just moved from MS to Netware 6

[neoice]

hello,

Having worked in a Microsoft environment for 11 years I have been offred a new job. The only problem is that this company uses Netware.


From what I have seen, it is quite different from MS. The fact that its interface shares a striking resemblence to DOS was a surprise and apparently most sever-side apps have to be installed from a workstation - all seems quite different. Having said that I am up for the challenge - I think!

I decided to research Netware and try and find some CBT courses to give me some idea how this OS functions. I have yet to find anything on the web with regard to netware 6. There are plenty of netware 5 courses though.

Compared to MS, Netwares presence on the web is not very impressive.

Can anybody suggest any good books, videos or CBT products.

Thanks in advance.

Neil

 

[marvhuffaker]

Neil, There's a cool online forum at

HTTP://WWW.TEK-TIPS.COM

that you can learn a lot from if you hang around long enough.

Also was another guy just like you that asked pretty much the same question not more than 2 days ago. Here is the link.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?SQID=802058&SPID=75&page=1

Just out of curiosity, how did you get the Novell job with no experience in it?

Also, here is a little tidbit that I'll give you right from the start, just to get you going on the right track. No matter what you've been trained to do in the past with your MS servers, do NOT setup a weekly reboot schedule on the Novell servers!



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[neoice]

Thanks marvhuffaker.

It is basically a long story. Lets just say, sometimes its who you know :O)

I actually have not taken the job yet. ( I was half a sleep when I wrote the subject heading) I am a little apprehensive so I wanted to do some ground work first. I have a couple of weeks to decide.


Thanks again.

 

[terry712]

easiest way - if you have a couple of weeks then set it up in your lab and have a play.

true - most things are installed from a pc - but think of how many times something has failed or been progmatic on an install and you've lost the mouse , keyboard or doc watson pops up or yo've need to reboot. this isnt a prob in netware as it's just the pc thats effected.

even if you dont take the post then at least you have added a extra level to your skill set - making you a more hetrogenous guy

true server is dos like and noone really uses the graphical screen on the server - but why bog the server down with usless details and screens - when you dont want to be sitting in a freezing server room anyway - do it remote in office with a pc

the documentation on novell's site are excellent and downloadable as pdf's

true there is a lot more for ms on the web - but lets be truthful - majority of it is duplicated , incorrect or just pure crap - it takes a long time to find the quality stuff. most novell stuff on web is worth reading.

of course i am slighty biased to the novell side

 

[kaddett]

2 years ago I came from Ms Background and joined a school using netware 5.0 I have in the 2 years upgraded to netware 6.0 and implement netstorage and ifolder and ready to install netware 6.5 in a couple of weeks.

So my advice is take the job as the tek-tips guys will help you with 98% of your problems.dont freet netware is better than ms main problem is it dont break enough for me to learn more.

Thanks in Advance

Kaddett

 

[iolair]

The only problem is that this company uses Netware"???? This may be a problem for you, but not for the company. Netware is more stable, secure, and flexible than any MS product. And yes, I use MS because I have to, not because I want to. I run my network on Netware, but have to use MS for somethings - but I'd never trust my whole network to MS.

Listen to what Marvhuffaker has said. I have gotten all kinds of good help from him in the past.

I'd also buy a really good Novell Administration book from your local bookstore, or from Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. They have tons. If you do decide to take the job, learn Netware well. And thank your "friend" for hiring you - not many of us get work in these economic times. Congratulations!

Iolair MacWalter

 

[ITsmyfault]

1. compared to MS, Netware's presence on the web is of superior quality. Most issues you might run into can be answered with A TID (Tech Info Document) on the Novell support site. On top of that there is this board here, and also a great bunch of volunteer sysops on the NNTP support boards (a free service hosted by Novell).

aim your news reader at: support-forums.novell.com

2. Think about the convenience of installing software remotely (from your desktop) for a minute. Good idea, yes? You *can* install many things from the console if you wish, it's just that you don't *have* to.
3. Starting with Netware 6, you get free interoperability with Windows, Mac & Unix/Linux machines (NFAP - Native File Access Protocols) which is very slick. The Unix piece alone is saving me nearly over $20k in hardware and software licenses bc I can host my big Unix app from a Netware server, back it up as part of the Netware backup, and get the advantages of a journalled file system. On a Solaris machine that last bit alone costs a bit north of $10k (the cost of Veritas Foundation Suite/Disk Manager).
4. Stability. Get it set up and it just runs and runs. No reboots, none of this "gradually getting worse" stuff. It holds together. You will never have to re-image a Netware server. Nor will you have to "defrag" the HD. They don't frag in the first place..
5. No security patches to wrestle with daily/weekly.
6. Great remote management from anywhere via iManager &NoRM
7. - I could go on, but won't. Suffice it to say that once upon a time I was a windows admin, came to my current firm which ran a mix and I was confused at first with this 640x480 junk on the screen and a different way of thinking.. but the more I learned about it, the more I liked. The more I worked with Windows the more I knew I did not want to bet our company on it.. just too many issues. All my critical apps are on Solaris or Netware.

 

[neoice]

Thanks guys for all your help. I have taken the job and start in three weeks. I have purchased a book and evaluation copy of Netware 6.

I want to dual boot netware with W2k srv. I imagine that I would have to install netware first and then W2k on the second partition?

I am really excited about getting the chance to learn this much sought after OS.

Again, thanks for the support. Hopefully one day I will have enough experience to answer problems in this forum.

Neil

 

[terry712]

multiple options for this

vmware is best but if not then

or what i would do is create a small proper dos - ie 6.22 partition - probably 500 mbs but can be smaller
after this as long as you leave free space then you can either install netware first or later on. if you do it this way install netware by booting of cd and let it run.

if you install ms first it doesnt matter as netware will see this and it doesnt care it's only bothered that there is a partition that it can copy the nwserver to and it has free space to make the netware partition

 

[Provogeek]

Good luck with your training, it will be an interesting and eye opening experience for you. You will now find out why so many people have a chip on their shoulders with M$.

One fo the first things I discovered was tha M$ works somewhat great with M$, but nothing else very well or at all. Novell works with anyone. I am currently in the middle of a DirXML setup that will replicate all user ID and password information into the eDir, then into the legacy WinNT domain, then into a Cisco IP telco system. All of this from HR entering in a new employee into the Peoplesoft database. IT just sits back and watches the system update all the databases on it's own. No need to create that user in NetWare, then in Windows, then create the voice mail box all on different systems manaully.

To help you keep in touch with the new stuff Novell is doing and to greatly imporve your training, try to get your employer to budget about 3k to send you to Brainshare every year. Lots of info to be gained.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt Certified nut case
Senior Network Engineer

http://www.kiscc.com