Overview	Presentations	Schedule	Exhibitors	Vendor100
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Vendor100 Goes "Full Enterprise"
at Warp Expo West

Network Platform To Be WiseManager on OS/2

August 31, 1999 - Vendor100 has grown to "Full Enterprise" size and Warp Expo West is upgrading the entire Vendor100 exhibitor space to a new technology managed client network.

"You'll be able to walk up to any client system on the network and run any Vendor100 application," said Rollin White, Chairman of Warp Expo West. "No guest will have to wait in line for a chance to use a single dedicated system running a single vendor's software. Everything will run everywhere."

The entire Vendor100 suite of software from dozens of developers will be hosted on the newly engineered network, and guests will have the unique experience of not being restricted to a particular vendor's machine in order to try their software. The network servers will use WiseManager from Serenity Systems to manage all the clients.

"WiseManager doesn't use the hard disk in your system," explained Kim Cheung, Executive Director for Serenity. "You install each application once at the server, and every client system then uses that copy. And it's totally configurable for each user. You still have your own configuration files, your own data files. But it's all stored on the server."

"There's a big savings here. Most of an application's files never change, so we only need one server copy. The few small files that do, such as configuration files, are stored in the user's personal file space. WiseManager uses the personal file if it exists, or uses the common file otherwise."

Every network administrator should carefully go over the Vendor100 network that will run continuously during Warp Expo West. The network build team will be available for questions.

"It's great for us because, if a client machine breaks, we just replace it, turn on the new one, and boot from the network. We don't have to install anything, and we're up and running again instantly," commented White.

Cheung himself supervised the installation of the dozens of different software applications on the servers. "It went fast, not much different from a single client install, and when one vendor sent an upgrade we only had to upgrade one machine - the server - not every client," said Cheung. "Suppose we had 50 machines! We'd have to install the upgrade 50 times if we didn't have a managed client network. WiseManager handles any size network -- up to 64,000 clients."

"We're also going to show how to install this new type of network, and discuss the cost and security benefits of using diskless workstations," Cheung said.

Managed client networks are a bold new technology for OS/2 network administrators, and every businessman and every OS/2 user with an interest in networking should make a point of studying and discussing the Vendor100 network - at Warp Expo West!

Warp Expo West is free and held on September 18th in southern California. Contact Rollin White if you have questions or would like to volunteer.

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