous version. It was released on October 2013. It featured the 8.1 GUI which came with a new start button. Some of the major new features that were included in this version were the Windows PowerShell v4, Office 365, IIS 8.5, Windows Defender which was added in the core, Faster VM Development, VHD Duplication and enhanced Group policy (Rosales et al., 2013).
2016
The next major overhaul of the Windows Server OS came in the year 2016 which was termed as Windows 10. It is called as the most fundamentally re-engineered version of Windows server in a long time. Many features were added in this version for the first time like the Azure, System Center and Server Teams.
In the year 1987, two major companies AT&T and Sun announced they are coming together on a project to merge UNIX variants like the BSD, System V and Xenix which result in the Unix System V Release 4. On 4th September, 1991, Sun announced that it would replace all the existing BSD-derived UNIX, SunOS 4 with one based on SVR4. This was initially named as SunOS 5 but later changed to Solaris 2. The main reason this happened because it included new features like the OpenWndows graphical user interface and Open Network Computing (van Surksum, 2017). SunSoft slated that Solaris 2 was intent to support both SPARC and x86 systems as the first two Solaris systems were SPARC based only. In 1993, Solaris 2.1 was released with x86 version as a desktop and uniprocessor workgroup server operating system. In 1994, Solaris 2.4 was released which supported both the SPARC and x86 systems from a unified source code base (Berg et al., 2016).
The main difference between GUI and CLI is that GUI allows direct interaction with the systems with the help of keyboard and mouse while, CLI refers to the way the user interacts with the system with the help of typing some lines of code to the terminal window. CLI or Command Line is usually more difficult to master over the GUI provides highlevel of richness in the user interface (Jashnani et al., 2014). While using the Command Line, users got more control over the files and the operating system. Command line helps the users to have the multitasking even more possible but the only problem is that they do not give rich user interface that the GUI provides (Chiang et al., 2015). Also using the CLI, it reduces the efficiency that a user can get using the GUI. Command Line generally takes less of the resources of the computer (Remington, Yuen & Pashler, 2016). GUI or Graphical User Interface is usually more graphically rich and visually intuitive and every user uses the GUI over the CLI as it is more easy to understand and easy to handle. The GUI gives the user the access to manipulate various actions at a single time like viewing, controlling also managing the folders (Erickson, Thogmartin & Szymanski, 2014). With the help of keyboard and mouse, any user can perform any sort of task in the OS. Moreover, the problem with GUI is that it takes more resources than the CLI does (Childs, 2013). For this reason, it is quite slow when it comes to loading of icons and fonts. The greatest advantage of using the GUI is that users can create a shortcut for the applications that they use more frequently so they do not have to open the same thing again and again nor they need to write any code of lines for accessing the file or performing any task and Windows Server 2016 offers a great GUI to perform the tasks while on the other hand, CLI for every windows version is quite the same as all the versions are built on the same kernel (“What Is Server Core?”, 2017).
Users can check the network configuration either with the help of CLI or GUI. Both can be used to interact with NWAM configuration. In Solaris, a task can be performed by using the CLI or GUI depending on the type of task. But there are some differences between the CLI and GUI is that it differs in Functionality Differences that if any notification comes, with GUI they are displayed on the screen as soon as they pop up but with CLI, users need to manually see the notification by writing a line of code. If the user wants to check the status of the network using GUI, they need to hover the mouse over the network area to view while for CLI, the user needs to write a code manually to see the status (“Solaris Advanced User’s Guide”, 2017). In GUI, network configuration profile is called the Network Profile while in CLI; it is referred to as the network connections. GUI gives more detailed information about the network while using the CLI; a user can get a glimpse of information. Using GUI, enabling and disabling the NCPs is same as the command line for Switching network profiles or connections (“Introduction to the NWAM Graphical User Interface – Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization”, 2017) (Borges, 2014).
Conclusion
The Operating System is the most important thing that users need to install in their system so as to interact with the applications. There are different types of Operating System such as the Multi User OS, Single User OS, Templated, Real Time and library. Every OS has its own pros and cons. The most used form of OS that is used is the Multi user OS and Single User OS. The Single User OS is generally used for personal work like in home while in the Multi User OS, it is used in business where several computers are connected and in need to share files among each other. The main problem, using the Multi User OS is that it is connected over the same terminal or network so if the network fails, every system connected to it will stop working. As these progressed, there was a huge evolution of Windows Server and it went through major for changes. It started with NT 3.1 which has the minimalistic design and now in Windows 10, it got rich user interface. While Windows was on the rise, there was another OS names Oracle Solaris who started its journey in 1987 and is the base of all Operating Systems. With the evolution of operating system, founders have tried to rich the GUI so that the users may not need to run any line of codes as using the CLI is quite complicated and GUI runs with the help of keyboard and mouse as it does not require any line of codes. Also using the CLI, it minimizes the use of resources and GUI uses more resources than the CLI.
References
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