The Future of Netware 2

[dsimpaired]

OK, Just a question to those of you in the know. I have been using netware at my current orginization for 8 years and have been extremely pleased with the performance, stability, and overall platform reliability. My dilemma is this; My current vendor who performed the initial install of our Nw51 and continued through nw65 sp3. I recently spoke with them and and are abandoning netware and moving to Microsoft AD. When I asked about their reasoning they said that because Novell was abandoning Netware and moving to a pure linux package they were not going to keep using and it and provide little support for it. What I want to know is what some of you out there think and if the future of netware even if it's linux is going to be similar to the management and reliability that we see today. Also, will it still contain NDS and management tools such as Imanager, remote manager, etc?
I feel sad that so many companies are making moves like this just because someone says that an OS or application is difficult to use but when I think back to when I started using Netware everyone complained that there wasn't a GUI but I can't even imagine the nightmares I would have had over the last 8 years if I had been using something other than Netware. Sorry for the long rant but I'm curious what the mood is out there and any suggestions or ideas about the direction to take in the next 5 years would be appreciated.

 

[LawnBoy]

First, Novell has stated that they will support NW 6.5 for as long as anybody wants to run it.

Second, yes they are migrating to linux, and are including many of the same tools you are used to using.

 

[marvhuffaker]

First of all, I think its wrong to make important business and technology decisions based on what ONE SINGLE vendor (or Integrator or Consultant) is telling you. We see this all the time and it is really frustrating. The vendor you are working with should understand YOUR needs and YOUR business. It really sounds like they are more interested in theirs, and they will undoubtedly lose some of their Novell based customers with this business shift they have made. They probably expect it, but will try to do everything they can to retain their Novell customers and make the migration to AD at some point.

Our company, as well as many other Novell partners, have had to adapt to certain economic and environmental factors. The Linux movement is having a large impact on partners, customers, and Novell themselves. Whether that is good or bad for you or your company, well that's a decision you'll have to make. But you need to get information straight from Novell, or someone that can represent Novell, to get the facts. The vendor you are using is not going to have that information to make a fair argument one way or the other.

Here is what I know about the future of NetWare.. Forget about NetWare.. NetWare is just the platform. What you should really be interested in is the services that it provides. Can AD replace your iPrint setup? Not even close. Yes it can do printing, but it can't do it as well as iPrint. That's just one example, but you can't just say AD is better than NetWare or vice versa. You need to compare the services and process you are using today, and figure out if AD can even do them (and do them as well as NetWare). You'll find that some will, some won't, and some vendors will claim that AD solves all problems, which it doesn't.

The 'NetWare' Kernel on NetWare 6.5 today is the last kernel. That kernel is End of Life. 'NetWare' is end of life. Fully supported but not much more development going on. No argument about that. Novell has said this over and over again, and it's the reality that people are facing today. We are seeing limited support for NetWare from Dell, HP, and IBM. It's starting to dwindle, while they all fully support Suse Linux and OES linux. It's just a shift.

The problem is, Companies that primarily support AD and Windows, including Microsoft themselves, are using the "NetWare is gone" thing to off NetWare and Novell completely whenever they can. It's not really a fair fight because they aren't talking about the same thing. But customers don't understand this.

So what about the future? NetWare is gone. Open Enterprise Server is in it's 2nd year of release and a new version is coming out soon. OES2 will be fully linux based. Note that just like OES(1), the platform is pretty much insignificant. It's the services. Who cares if it's Linux or NetWare or even Windows. It's how you get stuff to the end users that is important.

Also, There will be a virtualized Netware kernel in OES2. This will run on Linux but look like NetWare. I am told by people at Novell that in reality, OES 2 will install like a NetWare server and you won't even really know or care about the difference. If you need to run certain NLM's, you will have the ability. If you don't need NLMS, run them on the linux kernel. no big deal.


You'll still have iManager, iPrint, NSS, iFolder, etc etc etc.

So sorry for the long dissertation, but realistically, not much should have to change for your company. If you want to spend $100K or more to do a full conversion to Microsoft, that's your choice, and your current vendor will make a lot of money from it.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[marvhuffaker]

Oh, I've also been told by Novell that it will be possible to do an inplace upgrade from NetWare 6.5 to OES2. Still not sure on the details and it will be a hellofa thing to see.. crossing my fingers.

 

[marvhuffaker]

Also, if you can privately email me the company that you are using, and the name of their Novell engineers.. I would really appreciate it. We're currently looking for good Novell engineers and our business is expanding in the Novell space.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[dsimpaired]

Marvin, nice post! Exactly what I needed to hear. Since we are a school system our needs are pretty basic and you are exactly right when pointing out our service needs and netware fills them perfectly. Being a Linux fan I was actually excited but got scared when my Boss came to me asking what we were going to do because the vendor told them that netware was dead and AD was the future. We live in a rural area so getting reliable and experienced help is tough and we end up having to alot ourselves when no one will show up so we have a lot of trial by fire. I am comforted by your post and it definitely answered all my questions & concerns and I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on the details and I will keep watching and also try and talk to novell to get a better picture of our options and go ahead and start trying to get some training in preparation for the eventual conversion to whatever lies ahead.

 

[LawnBoy]

Just how many years have vendors been saying that Netware is dead? I've been hearing it since the days of 3.1.

When you get right down to it, I'm looking for stable, easily configurable services. I really don't give a damn who's brand is on it. I use MS for SQL, linux for webservers, and Netware for file & print (and a stable host for Groupwise) because these combinations give me the best performance for the price.

If I should lose Netware, linux is my most stable alternative for those services, IMHO.

 

[marvhuffaker]

Please see my new post for Novell's semi-official news on this topic.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1349433&page=1

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[lgarner]

We're using NDS/eDirectory and IDM widely, and none of it is running on NetWare. Based on the sessions at Brainshare this year, OES2 looks *very* good and I fully expect to migrate our remaining few NetWare servers to it this year.

I believe that the "in-place" upgrade from NW6.5 to OES is only possible if you use the OES NetWare kernel. There's no in-place upgrade between NetWare and OES Linux. However, OES2 is expected to handle NSS volumes far better than OES1, at least from when OES1 was released. Based on that, should be able to move our NetWare cluster to OES2 without touching the volumes. Seeing is believing, of course.

 

[smoppett]

So at the moment Netware/OES starts and loads LAN and disk drivers, and then applications like Backup Exec and Groupwise.
From OES2 the server will load SES with linux LAN and disk drivers and then OES2 so the server looks like an OES/Netware server. But will it then load the apps, or will they have to be new linux versions?
Is that correct?

 

[marvhuffaker]

I've got a beta copy of OES2 right now that I've been playing with. I have not had a chance to do the virtualized NetWare yet. But OES2 so far is basically SLES10 with add ons for OES and all the services. It installs differently than OES linux did.. Instead of being integrated into the install, it's an addon that you choose during the normal SLES install process. Seems to work much smoother than the original OES, but I haven't had a chance to do much with it.

I suspect that the long term goal for anyone will be to eventually use Linux based apps. GroupWise will already work like this - no need to run it virtualized. Not sure about Backups and Antivirus.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com