PREVIEW: Novell NetWare 5.0 beta 2

Latest NetWare 5.0 beta improved

By P.J. Connolly
 

STATUS UPDATE Novell NetWare 5.0 beta 2  Open beta: Yes Expected to ship: July Shows promise: Native IP support and backup, storage, and printing systems are shaping up Needs work: Lacks upgrade services, support for multiple network adapters in IP-only clients; performance and IP-toIPX compatibility issues still need to be addressed

e enjoy testing beta software because we often see a dramatic improvement between releases. This is certainly the case in the evolution of Novell Inc. NetWare 5.0, code-named Moab. When we evaluated the first release of the NetWare 5.0 beta (see "Moab upgrade proves a rocky ride," Jan. 5, Cover), we concluded that it was really an alpha version that must have been released by mistake.

Fortunately for die-hard NetWare loyalists, the second beta of NetWare 5.0 actually works, and it gives an enticing glimpse at how the product will look when it ships later this year.

The single most important feature of NetWare 5.0 is that for the first time in Novell's history, its flagship product uses IP as a native protocol at every level of the operating system. Even though Novell has offered an IP-based solution for some time with NetWare/IP, that solution merely "wrapped" the NetWare IPX traffic in IP clothes.

Although IPX still has a long future ahead of it--after all, Microsoft Windows 95 and NT systems install it as a default protocol--modifying NetWare to use IP as a native protocol is long overdue. Network managers trying to reduce the amount of traffic on the WAN or the backbone can now think about phasing out IPX before the end of the century.

To test the latest release, we isolated a NetWare 5.0 beta server and desktop machines running the NetWare 5.0 beta clients on a fast-Ethernet switch and used The AG Group Inc.'s EtherPeek 2.0 to monitor network traffic. After 36 hours of capturing packets, we didn't detect any IPX traffic.

How did Novell make this work? Simple enough: In NetWare 5.0, the NCPs (NetWare Core Protocols) run under IP instead of IPX. This requires fundamental changes to practically every utility the company provides with NetWare, to say nothing of third-party equipment.

A persistent complaint about IPX has been that its traffic is too "chatty," relying on SAP (Service Advertising Protocol) packets to broadcast resource in-formation across the network. Frugal network managers resent this profligate use of bandwidth, which can add up if you have to transport IPX across a WAN.

In the world of IP, which now includes NetWare 5.0, the function of SAP packets is handled by one of two protocols: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) at an initial level and Service Location Protocol (SLP) for higher-level functions. Traffic under these protocols takes place 1-to-1 rather than by broadcasting packets all over a network in case a client needs a SAP.

Because many NetWare shops use utilities, print servers, and other devices that presume the presence of the IPX protocol, NetWare 5.0 includes a Compatibility Mode Driver (CMD) for IP-to-IPX communications and continues to support IPX as a network protocol. The CMD handles the IP network as a virtual IPX network and provides IPX applications with their needs, all through IP.

In this beta version, the virtual IPX network must use a particular network number (0xFFFFFFFD), although future releases may let network managers modify this value. Another limitation in this CMD is that only one IP network driver is supported. We had to disable Remote Access Services or Dial-Up Networking on our test clients.

Of course, many shops don't need to use IP exclusively, and NetWare 5.0 is perfectly capable of managing in an IPX-only or mixed IP-IPX world. Client installations may continue to require IPX for internal communications, but this does not mean that you'll find any IPX traffic leaking out on to an IP-only segment.

Improved services, new glitches
The second beta of NetWare 5.0 also includes enhancements to Novell's Storage Management Services, updated network and storage drivers, and an update to Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS) that run natively on a Windows NT client. In this release, NT clients can access and use printers managed by NDPS, and the next beta should feature client components that let you manage NDPS with the NT printing controls.

Even though a Sun Microsystems Inc. Java-based GUI install for the server OS is finally provided in beta 2, it only works on the first server in an NDS tree. Subsequent installations must use the text-mode setup process. Nevertheless, it is a treat to be able to point and click through an installation instead of hammering away at keyboard cursor controls.

Unfortunately, we were disappointed to find that the RCONSOLE remote administration utility didn't appear to work in this release. We were unable to connect to our test server during numerous attempts even when we manually entered the server's unique ID number. Because it's difficult to know whether this is an application error or a communications problem with the CMD, we hope to investigate this glitch further when beta 3 is released next month.

Fortunately, this release of the Moab beta does include a version of SBACKUP that runs in an IP-only environment. It also uses SLP to enable network functionality, unlike previous versions that relied on SPX.

These achievements notwithstanding, we still wonder how Novell intends to position NetWare 5.0 when it finally hits the streets this summer. After all, we're talking about a product for which a significant portion of its user base is running a five-year-old release--NetWare 3.12--and either can't or won't upgrade to NetWare 4.0, much less version 5.0.

Even though features such as native IP support and NDPS are useful and desired by many network managers, we're not certain that these reasons alone will justify the upgrade to NetWare 5.0. Novell's most important task for the next beta and the shipping product is to ensure that the operating system's reputation for performance isn't compromised by the change to using IP as the native protocol.

We're impressed by what we saw in the second beta of NetWare 5.0 and are cautiously optimistic that Novell will meet its planned ship date of July for the final release of NetWare 5.0. We're still trying to figure out what will compel people to rush out and purchase this upgrade, but we have to concede that NetWare 5.0 is not likely to be the monkey that its first beta made it out to be.

Novell Inc. 1555 North Technology Way, Orem, UT 84097-2395; (801) 222-6000, fax (801) 429-5155; http://www.novell.com/netware5.