Novell sees a growing role for Linux in its software future – but where does that leave NetWare?
Novell Takes Linux Exit; To Drop NetWare?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Didn’t novell try the Unix aproach already and failed miserably?
I’ts simply amazing seing history repeat it self many times (atleast twice, anyway) ouver my lifetime – Gulf War, the Unix wars, Novell failing at Unix, etc.
Moo
novel tried OWNING Unix and then building a system on it, but that was to damn expensive…..
all tehy need to and should do is port netware over to Linux and use that rather than DOS for boot time.
novel tried OWNING Unix and then building a system on it, but that was to damn expensive…..
I would say that’s true. Novell failed because Novell gave it a halfassed try. they were perfectly happy being non-innovative, they had their cash cow and the rode it to the end. then they ended up being left in a wtf mode for the last 5 years or so, because they didn’t fight back.
they gave up on wordperfect, they gave up on Unix, and now it seems like they’re finally giving up on Netware… they’re just an old tech company that can’t be taught new tricks. I was beginning to think IBM was in the same boat until recently.
all tehy need to and should do is port netware over to Linux and use that rather than DOS for boot time.
well, NDS in the form of eDirectory was ported to Unix, Linux and NT some time ago. I remember getting a promo(or was it a beta, eh who cares) cd set for eDirectory/Caldera way back.
as for porting the whole of Netware over to Linux, what’s the point? Netware was a complete os, not an extension to DOS as your post tends to suggest. DOS was used for bootstrapping only. once you executed server.exe the real boot process begins, the netware kernel is loaded, etc… the same thing happens in the Windows 9X boot process and the Linux boot process, if you use loadlin to bring the system up.
I would say that’s true
errr, wouldn’t.
and /b, heh
How about eDirectory for Apple. They need some help with Directory Services.
This is nothing new. NetWare already is usually installed on a DOS partition. Novell has been attempting to build NetWare onto a Linux kernel for some time.
My take is that eventually, NetWare will morph into something new.
Years ago I heard of a Netware version for UNIX called Portable Netware. What ever happened to it?
Okay…somebody needs to ask it and I probably already have enough…er…”karma”…so I’ll ask it: I know that Novell Netware is something to do with networking for WANs…but what exactly _is_ it and why pay so much damn money (I assume you would) for it!?
Netware is a NOS- a Network Operating System. Where as with Windows 2K and Linux you have OSes that work as desktop environments and also servers, Netware is the server software and some basic client utilities to interact with network resources.
NetWare is definitely not installed in a DOS partition. It only uses a tiny DOS partition for the bootloader.
Novell has been attempting to build NetWare onto a Linux kernel for some time.
Completely false. Novell never tried to do such a thing.
As far as I remember, it was a port of NetWare for SPARC (I am not entirely sure about this) and used SunOS for a bootloader. But this is a very, very old story. We’re looking in the prehistory of Novell, basically.
IMO, Netware 6 is the best NOS of all. Superior directory services, excellent user and resource management, great file and printer services, remote management, disparate network interoperability, and you can throw anything into a Netware 6 network- Linux, Windows, Mac, servers and clients, you name it, netware will make them play nice. It’s too bad they’ve not been more successful. On its technical and usability merits it’s outstanding, but it’s hard to recommend it because who knows how long they’ll hang on.
i agree with you, Alice….
NetWare really is the best Network OS, yet the MicroShaft marketing gurus really did their job too overly well.
i started out with NetWare during my schooling 10 years ago, and it’s been the benchmark for all other server os’s.
if i were to run a business today, i’d have it based upon NetWare, GroupWise, etc., and run Windows for any ancilliary apps that we may need.
NetWare is still THE most secure NOS, and the most elegantly crafted.
I’d hate to see Cambridge bow out to Linux or whatnot; but the majority of people out there seem not to take the time to really learn about a network and what makes it tick to run an appropriate NOS as NetWare is.
Everyone just wants easy easy easy…click click click. And that’s not the way power systems are done.
NetWare will always be my first love. 🙂
take the best aspects of Novell Netware, NDS/eDirectory, combine it with the best aspects of *BSD (NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD) and create an operating system that combines the best aspects of both the UNIX world and the Netware world.
Oh the other side, they need to get a real marketing companying, I mean, heck, SUN has a better marketing crew than Novell. Hire Saatchi and Saatchi and start slamming ads out there, both in the mainstream media and technical publications.
will 2 month’s agoo i got some info from a a frind of mine how work’s in novell , that Netware 6.5 [still in beta ]comes with a build-In MySql Server and that they are working on migrating the E-dir to use the MySql as it’s backend data base
To me, it’s just ridicolous: NetWare has a very fast, perfoming kernel, for network.related operations. It has such a low latency, in fact, that it’s unbeaten as of yet, and brings out the best out of all the network cards.
But not only the performance: the NetWae kernel has many high-availability features: you can unload network drivers on a live network interface, even swap that interface (thanks to hot-swappable PCI) and then load a driver for that card and re-plumbit with the internet stack, while the users of the server will just notice a slowdown in the service, not an interruption.
Anyway, I would need some hard convincing about that NetWare-BSD merger. I just don’t see why.
“you can unload network drivers on a live network interface, even swap that interface (thanks to hot-swappable PCI) and then load a driver for that card and re-plumbit with the internet stack, while the users of the server will just notice a slowdown in the service, not an interruption.”
From my experiences with NetWare, NLM unloads are relatively dangerous. We had ArcServe as a backup solution; when you stopped it using “astop”, the module unload would crash the system, and you would be left in a debugger (a very colorful one, that is
).
I think the BSD kernels are much more stable when it comes to hot-swapping devices. I never had such problems with OpenBSD.
I am sure I can find an application that is notoriously unstable on any platform. ArcServe is that for NetWare, and has always been.
Actually, does ArcServe run on BSD? That would explain why you never had such problems on BSD.
Novell sold UNIX to SCO…
In my opinon Novell really hasn’t been about software for a while… only thing its been good at for a while is simply handling users. Thats it, and its something I have had many a headache with in respect to Linux, so hopefully Novell will release some handy services for Linux…
What the article states seems good knews to me, however I will be looking forward to talking to some people I know love Novell, and see there take on it. Perhaps they will more of an opinion…
I use Linux as my primary OS, so the more I can do without rebooting, or moving to another machine, the better as far as I am concerned…
Hé remember ZEN, one of my novell friends did a huge migration project, upgrading to office2000. They already planned that they needed 20 NT admins for 3 months to finish te project. He dropped by, installed ZEN en migrated the whole company in 6 hours. You should have seen the eyes of the local IT-manager.
Baby, where are the good times…….
now you have ZEN for servers, too, but the original ZEN for workstations has now so many interesting features, my fingers would fall off just to list them.
ZEN + eDirectory = network admin bliss
“This is nothing new. NetWare already is usually installed on a DOS partition.”
As mentioned, this is not correct, a server boots DOS (sometimes initializing some hardware) then loads Netware. Windows NT/2K/XP do the same thing, with Linux this is also possible and sometimes useful, but not necessary.
“We had ArcServe as a backup solution”
As mentioned ArcServe is not a good example, it’s probably the worst example. I thought everyone knew by now that ArcServe simply does not work well in any environment.
While I can see a place for Netware in the future, it will be primarily among those who already know it’s virtues.
For those that don’t know about the virtues of Netware, how would they ever possibly discover them?
For those Administrators who continue to have their expectations fail to be met, their foray into Windows Networking has one logical migration path, Linux, unless they want to toss out all their hardware too.
After all, their managers who believed the marketing of Microsoft and initated a move away from Netware are not likely to support a return to the platform despite the benefits they would realize.
I think Novell has been late to acknowledge the inevitable migration towards Linux and it’s good that they see the future of supporting it. NDS is certaintly the most robust directory services available for certain business sizes, it’s good to hear of more commitment to an Operating System which is achieving a lot of penetration.
I don’t think this spells doom for Netware however. A company could adopt Netware 6 today and continue to use it for a decade if their business has fairly static needs.
If Novell drastically reduced the price on Netware (such as unlimited seat licenses) and counted on profit from support while touting NDS as their premier product and charged appropriately, they could maintain their NOS base or possibly even compete against Linux.
If you look really closely at Netware and it’s history it’s an NOS that is like Unix with everything removed that doesn’t make it a better, faster file and print server, then has a dash of the DOS CLI thrown in to make it more “friendly” to someone with a DOS background.
Building in a JVM and porting Apache and giving it a GUI (ConsoleOne) are useful for some businesses and address many of the reasons one might be tempted to try to use Windows as a “Server” but Netware in it’s traditional role is where it belongs.
NDS on top of everything (Netware, Linux, Solaris, Windows) only makes sense.
The native file access that Netware 6 brings to the table (no client software) continues to extend Netware as the glue for heterogenous environments and allows you to use Solaris for your big iron, Windows for your middle-ware, Netware for file and print services, Linux as your web server and Macintosh, Linux, Solaris or Windows (or even DOS) as your clients with a single directory to authenticate to.
Netware and NDS allows you to combine best of breed, best ROI, best legacy compatibility and whatever you currently have in use. You can bring the Art Department, Engineering, Accounting, the Managers, POS and Web Developers together on the platform of their choice.
Oh, and Groupwise sucks (although I haven’t seen 6).
Hats off to Novell