Netware 5.1 or not

[ywng]

I'm fans of netware. But I'm facing problem in choosing of netware 5.1 or downgraded to NT 4.0. My company is splitting into two companies recently, and I will take responsibility to setup new servers for the new company. Our old company is using netware 4.11 as file/printing service and exchange 5.5 as email service, and they will upgrade to netware 5.1 in nearly future.<br><br>My new boss is just a development guy, he don't know any about LAN/server, and even directory service. Moreover, the whole development team prefer to use NT as their develoment platform. As in our group policy, we have to use exchange as our group email system. As a result, we will have a set of NT domain users. I know that there is really a problem to maintain two different user account system, it really waste of our administrative time/cost. Moreover, choosing NT4, we could decrease the number of servers in different sites.<br><br>Novell has a great product, NDS corporate edition to overcome this problem. But the cost is really high, $26 per user. We have 800 staffs in our new company, the license will be higher than buying a new server. How could I convince my boss?<br><br>We have a few old file-based database system written in foxpro and clipper. They are currently running in one of the netware file server. If we create new user account in new netware 5 tree, how could the new user account access the old database system without authentication to the old nds tree? If we choose netware 5.1, we'll move the database system to the new file server finally. But how could we solve this problem in transition period? If we choose NT4, it seems that we could use NT's netware gateway service to map to the old netware volume.<br><br>We already have purchased netware 5 license for new company, the only matter is that whether we adopt it in near future. Pls give me some comments/suggestions. I really feel cazy within these days.<br><br>Regards,<br>Woo<br>

 

[dynamode]

I beieve that you still should move to NetWare 5.1 for the following reasons. 1) it is a more stable platform than NT even just for file and print; 2) Your legacy systems should authenticate &quot;seemlesly&quot; as they do now on your Netware 4.x platform, especially if you install the 5.1 into your existing tree and &quot;move&quot; everything;&nbsp;&nbsp;3) Get NDS for NT and you will solve most of the problems relating to have 2 sets of users account to maintain. Though this doesn't help for Exchnage but you are stuck with it no matter what you do; 4) as to cost between NT and NetWare... you are only comparing the purchase cost between the two platforms the greater cost in the adminstration and maintenance costs which are much higher in an NT environment. There are numerous studies that will show those costs for you to see a side by side comparison; 5) amd most importantly, NetWare is a more secure system than NT. look throuh the web and see the number of NT security issues compared to NetWare.

 

[DrGreen26]

Also consider the following:&nbsp;&nbsp;You can create NT Domains for your users, and use NDS for NT which has made our lives much easier.&nbsp;&nbsp;I can add users to the domain via NDS and that information relicates itself to the NT server. Also, NDS for NT eliminates the need for trusted relationships, so you can have multiple domains and control everything from your NDS environment.&nbsp;&nbsp;So to meet your customer needs, Use Netware 5.1 as your file and print services platform, and use NT for the developers with NDS for NT installed (Preferrably the corporate edition).<br><br>With Win 95/98 you would also need to install the MS Client in addition to the Novell client on the PC.&nbsp;&nbsp;With NT, it is not needed.<br><br>Also note: If you have to cross a router to access the NT server, you will most likely need to configure an LMHost file to access the DOMAIN in NDS.<br><br>If you need more info, don't hesitate to email me.<br><br>Mark Greenwood, CNE <p>Mark C. Greenwood<br><a href=mailto:m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com>m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[ywng]

We have three main sites having about 200 users each. We are planning to setup three servers there, one for netware 5.1, one for NT BDC/DNS/WINS, and one for Exchange 5.5 in each site. If we implement NDS CE, could we delete the NT server? I know that Exchange could refers NT domain replicas resided in netware 5.1, but for exchange/outlook client could they also use netware 5.1 for NT authentication? As a result, I could delete the BDC in each site?<br><br>We can't install nw 5.1 in the old tree. We have to install a new tree. As a result, all data/user account migration is processing between different tree. That's our problem, I don't want user to logon two different tree in the migration period.<br><br>Regards,<br>Woo<br>

 

[DrGreen26]

You can eliminate the BDC if you like.&nbsp;&nbsp;However, if the PDC were to ever go down, you must make sure you have a rescue diskette which contains the SID of the server in order to restore the PDC with NDS for NT as the SID is the one item that associates itself to the NT server.&nbsp;&nbsp;With the BDC online, if the PDC were to ever go down, you could simply promote the BDC to a PDC and have functionality.<br><br>Worse case scenario:&nbsp;&nbsp;If you ever lose the Rescue Diskette for the NT server, you will have to redo everything from scratch.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>Novell has a TID on restoring a PDC with NDS for NT installed, you may want to check that out before you make your decision.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>TID 2937215 <p>Mark C. Greenwood<br><a href=mailto:m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com>m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>