Cd-Rom Jukebox Management Software

Emedia Professional, March, 1999 by David Doering

In the past, hardware was also more expensive. Hardware demands to support the jukebox then made the system more costly. This gave the edge to management products which conserved the resources of the server for regular file access. Today, most jukebox management software requirements include the following:

* Intel Pentium NetWare 4.x or 5.0 or Windows NT 4.0 server

* 64MB RAM

* 100MB hard drive space for management software

* 4GB hard drive space for caching

* 1GB SCSI hard drive on a dedicated bus for CD recording

With enormous across-the-board improvements in out-of-the-box PC systems that allow most network users to take these capacities for granted, these needs are now easily met with a base system at almost no additional charge. Consequently, the product focus now shifts away from hardware demands as a primary buying decision. Finally, two years ago, caching was just beginning and soon would become all the rage for CD-ROM access. And the plummeting cost of hard disk space at first made this caching option an attractive feature. Very quickly, though, it made the Read-only nature of a dedicated CD-ROM system seem outdated and inflexible. Users could maintain their full content on hard drive rather than retain the CD-ROMs in a jukebox. Today, then, the jukebox not only must include caching, but must have the Read/Write capability to become an archiving tool, not a software program central storage device.

MDI'S SCSI EXPRESS 4.5 FOR NT

SCSI Express, in the two years since we first mentioned it, remains amongst the leaders of jukebox management. Improved documentation, expanded and automated hardware support, and UDF support maintain its position as a contemporary solution. The product, however, is not as sexy as Euroson/PoiNT Software's PoiNT or as full-featured as say Ornetix' CD-Vision with its remote jukebox diagnostics. Administrators of heterogeneous networks can use the NetWare version of SCSI Express, a mature and solid product which we have tested in the past along with the NT version. Until PoiNT software came along, the NT version of SCSI Express was our choice for CD-ROM access. Now, the choice is somewhat more difficult.

SCSI Express (by the way, why no IDE or ATA Express?) supports more hardware than almost any other competitor. This should make SCSI Express a prime candidate to become a more generalized storage manager, not just CD-ROM access.

ORNETIX' CD-VISION 4.10

Ornetix is the pioneer of network-attached storage as well as a pioneer in CD-ROM access on the network. CD-Vision remains a solid tool for this access, but it is one of the oldest products reviewed here (having been last fully updated in March 1998.) We are curious to see whether Ornetix will focus on its HyperLinq thin server line or return to its software roots with a Read/Write version of CD-Vision.

In the past, we strongly recommended the Ornetix solution package--both the CD-Vision and the title management tool CD Commander. No one offered a better set of tools for read-only access, and that continues now. We are still happy with the product. It has good documentation and a wide range of supported hardware.