[WEB4LIB] Novell 5 anyone?

[James Klock]

>I searched the archives for postings on Novell 5 and really didn't find
>anything.  Is anyone on this list using Novell's new product?  The
>managwise console, NDS, and ZEN works looked awesome...though...I'm sure 
>it has it's flaws (I tell myself that everything has to). 

We've been using Netware 5.0 since very shortly after it was released.  We
upgraded our single Netware 3.1 server to 5.0, and are contemplating
squeezing the budget to try to put a second 5.0 server in place, to make
better use of the NDS tree's distribution/fault tolerance features.

We've been very happy with Netware 5.  It's a file and print services
workhorse, it interoperates nicely with both NT and Unix (the TCP stack is
very similar to the BSD TCP stack, as I understand it, and there's client
software for Netware/NDS available from Caldera).  We're even supporting a
couple of Macs on it (though the Mac client is supplied by a third-party
vendor, and costs a bit extra).  

We don't use too many of the advanced features (the built-in Oracle 8
system, the workstation management and remote control features, etc),
though we are planning to use ZENworks as an applications management system
for our publically accessable NT workstations.  We're also using NDS for NT
to support NDS authentication at our small branches, which have only a
single NT Server in each office.

There are flaws, of course, but none of them has particularly impacted our
use (which is mostly file and print services, which Netware has been doing
very well for about 10 years now).  We have had some hardware support
issues, but that's mostly because we built our servers ourselves out of
scotch tape and baling wire.  I haven't heard any hardware support
complaints from people who've bought servers "off the rack".

>NT is nice, but it seems to lack built in PC management tools, esp. for
>win 9x machines.

Microsoft (and its fans) will tell you that ZAK will do everything you
could ever want from a PC management tool.  I haven't played with it enough
to tell you if I agree.  While ZENworks requires significant tweaking, it
really does work (and do things like find problems with installed
applications and fix them on the fly), and the tweaking part is actually
quite fun, if you're into that sort of thing.

While Netware's Official Support is expensive, their online help boards
(run from their own USEnet server, and "staffed" by the user community and
the occasional Netware employee) are excellent.

>The only real NT/PC management solutions seem to be through third party
>vendors HP Openview, Intel LAN Desk, etc. 

My impression is that HP OpenView is really a unix-centric network
management system, recent versions of which will also manage your PCs for
you.  LANDesk, in its early forms, significantly predates NT (as does
OpenView).  It may be that Microsoft hasn't explored serious PC management
solutions because there are already well-established standards in that
area, and MS will need to enter that market with a significant first-strike
(possibly to be bundled into Win2K).

James