Network software pioneer Novell Inc. is dusting off its operating system and readying a version that highlights improved management and administration capabilities, as well as features targeted at the developer community. Read the article at eWeek.
Novell Revs Up NetWare
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Eugenia Loli
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What does Netware do that I can’t already do with my trusty old FreeBSD server? Back when 6.0 was in the works I downloaded their free beta but it wouldn’t install on my test box. Anyone fill me in on what’s so hot about Netware? The article has a point when it says that Novell doesn’t get the point across properly..
NetWare is INCREDIBLE. It’s integrated like no other Unix. User management is a snap. Managing your servers is a cinch. Everything is GUI based and there’s very little command line work that need be done.
I’m working on a Novell article. Wait and see.
Adam
Well, this depends on what your FreeBSD server is actually used for, but …
How about effectively managing an enterprise using a mature, stable directory service (NDS) ?
How about providing effective network connectivity including e-mail and file services to mobile users (Groupwise Webaccess, Netware Webaccess, iFolder)?
Netware is GREAT for these tasks, and no other platform can touch it in this regard. If you add Zenworks for Desktops, Zenworks for Servers, Zenworks for Handhelds and you have the ultimate platform for managing your network and providing ever service imagineable for your users … and it can all be managed through the directory.
The more appropriate question, to me, is… ‘what can I do with FreeBSD which I can’t do in Netware’?
>>The more appropriate question, to me, is… ‘what can I do with FreeBSD which I can’t do in Netware’?
euhh..make world?
Oh my is right. We have it at work in a mixed Windows/Novell environment. Novell quite frankly crashes way more than my Windows 2000 boxes. Blech!
I’ve been deploying and supporting NetWare for about thirteen years, I’ve also been deploying and supporting various Nix’s for about six years. Both have a place in an enterprise, as they have different strengths.
No UNIX can compare to NetWare for file and print services, nor for GroupWare, nor for cross-enterprise management capabilities. NDS is massively powerful – Novell has owned network management since the 4x days because of it, and there is no end in sight. ZENWorks leverages NDS to provide an amazing administrator:user ratio.
I’ve deployed NetWare boxes which support many hundreds of concurrent users on a *single* machine, which can easily attain uptimes which are measured in _years_. It is a great performer too – nothing can touch it for file-serving speed.
Novell has the right idea here, they are gearing more and more of their entire product line to proven open standards. Hell they are writing NEW open standards all the time and contributing to the community – something that our friends in Redmond certainly would never do.
Apache on NetWare is an excellent example of how it *can* be a great development platform. MySQL, Postgres, and other killer open-source solutions will thrive on this platform for years to come.
.. doesn’t mean its the operating system’s fault. you build a box with 3rd rate components, or ancient hardware.. would you build an enterprise system on this?? the point is.. everyone says every other os crashes, and that’s their argument. give it up.
Let’s give the dead horse that is Novell another kick!
*thump*
It’s fun!
Bob:
We run Netware for pretty much everything except serving applications… and on a handful of servers. The Netware 5.1 file server at the plant i’m working at acts as a file server, print server, E-mail server and Groupwise web access server servicing about 100 workstations … and our Uniprocessor Athlon 1.2 GHz, 1 GB DDR workstation is BORED. It has more than enough processor power and resources to handle other services such as Zenworks and document libraries once they are implemented.
Stability is not a concern for us. Downtime is rare during production hours. It has its faults for sure. It is not quite as stable as many Unixes, especially when you’re loading and unloading NLM’s all the time (assuming, of course, you don’t opt to load them in protected memory) but this is worth the tradeoff. On top of that its server-side GUI tools are downright UGLY and non-intuitive. The command line and its curses-like configuration system pre-5.x did the job just fine.
And yes, Bas, the BSD ports system is pretty nice but not something which would compel me to migrate our network to *BSD.
Man I remember getting my CNE back in 3.12 days. Have not touch one since 5 came out.
Novell was not easy, but very stable once you got it going. Only OS I know of where you can unmount the boot partition to repair it while keeping the OS running and the shared partitions going.
Dam good OS.. Very very very expensive.
Only OS I know of where you can unmount the boot partition to repair it while keeping the OS running and the shared partitions going.
Maybe I haven’t understood what you mean, but my linux boot partition is always unmounted: I only mount it when i want to update my kernel…
Jim:
I believe you. It is just not my experience. We are running 6 on our servers (brand new Compaqs) and have problem after problem. We have had wierd corruptions of the user database to the point that the one of the admins couldn’t log on.
WebAccess: Times out often, though we have tweaked the Apache web server and that has gone down some.
ConsoleOne: Don’t get me started! It doesn’t even do everything NWAdmin did. It is slow (based on Java) and has refresh issues.
Not to mention that fact that our Novell servers don’t like our Windows servers. We are running NDS on our Windows server and every new user we create has to have the password manually retyped in the Windows user manager.
Novell good? It may be. I just haven’t seen it.
We run about 40 Windows desktops on a Novell network. In three years it’s never failed apart from one external power failure. We also run a small NT based network- just five machines. I can count the down time almost as much as the up time.
The Novell WebAccess thingy is good, but god only knows why it does not support ICal. I would like to use my work Novell calander for everything (I don’t have a windows workstation at my job, only Linux) but I need a way to sync it to my Evolution at home. Alas, there is no solution.
What ever happened to Netware. For a company who at one time had the leading Network OS they have really gone down hill. I think they didnt move to IP quick enough and held onto the old IPX as everyone else was moving to IP based networks. We had a Netware 3.12 server that ran without a reboot for 2 years until the hard drive died. I think Novell have been left in the dust by NT,UNIX and an amateur hack OS that starts with L.
These days where i work we have no need for Netware and all our stuff is win2k and FreeBSD.
NetWare’s security model and managment tools are better than any Win or *nix platform, and have been for years.
Hmm… They will screw it up somehow. This is the same company that can take something simple – like a proxy server – and actually make it MORE complicated by sticking an unintuitive interface on top of it. Then again, when a good deal of your income comes from training…
Just wondering … when was the last time you guys saw a Novell ad on tv or in a newspaper ? Are they so broke they can’t even pay for advertising in the traditional media ?
Why not follow in the steps of IBM or Micro$oft for example ? After all, probably many IT managers have watched the IBM commercial featuring detectives who were called upon to investigate the disappearance of a company’s servers, only to discover the resident geek had replaced them with a single Linux server. And don’t even get me started on Bloatware XP launch by Micro$oft…
Indeed, novell is quite stable as File server.
the problem lies with ConsoleOne (painfully slow and buggy)
lack of scripting environment (except if you go all Ms and
use a gateway); Ndps is so bad that we returned back to local tcpip ports on the pcs !; and Zenworks is for me the worst deployment application ever. (as buggy as can be, lacks not only enterprise-level installation scripting, but better yet, most ‘features’ announced in the product do not work at all. windows 2000 Policies’ implementation is a piece of #### and works only randomly)
so if you want a good file and print server, go novell, but do not forget that you’ll have to install the novell client on all your clients and transform them in x486-like powerfull pcs !
I host a GroupWise WebAccess server which also hosts SMTP, POP3, is a primary GW server and hosts document libraries as well. I’m serving it from a single-CPU NetWare 5.1 box and using NetWare Enterprise Web Server (formerly known as Netscape Enterprise). It serves about 500-600 users and acheives *months* of uptime with ease. I’ve never had a dropped-session problem with it. I take it down to patch it but otherwise I completely forget that it’s there. The users are using Mozilla, Konquerer, and IE and have no problems with it. It’s kind of slow from dialup, but then what isn’t?
As for ConsoleOne – it sucked pretty hard in the early days but I’m finding 1.3.4 to be pretty good, it’s faster and quite stable – I’m still no huge fan of it though because of the Java bloat. It’s moot anyway, that was -YESTERDAYS- NetWare, now everything is Web-Based; check out iManager, you don’t need C1 anymore, just a browser.
NDPS is -the bomb-, if you have problems with it then there is something wrong because we have it deployed at seven locations hosting hundreds of printers of varying makes and models. It automatically deploys the drivers to the desktops and provides awesome access-management control. If you have problems with ZENWorks also then you may need to do some more research because thousands of enterprises use it every day and have saved millions on administration costs.
As for Novell getting into TCP/IP too late, I always laugh at that statement – IPX is a better protocol in many ways, especially for single-site networks. Besides, they’ve supported IP for years; just not as the transport for NCP. Since at least 3.12 you could bind IP though and use the server as an IP router. In the 4x days you could use NetWare/IP if TCP/IP was a huge requirement for you, although it sucked that you had to buy it as an extra.
Finally (I’m long-winded) I’d like to point out to the guy who mentioned thumping the dead horse that Novell is still mostly debt-free, still has a great market share in Fortune 500 companies, and powers some pretty gigantic systems such as CNN’s. If you think they are dead just because the stock is $3, you may want to look again…
Just wondering … when was the last time you guys saw a Novell ad on tv or in a newspaper ? Are they so broke they can’t even pay for advertising in the traditional media ?
Why not follow in the steps of IBM or Micro$oft for example ?
It’s interesting that you mention IBM and condemn Novell for their lack of advertising. Remember how poorly IBM advertised OS/2 when they were competing with Windows 95 and Windows NT? The same criticism can be levelled there. And YES, Novell does have an ad campaign. I haven’t seen many ads outside of the web, although I don’t really read many papers or watch much television either.
believe you. It is just not my experience. We are running 6 on our servers (brand new Compaqs) and have problem after problem. We have had wierd corruptions of the user database to the point that the one of the admins couldn’t log on.
The directory will become slowly corrupted over time. The numerous objects and scheme extensions that have been added has made this unavoidable (and without extra overhead and performance sacrifices! Imagine that!) That’s what DSRepair is for. It can be done during production hours with few problems with only a short window of time during which new users will be unable to log in (users already logged in won’t be affected)
WebAccess: Times out often, though we have tweaked the Apache web server and that has gone down some.
Sounds like a problem with Apache for Netware. We’ve used the web server which comes with 5.1 and haven’t had any of those kinds of problems.
ConsoleOne: Don’t get me started! It doesn’t even do everything NWAdmin did. It is slow (based on Java) and has refresh issues.
This is where Novell dropped the ball, I believe. There should be one standard interface where you can control everything. Fortunately, iManage (6.x) and the Netware Management Portal help in this regard.
Not to mention that fact that our Novell servers don’t like our Windows servers. We are running NDS on our Windows server and every new user we create has to have the password manually retyped in the Windows user manager.
All I have to say is “If product=novell then BREAK”
For a company who at one time had the leading Network OS they have really gone down hill. I think they didnt move to IP quick enough and held onto the old IPX as everyone else was moving to IP based networks.
Netware supported IP back in the 3.x days. Sure, it was encapsulated within IPX but it did support it.
Netware has moved past that anyway. It is no longer an issue since the primary protocol is now IP. In the meantime, they’ve refined NDS, added many new management and convenience features, and are STILL one of the most secure NOS platforms around.
I think Novell have been left in the dust by NT,UNIX and an amateur hack OS that starts with L.
No, no and HELL no. Not for file and print services, and certainly not for network management services.
Netware does have scripting capabilities. They are rather simplistic, but they do exist. I’ve never really found a need for scripting within Netware since all management tasks are taken care of using their management tools.
so if you want a good file and print server, go novell, but do not forget that you’ll have to install the novell client on all your clients and transform them in x486-like powerfull pcs !
Give me a break …
then I moved to another job which wasn’t related to netWare, unfortunately. NetWare was a snap to administer, I could manage hundreds of users and groups and login scripts while happily whistling. But those were the days when NWadmin was still in use, and ConsoleOne was just an option. Did they drop NWadmin with NetWare 6.0?
I will never forget how easy it was to setup a NetWare server, even a NetWare 3.1x server. Yes, back then you might have to follow some bizarre procedure to setup your netcard the first time, but the point is, it never failed! You never had to think that you would have connectivity problems that are difficult to debug. Also, with NetWare you could do things such as replacing a failed netcard and reconfiguring it while the server is still up! Not only that, but you could redirect the traffic from one netcard to the other while users would only perceive a slow-down in connectivity! Netware was one of the first to have mirrorable and expandeable volumes (which you didn’t have to pay extra for), and later, with NW 5.0 they introduced Novell Storage Services, which is, quite frankly, still unsurpassed, alien technology (something like BeOS). Even Veritas volume manager doesn’t have many of the NSS features.
Oh, and of course, there’s NDS, a directory service capable of scaling to trillions of objects – no wonder the french govt chose it for administering the whole of france’s population. Even RedHat chose NDS for their RedHat Network.
Actually, I remember that, back in my days, Novell was releasing -several- scripting tools for the server: there was a javascript-like scripting tool, there was also some kind of vbscript, and of course, the default console scripting, which was quite a bit improved in NW 5.0. Yes, now I remember: they improved the NW console command line almost to the point of a standard UNIX shell, with NW 5.0, allowing me to do some rather kinky things.
>Maybe I haven’t understood what you mean, but my linux boot partition is always unmounted: I only mount it when i want to update my kernel…
.
In Novel you can load all you tools into memory and unmount your boot partition. It’s like unmounting your C> drive on windows or your root partition on Unix while your system is running. Do your repairs and re-mount the partition.
“and powers some pretty gigantic systems such as CNN’s.”
I used to work for CNN until about a year ago. I never saw hide nor hair of a Novell server. We had 70% Unix servers 10% Linux servers 5% Windows 2000 servers 15% Mac servers. On the desktops it was about even with Macs and PCS. When you started at CNN you got a choice of a MAC or a PC.Jeans and tee’s were ok (some web programers if not all wore no shoes all day at work) It was a pretty cool place to work.
Now I work in a Bank fixing computers. It’s 30% Novell 69% Windows 2000 server and 1% Linux.
I have to wear a tie ever day to. 
“and powers some pretty gigantic systems such as CNN’s.”
I used to work for CNN until about a year ago. I never saw hide nor hair of a Novell server.
Go to CNN.com … notice the “Powered by Novell” logo at the very bottom of the page?
CNN runs NDS eDirectory on the NetWare 5 platform, or at least they did at the time of this article’s writing:
http://www.novell.com/success/cnn.html
CNN is only one example among many of the huge companies that require that which can only be delivered by NDS. The scalability of this product is unmatched – the next closest directory solution isn’t even fit to carry NDS’s briefcase. With NetWare + Cluster Services I’d be surpised if CNN is running NDS on anything other than NetWare…
Many more in-depth articles about some of these large-scale implementations can be found at:
http://www.novell.com/success
Well the area where I worked (support for CNN.com end users and the reporters and video editors) we never saw any Novell servers at all. No Novell Clients on the desktop and no Novell configurations that I knew about. I worked there 2 years. The administrator group was on the other side of the building and that was the heart of CNN.com. The server rooms (on the production side of the building) were buzzing away with Unix, Linux, and Windows 2000. We used Linux to publish the cnn.com webpages. The server farm for CNN.com runs Novell eDirectory. So if there was any Novell servers I never touched or used them. Sorry for the confussion, but man that MIS department is spread all over the building.