Networking CD-ROMS

[Jim Jones]

This is in response to a small segment of Dean Rowan's input on the
subject as well as a listing of our experiences.

Mr. Rowan mentioned that there is trouble networking windows 95 and Netware
3.x.

I have to say that I (and my university in general) have found that to not be thecase.  I have over 100 stations out of a larger some running windows 95 over
novell with minor difficulties at worst. What suprised me is that windows 95 is
a much more stable system while on the network than any of its predecessors.    The university has installed windows 95 as a "network fix" for people who were
having trouble otherwise.  When working with cd-rom servers you have to run
Novell's Client 32 (having to do with a Microsoft glitch) but it is not big 
deal.

I have a ten station public cd-lan accessing two servers which support (between
them) five, seven drive towers.  These stations run DOS and access the servers
via a Saber Lan menu and batch files on another fileserver.  Additionally I have8 DOS based staff and satellite library stations accessing the server over our 
university network through DougMenus (which emulate SaberLan without all the 
fuss).  I currently have 10 staff stations accessing the servers through DOS
sessions of Dougmenu while running windows 95.  Shortly I will add 30 more
windows 95 users to the servers for access to some specialized reference discs.

These two servers run CD-Vision server software v3.<something> and v4.<something>
respectively.  I am more partial to the older version as it is less resource 
intensive and, after some initial tweaking, is pretty stable and reliable.

I also have two, seven drive towers working in our electronic classrooms.  One 
runs CD-View (by Ornetix the maker of CD-Vision) which is stable though not as
full featured as its sibling.  The other is an integrated server/software combo
from Meridian that I am not impressed with.  It is very reliant on a cleint
server model software set that does not comply to Netware and therefore makes itan absolute pain to work with <<<<-------- the preceding is soley my opinion
and no one elses, but it is well founded.  

I am currently looking at another server solution for the future (a possible 
automation server that will contain Write Once Read Many -WORM- discs of some
of the batch files, setups and utilities that we use daily and have to
cart discs around for).  I am very taken with the Disc Port by Microtest.    
Basically it is very much like and inteliport print server.  You plug it into
a network, attach a cd tower to it and then use any combination of its 
administration software and Netware or Windows NT utilities to configure access rights to 
the volumes.  You can check out their information at http://www.micortest.com.
This is probably the CHEAPEST and EASIEST TO USE CD-ROM network solution out
there. 

Jim 


Jim