[techtalk] netware vs. linux..?

[James A. Sutherland]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Walt wrote:

> No! I actually am interested in mentioning to them that a better
> alternative exists, but since I have virtually no experience with
> NetWare, I was wondering what, if any, evidence there is to support
> that.

That depends on how you define "better" :-)

Netware is doomed, as was pointed out earlier. However, I wouldn't rush to
replace existing servers: Netware will continue to perform very well.

> Does Netware offer anything that Linux or even windows does not have
> or support?

No, not really. NDS is the main selling point, but you can now get that on
other platforms as well...

The place to watch over the next few months is Timpanogas, run by Jeff
Merkey (who wrote large parts of Netware 4 while at Novell); they have
already added support for Netware's filing system NWFS to the Linux
kernel, and are now working on open source NDS software as well.

If I were you, I'd plan to keep the Netware systems going in the
short-term, and start moving things gradually to Linux - starting with the
Internet stuff, since that's easiest: e-mail, DNS, DHCP, WWW etc.


James.