NEED UNBIASED OPINION : NW or W2000 in this case

[BFClem]

Thank you, this is my first post to the NW forum.

In 1994 we had NW 3.11 serving our DOS-based program, used by DOS and Windows 95/98 clients. Never much of a problem, it ran day in and day out. Not fancy, but it ran.

When W2000 clients came along, we decided that they didn't care for NW3 much, so we went to W2000 server, etc. We are still running the same DOS based program because we have not found another with the functionality we need. That software became our business process.

Long story short, if we are going to continue running this ol' reliable program that never really loved those w2000 VDM's, would we be better off returning to Netware?

I suppose I am asking if netware is still more native to DOS than the newer/newest windows.

Thanks
Brad

 

[SuperDaveDCF]

IMO...yes. The state agency I work for deals with kids in foster care as well as giving out economic benefits (food stamps, etc) to folks that qualify. The system that tracks the expenses that the thousands of foster parents incur and that is used to reimburse them is a DOS app on various 5.1 servers throughout the state. Besides the mainframe systems we use, these servers are the most important.

The system that we use to track the recovery of benefits from folks who didn't really qualify is also a DOS app on various 5.1 servers around the state.

The only gotcha that we ran into was when we received a batch of Win2000 workstations. We, nor Microsoft techs that came onsite could get them to print to a print queue that the foster care system used. But this was obviously a MS issue and not Novell.

I don't think you will regret installing a new 5.1 server and migrating your DOS app to it.

 

[Guest_imported]

Are you planning on upgrading to NW5.1 or NW6?

The questions of cost vs. support come up. If you stick with NW3.11, be sure to patch it to 3.2. I would recommend evaluating the cost of upgrading to see if it's feasable for your user base. (I understand if you have 2,000 users that it may be out of the question cost-wise). As far as sticking with Win2k, if you have already purchased licenses for it, I would probably try to utilize the resource you've already purchased...

If you upgraded to Netware6, you'd see a HUGE difference in functionality. Netware6 would give your users some really amazing tools, but you'd have to supply new hardware for a NW6 server and I would recommend using multiple servers, depending on what services you choose to run.

The answer to your final question can be summed up this way. Netware6 is almost another flavor of Unix. It has a package that released as a supplement to NW5.1 called the Native File Access Pack. This allows it to use a "simple password" for access from CIFS, AFP, and NFS (to support Windows, Macintosh, and Unix respectively). This is all clientless access. It works, but may be hard to manage passwords unless you have a small number of users.

You may want to demo the software and see if you like what it can do. Spend a month or so to really get a feel for it. It's security is far better than Windows and will allow you to get away with less than 5 patches a year. ...Very few reboots as well.

 

[DrGreen26]

I have several years of experience both with NT server 2000 and Netware 5.x and now 6. In the 12 years I have been dealing with LANs I can honestly say that Netware by far is the better product. Less down time, very stable, and can integrate into most any environment. HOwever, as mentioned above, if you already have WIN2k server, you may want to try it, though I am sure your support costs for win2k will go up greatly as Microsoft has yet to deliver an OS that is 100% stable and can be up for many a day without a restart. Whereas, Netware is a proven platform, you may even consider looking into LInux or Unix as options as these too are very stable platforms (just a bit more work to set them up is all).

Good Luck

Mark C. Greenwood, CNE
m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com

CNE 4.11 and CNE 5 certified. BS Degree in MIS. Working in the industry for 8 years.

I work with NT servers, NDS for NT as well.

 

[BFClem]

Thank you all for responding.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that we are a small outfit, single LAN, 10 users, therefore staying simple is the key.

I still own a (retired but working) Cpq server, 300MHZ circa 1998 that would run the DOS program fine, but that wouldn't leave much for my over-the-top dual-1GB Processor, raid-5, triple 18.2GB- 1GB ram W2000 server to do except authenticate log-ins, serve the mail and control the domain.

If I put the 300 back up with NW3.2 for the DOS program, would that server have to "get along" with the W2000 server?

What of the question that the DOS program sends files to an old DOS station as a fax server (need this station; the software won't work on anything but an old Intellifax board)

The old faxserver would only need to log-in to the NW if that were the case and not need the LanManager to go to a tcp/ip w2000 login.

Am I on the right track?

Brad

 

[DrGreen26]

Both servers can co-exist in the network. They wont really care that the other exists. You just need to look at which workstations need access to the specific services, and since your old server is 300 MHZ, I would even recommend upgrading this to NW5.X or 6 as it would make life much easier to maintain and administer. Since netware is not a resource hog, the 300Mhz should handle anything that is thrown at it.

HTH

Mark C. Greenwood, CNE
m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com

CNE 4.11 and CNE 5 certified. BS Degree in MIS. Working in the industry for 8 years.

I work with NT servers, NDS for NT as well.

 

[Guest_imported]

An interesting, and very common decision for the small business user. As stated above, if you own it, and it works, well not much of a point in moving until you are ready to.

On the other hand, having a small network opens the door to the Netware 6 Small Business Product. It is sold as a 25 or 50 user bundle, and to make a long story short, includes pretty much everything Novell sells for a very low price point. You get full blown NW6, Groupwise 6, iPrint, iFolder, Border Manager, ZEN Works, etc. etc. etc. I have done many installs, both new and upgrades with the small business product and it is rock solid. At this point in the game, it is by far the biggest bang for the buck that I have seen in a looooooong time. The only drawback is that there is an cap at 50 users, which in your case seems like a non-issue. It even comes with 60 days of supprt for FREE! Not the sinto stuff either, it is Novell staff.

Netware will indeed run DOS apps much better, but I too have had some minor issues with Windows 2k and XP on a Novell network running DOS apps. Usually solved wih capturing print ports provided by NDPS with a local batch script running the good old "net use" commands.

The best part is that as with pretty much any Novell product, once it is up and running, you park it in a corner and forget about it. The only thing you do have to feed it is memory. The smallest box I have it running on is a P-3 500 with 512 mb memory and it is starting to peak a bit.

Give it a whirl, have some fun with it.

Dan
goz101@yahoo.com

 

[nethelp]

I am installing the Netware 5.1 3-user demo to two computers and got the same problem. The installation went well until the graphical screens showed up .... at this point nothing is going on. I pressed alt+esc to see the console screen and noticed this message

Loaded Symnjit.nlm

Short term memory allocator is out of memory.

What else can I do?

 

[Provogeek]

Should post a new thread;

to answer your question, replace your video card
S3 has common issues with the Novll GUI. I haven't had any problems with ATI though. Brent Schmidt CNE, Network +
Senior Network Engineer

Why do user go into a panic when a NetWare server goes down, but accept it as normal when a Windows server goes down?