The Future 1

[iolair]

Good Morning. One more query about the future of Netware. If Novell is insisting that they are going to Linux, do you think they'd be willing to sell Netware to someone else for further development? If it would be possible to replace the hard drives and power supplies and NICs in an old server, could you run Netware indefinitely? Like for 30 years from now? It's really too bad that Microsoft has "trampled" good products like Netware, OS/2, and Netscape. Is there any way you can keep Netware forever? Or, at least for our lifetime?

Iolair MacWalter
Director of IT

 

[NullOp]

All programs/systems eventually die. But it often takes a long, long time. You might be able to keep Netware running on a server for some time to come. However, eventually the hardware will all be unavailable and people that can and will support it will be unavailable, etc, etc.

I agree that Microsoft has trampled many good companies and people. Usually they are killed with money. Companies are purchased, their staff disappated to the winds or hired and told they work for MS! If a company can't be bought then MS can make things so rediculously cheap you can't help not using it. Microsoft didn't invent these 'games' however. But they do know how to play rather well.

Long story short: Linux ain't bad.

"Life Is Good!

 

[LawnBoy]

I have to agree with NullOp. The death of the Netware kernel will be a sad day in my book, but I expect Novell to continue to provide high quality tools. As long as the OS is stable and has a full complement of quality Administrative tools, I'm happy.

If linux is the wave of the future, then to linux I will go. As somebody once told me:

In this business, you either keep up or you get out.

 

[marvhuffaker]

NetWare kernel isn't going away. Novell is making it so it runs virtualized on top of Linux..

One problem that Novell is having... is that Vendors are going to stop writing NetWare device drivers. Dell has announced this already. So it will be impossible to install NETWARE onto Dells in the near future. But Virtualized NetWare running on Linux will work fine because there WILL be Linux hardware drivers. Then NetWare will just use common/standard Virtualized drivers. Problem solved.

You can also run NetWare inside VMWARE. I have clients that do this in production enviroments. Works great. And they use standard VMWARE hardware drivers which solves any hardware vendor issues.

Long live NetWare!



Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[LawnBoy]

Novell is making it so it runs virtualized on top of Linux..

Now that is good news!

 

[Provogeek]

In a way, this is a good business decision on Novell's part. It can be very expensive developing, maintaining and supporting two different kernel code base.

Also remember, there have been no official announcments yet, wait until Brainshare when Novell will lay out the road map to the public. For now, they have only givin partners tid bits, but nothing absolute.

Remember when they said Bordermanager was a dead product? ... then released 3 more versions.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt Certified nut case
Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[Novelli]

Hi to all,

there are so many big customers in the world using the netware kernal, that i hope, it will be continue.

We have only 25 Netware Servers but our Neigbougr here (BASF) they have tausends of them

Cheers
Novelli

 

[iolair]

Gentlemen,
Thanks for all the great feedback. I have looked at OES, and from what I can tell, if Novell will continue to provide the services it does now, there is no reason that we can't all stay running Novell for the foreseeable future. I really appreciate all the feedback - it makes a difference when you need help to be able to count on you guys. I have to agree with Lawnboy, you either keep up, or get out. I still have to work for ten more years before I can retire, and hopefully, I'll still be running Novell.

Iolair MacWalter

Iolair MacWalter
Director of IT

 

[marvhuffaker]

Even if the NetWAre kernel did completely go away, what would stop you from continuing with the version you have today? How many people out there are still running NetWare 3.12 and 4.1x servers? Lots. Just because they aren't supported doesn't mean they stop working.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[iolair]

Marvin,
You are so right. I think my only concern is that someday, the hardware will fail, and I won't be able to keep it going. But, hopefully, that will be a long way off. When Novell wrote those hardware drivers, man, they did a great job. As for still working - I have a DOS laptop at home that I use all the time. Why? Because I can get my work done on it, fast.

Iolair MacWalter

Iolair MacWalter
Director of IT

 

[bytehd]

2cents:
The file system has been ported to linux.
NDS has been ported to linux.
All the features are there.
Novell's services have equivalents out there.
Too bad you can go SHIFT SHIFT ALT ESC and get a debugger...
hehe

Too bad nobody includes NSS vs reiser4, xfs, jfs
in their benchmarks. Probably a reason why....

George Walkey
Senior Geek in charge

http://www.insyncva.com

 

[marvhuffaker]

The great thing about NetWare (As opposed to other inferior systems), is that there are realy 2 hardware drivers you have to worry about..

- Storage (.HAM) driver
- NIC (.LAN) Driver

You don't care so much about processor, motherboard, video, and other stuff. As long as your storage and NIC work on NetWare, you can usually fudge the rest.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[bytehd]

dont forget microsoft could not handle gigabit until
2000 and some service pack.

It was netware that offloaded the lan packets to multiple CPUs via the purchase of Netframe way back.

Ive also been keeping an eye on the worth of these multicore CPUs and NUMA support in Netware, Windows and Linux. Interesting stuff.

Especially how to license the damn thing.
Put blade servers in the mix , pretty soon your OS or DB license cost more than your house.

George Walkey
Senior Geek in charge

http://www.insyncva.com