August 28, 2000

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Novell To Upgrade NetWare's Storage Management

Version 6 will include fail-safe clustered arrays and focus on application server functions

By John Rendleman

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ovell will begin shipping NetWare 6 by mid-2001 as part of a two-year plan to revamp its networking software platform.

A key feature of NetWare 6 will be integrated storage-management to better handle files, messaging, databases, and directories, company executives said last week. The upgrade aims at further integrating the storage needs of companies "to deliver the most reliable and secure platforms for their services," says Jeff Hawkins, VP of product management at Novell's net management services division.

The main addition to NetWare 6 will be integrated fail-safe clustered arrays of up to 32 symmetrical multiprocessor servers to make it better-suited for large, crucial installations. It also will include Novell Storage Services. Pricing for NetWare 6 will be disclosed in two to three months.

Plans also call for the release of multiple deployment guides for NetWare 5.1 and the Novell Small Business Suite 5.1 to simplify setup of commonly used configurations.

Novell's plan to focus on integrated storage management and the related improvements to messaging and other applications could correct what many IT managers see as NetWare's weaknesses. "For brute-force print services and file services, nothing really beats NetWare," says Bruce Becker, executive VP and CIO at Madison River Telephone Co. in Mebane, N.C. However, Becker doesn't think NetWare has generally kept pace with Unix or Windows NT in other applications.

Application servers for functions such as E-mail and messaging "is an area where Novell is inherently weak," Becker says. That's a major reason all of Madison's 60 application servers are either Sun Solaris or NT machines.

Some business users prefer Novell's approach--continued in NetWare 6--of sticking to the basics while adding applications support to the software incrementally.

Says Brad Staupp, a senior support analyst at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., "I need the best file-and print-sharing there is, and then Novell can add Web management and a few of the other extras and let me choose what I need."

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