A trip to Utah becomes a glimpse into a novel Novell NetWare world
Packet Rat R. Fink A trip to Utah becomes a glimpse into a novel Novell NetWare world The Rat went to Novell Inc.'s BrainShare fest in Salt Lake City late last month expecting nothing hotter than the Novell employees' chili cook-off. But the crowds were huge and the passion palpable.
Packet Rat The Rat went to Novell Inc.s BrainShare fest in Salt Lake City late last month Novell users were obviously turned on to NetWare 5. The cyberrodent sniffed out the Maybe its just that users really didnt like NetWare 4.1, the The buzz was less about NetWare than about Novell Directory Services. Novell has Chief executive officer Eric Schmidt got a standing ovation when he came on stage for Although Schmidts delivery could never be compared with a rock stars, he But when Schmidt began unveiling Novells short-term plans, the Rat swore he could First, Schmidt promised that a new version of NDS would be out for Microsoft Windows Yep, he said a Carl Sagan billion. A directory search took less than a second. Kaboom. Also, Schmidt said, there will be a SunSoft Solaris version of NDS 8. The Rat pictured Kaboom. Then there was the next release of NetWare 5, code-named Six Pack. Itll come Kaboom. To wrap things up, Schmidt demonstrated DigitalMe technology that gives users control Cool was the only word to describe the next 20 minutes as the audience watched a demo The Rats favorite part, however, was hearing the rumor that Novell will port NDS Maybe, just maybe, Linux world domination will come about thanks to Novell. The Packet Rat once managed networks but now spends his time ferreting out bad
R. Fink
A trip to Utah becomes a glimpse into a novel Novell NetWare world
expecting nothing hotter than the Novell employees chili cook-off. But the crowds
were huge and the passion palpable.
news that the companys latest network operating system has the fastest adoption rate
since NetWare 3.
Rat mused. But there was no cynicism among the Novell faithful having a hot time in the
Salt Palace party zone.
finally found its new calling: a little directory assistance.
his keynote speech. Someone even shouted, We love you, Eric! like a starstruck
teen-ager.
made up for his less-than-electric presence by bragging about the ZENworks system
management tool, the growth of GroupWise messaging to 17 million seats and a NetWare 2
server that has been running without a crash for nine years.
hear cruise missiles swooshing toward a certain company headquarters in the state of
Washington.
NTno NetWare requiredbefore Microsofts own Active Directory even makes
an appearance. Unlike NT domains hard limit, NDS Version 8code-named SKADS for
scalable, kick-ass directory servicecan handle up to 1 billion users and devices.
Thats hard for a product thats not shipping.
a directory running on a Sun UltraSparc multiprocessing server and drooled.
bundled with the IBM WebSphere Java application server, Oracles Oracle8i WebDB
database tool, Netscape Communication Corp.s Web server and the new directory
service. Six Pack will have Hypertext Transfer Protocol access to server files and Web
browser configuration. And itll probably arrive before Windows 2000.
over personal data stored in a secure directoryan NDS directory, by the way. It can
hold digital certificates, and it has a secure drop-box for guaranteed delivery.
of DigitalMe. A scalable, user-configurable, public-key directory service that integrates
with everything from e-mail to electronic commerce might bury electronic data interchange
and make public-key certificates practical at last.
and DigitalMe to Linux. Novell has just put money into Red Hat Software Inc. of Research
Triangle Park, N.C.an ironic investment, because its Caldera Inc. of Orem,
Utah, that publishes NetWare for Linux. Novell must have gotten tired of dealing with
other companies founded by Ray Noorda.
packets in cyberspace. E-mail him at rat@gcn.com.