Product Review - Taurus Groupware Appliance

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Nowadays, there's an 'appliance' for just about everything. As companies have rushed to meet our need for appliance based computing, we have been presented with firewall appliances, file server appliances, web server appliances, virus checking appliances and a multitude of others that fulfill practically every other need we do (or don't) have.

While appliance based computing has caught on, at least to a certain extent, some companies find themselves actually spending more money on a number of appliances than they would have spent on a single powerful server which would satisfy all their needs, albeit at the expense of additional complexity.

And it is this complexity, as they say, that is the appliances vendors 'Ace in the Hole'. By presenting a certain feature set in a single box, appliances remove a large part of the complexity that comes from managing a server running an OS like Linux, NetWare or Windows Server. So, if you want the simplicity of an appliance, but don't want to have a collection of appliance boxes each performing just one or two tasks, the answer is to have a single box that does more than one thing. For the functions needed by departmental and small business users, these one-box-for-all appliances come in the form of so-called 'groupware appliances'.

One such appliance is the Taurus Groupware C360 from Fremont, CA. based Celestix Networks. The 360 comes replete with a full set of network functionality and also includes the Cybozu Share360 Office Collaboration Suite, an Intranet based groupware application.

The built in OS of the Taurus appliance provides file and print server, firewall, proxy, email, DHCP, web server, FTP server, email and VPN capabilities. The Share360 software further offers a scheduler, a 'whereabouts' feature, a bulletin board, web based email, address book, To Do list, a discussion forum program, a Cabinet which facilitates the sharing of files with other users, memos function, Project planning tools and Web forms which provide a workflow type system for standard forms within an organization. In simple terms, what all this means is that the Taurus is able to provide almost every service that a department, workgroup, or small to medium sized business will need, all in a unit that's no larger than a box of cereal.

The Tech Spec's
Although the appliance is housed in a toaster-like freestanding enclosure, it is basically a Linux based PC. It has an Intel Celeron processor running at 900Mhz, 256MB RAM, a 40GB Hard Drive and 2 100BaseT network connections. The front of the system is host to a 3" backlit LCD screen which displays startup information and can also be used, with navigation buttons, for performing basic configuration tasks. The small screen also shows disk and CPU usage during operation. Access to the 'front user interface' or FUI can be limited by removing a smart card from a slot on the front of the unit. According to Celestix the same smart card reader can be used for uploading configurations.

Internet connectivity can be achieved by external modem through a 9-pin serial port, by a PC Card (PCMCIA) modem or through one of the standard network connections. The aforementioned proxy and firewall capabilities take care of connection sharing and security.

The PCMCIA card slot also gives the ability (provided it is not used for Internet access) to configure the Taurus as a wireless (802.11b) device. Other ports on the device include two USB ports, and infra-red port and a keyboard input.

First Looks
Powering up the appliance reminds you that, like many other appliances, the Taurus is based on Linux. Messages flash up on the small LCD screen informing you that Eth0 is being brought up [OK] and so on. Once the system is up, you must perform some basic network configuration from the FUI (gotta love that acronym) to allow you to connect to the device with a Web browser.

Connecting to the device for the first time takes you into a basic administration interface from which you can further configure network connections, set the administrator password and perform other basic tasks. Once this step is complete and saved, the Taurus restarts. Now, when you connect, you are taken in to the standard configuration interface, which is minimalist and very simple to use. The interface provides access to all of the configuration options for the device including the ability to stop and restart the services offered by the appliance. An example of the configuration interface can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Administration/Configuration Interface.

Administering the Taurus
Administration tasks are straightforward, a fact which has a great deal to do with the basic nature of the options available. For example, user account creation is simple, with the only options available being the ability to specify a disk quota for the user, whether the user is allowed Internet access or whether they get administrator equivalency. While such a simple approach has it's advantages, it is in areas such as this that products like the Taurus have a potential weakness. With no configurable password policy, the Taurus is arguably less secure than an OS based server. Not that this may be an issue in environments that might typically use an appliance like the Taurus, but it is a consideration that should be factored in if you are sensitive about security.

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