Introducing NetWare 6
Despite Microsoft's
dominance of the market,
I
f NetWare 5 was the pure IP release, NetWare 6 is about Web Services and
mobile computing. Fundamentally, however, NetWare 6 is a further step in the
evolution of Novell's 32 bit file and print Network Operating Systems (NOS).
It is not, though, 64 bit NetWare (aka Modesto), which is a complementary product
NetWare is still with us.
still in development.
And Novell's latest version
This analysis of NetWare 6 is based on the two day Novell NetWare 6 First Class
hands on workshop (
partnerweb.novell.com/partner/netware/nw6.html
), given
of its flagship product is
by Azlan (
www.azlan.co.uk
), using beta 2 code. The presence of debug code meant
better than ever.
that performance was comparatively poor but the software was feature complete
and generally stable.
By David Norfolk
Installation
Installation of NetWare 6 is straightforward and uses sensible defaults, including
use of Novell Storage Services (NSS) 64 bit architecture journaling file system. This
now supports the SYS volume, as the NetWare core has been rewritten to use NSS
journaling hard disk change logging for recovery for integrity, instead of the old
transaction tracking facility. There is now no reason not to use NSS, although
Novell's old file system is available if you want it.
Console One
One of the most obvious changes in NetWare 6 for experienced NetWare adminis
trators is the decreasing emphasis on NWAdmin, NetWare's idiosyncratic but
(when you know it well) extremely effective administration tool. Its immediate
replacement is Console One, NetWare's Java based and platform independent GUI
administration tool, with added snap in facilities. Console One can be slow unless
you have a well specified server. The days when NetWare would run fast and
effectively on hardware a generation behind that needed for Windows NT are over
GUI administration tools and a directory database really eat up CPU cycles.
Novell recommends a 700 MHz Pentium III, 512 MB RAM, a 1 GB DOS partition
and a 4 GB SYS partition on the server hard drive for a typical installation and,
although it's not possible to assess performance based on beta code, this seems
reasonable. On similar hardware, NetWare 6 is likely to be rather faster than
Windows 2000 on file and print operations. One small point, however, which has
been true for previous versions too: don't make the mistake of thinking that having
a DOS partition means DOS has anything to do with NetWare as a NOS. It simply
loads from DOS and once the sever is running there is no DOS in memory or
anywhere except as files (somewhat hard to get at from NetWare) in the DOS
partition.
Web based Management
The most exciting change for administrators is probably the arrival of Web based
management. Novell is committed to incorporating all of Console One's function
ality in Remote Manager, previously the NetWare Management Portal. This is a
powerful administration tool, ideally suited to an experienced network administra
tor who doesn't know NetWare well, and provides a superb user experience. For
example, feedback is via traffic light symbols (red for broken, yellow for impending
problem and green for OK) and there are impressive help facilities which tell you
how to get a symbol that's turned red or yellow back to green.
Remote Manager is now just about fully functional. It is also, arguably, a potential
security exposure since all that is between your network and the ability to dismount
Issue 136:November 2001
PC Network Advisor
File: R1619.1
page 19
Review:NetWare
www.pcnetworkadvisor.com
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