Novell Not Dumping Netware

jerel writes "eWeek describes how Novell will still develop and support NetWare. The eWeek article quotes Bruce Lowry, a top spokesman for Novell as saying, 'The bottom line is no. The whole thing with Linux is an additive thing. We're not dumping NetWare, we're adding Linux.' NetWare 7.0 will allow users to either upgrade to the latest version of the NetWare kernel or move to Linux." I guess this answers any lingering doubts going around.

Comments

UnixWare

[conway]

Novell has already tried this unix strategy with Unixware. They purchased the original unix team from USL (Unix System Labs), (which was there from AT&T) and had them work on Unixware.
It turned out however, that the Novell sales team only knew how to sell Netware, and Unixware got nowhere. (Wow, that almost rhymes! :) )

After about 5 years they sold the group to HP, to work on HP-UX, which kept them for another 5 years or so, and then closed the site and lay everyone off. (After they successfully ported HP-UX to the Itanium platform). C'est la vie.

NetWare is good

[candyuk]

Novell's core strategy has been to leverage it's existing technology (NetWare and eDirectory) to get the company into more profitable markets. That doesn't mean that NetWare is a dead or dying product. In fact NetWare 6 has been a big seller for the company. However idiot analysts (Gartner et al) don't know anything about any technology that doesn't have a mouse and pretty gui. You can't run Word on NetWare so many people don't care about the OS. More importantly NetWare is widely interoperable so that security authentication, resource sharing and other services function on almost any platform going. Imagine a world where HR could input the name of a new employee into the Personnel system with a start date. The network security system would detect that new employee and create a login account, email address and file share without any user intervention. Then imagine that all these functions use software from different vendors. Thats what Novell brings to the table. Put that in your bigoted pipes and smoke it.

Some points

[wowbagger]

Some points that I feel need to be made:

• Netware is more than the Netware kernel - is is the sum of the kernel plus the various services. Novell can continue to develop Netware the services without developing Netware the kernel.
• "Develop and support" really does not mean much - it could just as easily mean they will continue to take tech support calls for Netware kernel based systems, and will continue to develop apps for it.
• "Develop and support" is to reassure PHBs that going with Novell is a good idea, even if the actual plan is to stop development on the Netware Kernel in the future.
• Currently, Netware only runs on x86. Consider what happens when the Netware services are available as daemons under Linux - Novell could offer Netware as services under Linux on the IBM zSeries machines. This would be the dream for a lot of IT managers - one Power4 or Power5 4-module (8 processor) zSeries machine with the manly-man I/O system that the zSeries has, logically partitioned into web servers, Novell file and NDS servers, database servers (with either Oracle or DB/2, running under either Linux or OS/400), in a reconfigurable box with IBM's support on the hardware. Need more OOMPH - call IBM and they unlock more for you. Need less OOMPH - don't pay for what you don't use.
• Given the previous point, and given the migration to 64 bit CPUs, there will inevitably come a point where, if you want a given capability in Netware services you will HAVE to run them under a 64 bit kernel - i.e. Linux rather than the x86 Netware kernel.

The only tricky thing is the difference in file system semantics between the Netware way of doing things and the Unix way - in Netware, if you have read access to /foo/bar/baz/poit/narf, you implicitly have file scan access to the directories above it to the extent of being able to see your file. In Unix, you could have full access and ownership of /foo/bar/baz/poit/narf but have no access to the intervening directories, and not be able to access your file.

This is important, as the Netware model makes a sysadmin's life easier - he can focus on who owns what files, rather than worrying about the directory structure.

However, file systems like XFS allow for extra metadata to be stored, so in theory a user space daemon could provide Netware file semantics on a Unix file system.