Network OS (M6.5)

An Operating System(O.S.) is a System software that manages the hardware resources and provides services to the Application software. There are many types of operating systems depending upon its features and functionalities. They can be Batch O.S., Multitasking O.S., Multiprocessing O.S., Network O.S., Hybrid O.S., etc.

Network OS

Network Operating System is a computer operating system that facilitates to connect and communicate various autonomous computers over a network.

• The Network O.S. mainly runs on a powerful computer, that runs the server program. 
• It facilitates the security and capability of managing the data, user, group, application, and other network functionalities. 
• The main advantage of using a network o.s. is that it facilitates the sharing of resources and memory amongst the autonomous computers in the network. 
• It can also facilitate the client computers to access the shared memory and resources administered by the Server computer. 
• In other words, the Network O.S. is mainly designed to allow multiple users to share files and resources over the network. 
• The Network O.S. is not transparent in nature. The workstations connected in the network are aware of the multiplicity of the network devices. 
• The Network Operating Systems can distribute their tasks and functions amongst connected nodes in the network, which enhances the system overall performance. 
• It can allow multiple access to the shared resources concurrently, which results in efficiency. 
• One of the major importance of using a Network O.S. is remote access. 
• It facilitates one workstation to connect and communicate with another workstation in a secure manner. 
• For providing security, it has authentication and access control functionality. 
• The network o.s. implements a lot of protocols over the network, which provides a proper implementation of the network functionalities. 
• One drawback of Network O.S. is its tightly coupled nature in the network.

Some examples of Network O.S. are Novel Netware, Microsoft Windows server (2000, 2003, 2008), Unix, Linux, etc.

There are mainly two types of Network O.S., they are:

1. Peer-to-Peer Network Operating System is an operating system in which all the nodes are functionally and operationally equal to each other.
2. Client-Server Networking Operating System operates with a single server and multiple client computers in the network.

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Examples

1.Novel Netware, 

2.Linux

3.Windows 2000

4.Macintosh OS