The 'grey' area of Netware (Novell Netware 5.1)

Member Name: IanPaterson

Product:	Novell Netware 5.1
Date:	04/09/00 (706 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well established, stable and secure

Disadvantages: Getting left behind with web integration

** Reading the comments on this review, I thought I would try and make it more meaningful for all ***

I have been a network admin for about 9 years now. I have used Netware from version 3.1 to 5.1 and NT from 3.1 to 4.0 and now Windows 2000, HP UNIX to Linux to Solaris as well.

I have always liked Netware, having spent a long time on NT, I still do have a warm spot for it. The major advantage of Netware is NDS (Netware Directory Service) over NT's flat 'shared folders' view seen in 'Network Neighborhood'. Users and resources can be placed in the NDS 'Tree' in a logical grouping for resource sharing and allocation. For example, a tree 'object' called 'Sales' can be created and all members of the sales dept grouped together in this 'object'. Security is controlled neatly by these 'objects' for access to printers, folders and even down to individual files within a folder. To locate all these users, you only have to access that part of the tree and all relevant information is held there. Very neat and tidy. NT however has a 'flat' perspective. This has always been NT's downfall making upward scaling very difficult and cumbersome with lots of shared resources, i.e. printers and folders. Security for these resources is controlled at a user/group level. Users are members of groups and groups are members of groups. The major problem here, is having up to 150 users is manageable. having 500-1000 users and things start getting difficult, especially if each user needs a home directory. Microsoft clients (NT, Win 95/98) only support shared resources down to one level, i.e. \\server\share. Netware clients can perform deep drive mappings, i.e. \\server\share\folder\folder\folder.... The main difference here is NT uses SMB (Server Messaging Block) protocol for shared resources. Netware uses the server locator service in its directory service.

Netware 5.1 has integrat
ed the power of TCP/IP and web services much better. NDS can now be accessed with native TCP/IP and does not need IPX/SPX as it used to. The only problem here though, is that you need a Novell client to access Novell NDS objects. The Microsoft Novell client will only support BINDERY, a different form of access all together that loses the advantages of NDS. Microsoft have not incorporated Netware 5 support with their client so you will need the Novell client. The Novell client will access the NDS tree server and find the objects needed such as user information, folders, printers etc. This is handled by the client/server connection only. This is a problem! Accessing NDS cannot be performed via DNS lookup. Netware 5.1 also provides DHCP and DNS services for LAN configuration. Be careful here though, the Novell DNS/DHCP is not 100% RFC compliant although it does give the advantage of DDNS (Dynamic DNS).

Now Windows 2000 is available, Active Directory has become a major threat to Novell's NDS. NDS 8 has been launched as the next stage of network service. Having compared NDS 8 to Active Directory, I have made the following conclusions.

To integrate with Internet access for e-commerce, NDS 8 fails. You cannot locate NDS 8 objects with DNS you still need a Novell client.

PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) has not been incorporated for authentication. PKI is the future vision for e-commerce at the moment. Every registered user has their own unique PKI. The power of this key will be the identification of you as an individual in the WORLD. There is talk of introducing this into smart cards for banking, drivers licenses etc.

LDAP (Light Directory Access Protocol) replication is slow and exports information to a seperate catalog losing security, although LDAP is supported natively now. LDAP is a universal location/identification standard that started from X.400 some years ago but never took off. Now though, LDAP will allow
your firewall to authenticate users accessing your network from the internet via your Netware user database details. This makes 'plug and play' possible for modular components like firewalls, RAS servers etc. with virtually no configuration.

It is all down to strategy. If you are going e-commerce enabled LAN/WAN integration, choose another product that will support LDAP and PKI. If you have a large LAN to manage, Novell will do the job very well, probably better than NT. If you have large LAN/WAN structures, pick another product that will span all your networks. Novell still needs partitions (seperate trees) for each network segment losing the 'full vision' across all LAN's regardless of location. Even Novell do not recommend using NDS 8 to search for users across multiple segments. This means you do not lose the cumbersome need for individual configuration for other sites you may have.

After years of working with network operating systems, I think Microsoft have finally got the edge with Active Directory. Novell support is slowly fading from manufacturers supported lists like Lotus Notes for example can only be bad. Netware is not so resource hungry and will need a server of 60% NT spec for the same number of users.

The environment is still split between Microsoft and Novell administrators sniping one another over performance, security, support etc. Make your own informed choice!

Summary: