Cd-Rom Jukebox Management Software

Emedia Professional, March, 1999 by David Doering

In many ways, it's an exciting time to be looking at the CD-ROM jukebox management software scene, as oxymoronic as that statement may seem. Though no thrill-packed roller coaster ride of glamour, intrigue, high drama, and nail-biting suspense, jukebox software remains an eventful corner of the optical biz. For one thing, tagging the CD-ROM label on these products is increasingly misleading; all the top names reviewed here offer support for DVD as well as CD-ROM, if not in the current package, then in one right around the corner (most are ready now; they're just waiting for the hardware gang to get the DVDs into the boxes). Smart Storage has even renamed its product to highlight its contemporary device support (from SmartCD to SmartCD DVD). Furthermore, all support reading CD-R media and many also record to either CD-R or DVD-RAM.

In fact, a better title might read: 120mm Optical Jukebox Software, but that'd be about as eye-grabbing as 40% Bran Flakes in a Saturday morning cartoon spot and "optical" always connotes MO or WORM even though it applies as well or better to the CD-style disc. And it wouldn't really capture the sense of a product genre aggressively embracing new technologies as fast as they roll off the line, which these tools clearly are.

That said, this roundup may be the last hurrah for this category of software as discrete and identifiable products. Like printer drivers, jukebox support software may well move into specific applications or to the operating system itself. The last time we did a jukebox software roundup, two years ago, even rudimentary support for CD-ROM in both NetWare and Windows NT demanded the use of an effective third-party solution.

Today, however, the situation has changed for the better--at least on the user end. Both NT and NetWare now have more effective optical support right out of the box. Users interested in basic access can now depend on the operating system itself. High-end users are also finding it easier to locate a bundled solution with jukebox access software along with the application. For example, the prepress vertical market looks towards digital asset management software which combines both tasks, rather than pursuing a separate purchasing decision.

But today's market teems with a solid range of effective tools offering features optimized for various network environments serving CDs and DVDs via jukebox systems. Our roundup covers products available for Novell NetWare and Microsoft Windows NT Server to support CD-ROM or DVD-ROM jukeboxes. While various products are also available for the UNIX, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems, those won't be covered here. And other products, such as Kofax' Ascent Storage, while designed for the NetWare and NT platforms, fall outside this roundup's purview because they support only WORM and MO devices.

READ/WRITE NOW THE RULE

Software isn't the only means to gain access to a CD-ROM jukebox. Several hardware thin servers are also available to provide this service. Thin servers have the virtue of being almost instantly ready to perform their duties upon bootup, while the software side of things requires some type of configuration, then a rebooting of the server to gain access to the storage device. In the past, we differentiated between various products based on their location: host-based or thin-server-based. While that remains true today, more important is Read-only versus Read/Write solutions in CD-only or DVD and CD varieties. This only reflects the kind of jukebox offerings today, all of which now incorporate at least one CD-Recordable drive. Several vendors have promised to ship DVD-RAM-equipped jukeboxes in 1Q 1999 with more on the way.

Most users then, expect their software to provide both services, not just file system access as was the case two years ago. In the meantime, much has been made about the brief flirtation with pseudo-Web servers as a product category in jukebox networking. However, this quickly changed to being an incorporated feature as in Ornetix' CD-Vision software and ceased to be a distinction worthy of lengthy note. Network Web browsers simply access the jukebox through the IP protocol instead of through an SMB or NCP call as with NT or NetWare.

MANAGEMENT DIFFERS TOOL-TO-TOOL

A second change is the move to include more or less management services into the product. Microtest's DiscPort Executive continues to grow with more functions, while iXOS' Jukeman remains a stream-lined product seemingly better suited for incorporation into the operating system and thus completely invisible to the user. Smart Storage has also announced plans to make its product more an overarching storage manager and not just a simple CD-ROM access tool. A previous concern was integration with the native operating system's security schema. Many CD-ROM read-only tools provided their own security, bypassing the network's schema. Today, all the major products support either NT's or NetWare's NDS security. Administrators can use the same tool to apply rights to CD-ROMs as they would for hard-disk-based storage.