Opinions: Novell 6 or Win2k/2k3 for NOS

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agent420

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Just curious. I'm starting plans for a new file/print server (nothing fancy, no server apps). Primarily storage though it will home several Paradox DB's that will be accessed by about 25 users. SCSI Raid5 disks.

Considering that access time and stability will be the leading requirements, what NOS will be the best performing (cost not an issue): Netware 6, Win2k Server or Win2k3 Server?

Please don't suggest any Linux, I'm not against it but it's not an option at this point.

Thanks.
 
I would at least narrow your choices to win2k3 or netware 6. Out of those 2, both are great OSes. Ease of administration is not much of an issue either because both have great GUI tools. Given the choice of those 2, I would pick win2k3. The reason being is I personally have much more experience on that platform. So I suppose my suggestion is maybe pick the one you feel most comfortable/have the most experience with.
 
First i'd say use whatever platform you're most comfortable working with... If you can get around windows easier, that would be that much less of a headache when things break.

Other than that, I'd just have to say go with Win2K3 only because i haven't used Novell Netware since 1993 :eek:
 
Yeah, I'm kinda leaning towards Win2k3 because I'm more comfortable with the platform. But the box it's replacing is Novell 3.12 and it's stable as all hell, the only time it's been down in the 3 years I've been responsible for it was when I downed it during a dust bunny cleaning project. Other than that it doesn't require any attention at all, so little in fact that I'd have to consult the books to do anything other than adding users/groups or rights. I would really like to get a modern box like that.
 
I know you said no NIX. Can I ask why?

I went from a 2k3 Filserver to a home brew slackware one. Hell of alot quicker throughput.

I find windows file sharing to be a pain in the ass, and im assuming thats what you'll be using.

I just find 2k3 (any windows) to be over the top for a simple function like file/print serving...

But hey.. u said no nix so...
 
This is for work, and unfortunately I don't have the time for any major learning curve in order to implement the box. I haven't played with any nix yet, and I wouldn't want to find myself in the position of learning and problem solving while my users are trying to get their work done. That's the the primary reason for leaning towards MS. Also, although there are no plans to run any server apps at the moment, I probably should leave the door open for that possibility. For better or worse, all small business apps run on the MS platform, but finding ones that run on alternative os's can be more difficult. Right now I have those apps (accounting, payroll, inventroy) running on a dedicated 2k box that get daily backups to the Netware server that has DLT tape backup. It would be nice to centralize all those to one box if I went the MS route.

[edit] Not to mention the learning curve would be doubled, as my lesser skilled backup operator is not familiar with nix either.
 
just a thought, wouldn't the cli of /nix be similar to novell's cli interface for 3.11-3.12?
I'm sure commands would be different, but the OS is free.
You could setup a test linux box and see if it's any different.
Obviously that's not gonna be "easy" administation for you, compared to the current setup.
What kind of administration do you have to do to the current system, other than backups?
 
Originally posted by ciscokid454
just a thought, wouldn't the cli of /nix be similar to novell's cli interface for 3.11-3.12?
I'm sure commands would be different, but the OS is free.
Click to expand...
Not being familiar with nix, I don't know how it compares to netware 3.12. Even with 3.12, I rarely need to use the cli, I have a util named sysconwin.exe (3rd party I think) that runs on my xp workstation and provides gui access to nearly all the functions I need. Not that those needs are many, as I said the netware box needs practically no attention other than user management, printer setup and backup operations.

Funny as it sounds, cost isn't an issue. Between liberal management and good competitive upgrade offers from both Novell and MS I could go either way. And I think the owners would feel more comfortable with the support available from either of those os's than the 'unknown' nix, especially for a business critical system. We're out in the sticks and it's not always easy to locate good local support should it be needed.

That said, I do plan on a test nix box at some point, if nothing more than a learning tool. But now's not the time for a production install.
 
I was a huge Novell supporter for many years from 3.12 up to 5. I still think for File/Print serving they have an edge over MS. Infact, I think it's stability is also much better then MS. However this is an MS world, and businesses move to what they are most comfortable with and I had to move to MS to stay competitive as a consultant.

If all I wanted was file/print serving and perhaps proxy server app type stuff, I'd say Novell. Border manager is good stuff :)
 
Netware has changed a ton since 3.1. I would probably go towards win2k3, but netware is also a very good option. Pretty much everything is manageable through web interfaces or through ConsoleOne, and for many things is through both. With either 6 or 6.5 they gave the option of using the linux kernel, as that is what they are moving to. I would definitely set up a trial netware box to test things out, 90 day trial is available from Novell's website.

Good luck!
 
NetWare 6. Novell has basically ported Samba to it, so it's possible to have it appear like a windows server to your users. You might still get some additional benefits from using Novell's client though. Novell is really making a huge move towards Open Standards.

Shame about the "no Linux". Samba on Linux smokes Windows on equivalent hardware. File sharing on NetWare is even faster though. The NetWare kernel was really designed around file serving -- a general purpose OS just doesn't stand a chance against it in that arena.

Since you stated performance and stability as the main criteria, I'll go into a bit more detail:
  • Windows and Linux are designed to run applications in protected space; that is, one application can't access the memory which belongs to another. Managing the protected memory adds additional overhead during context changes (when the OS switches to another process).
  • In NetWare 4.11 and earlier, all threads (essentailly processes) ran in the same memory space. Everything running on the system was trusted, so this wasn't a problem. The upside of this approach is that there is no protected memory to manage, thus context changes are faster. This in turn decreases latency, or put another way improves the access time.
  • NetWare 5 and above include apache and/or tomcat, and run these in a separate memory space (like a process in Unix). A typical server only has 3 or 4 memory spaces in use at any given time, so the protected memory management overhead is still is significantly reduced.
  • NetWare is a non-preemptive multitasking operating system. That is, a thread keeps running until it decides to give up the CPU. NetWare implements CPU Hog detection, which will stop a runaway process after is has run for a specified length of time (you can select the value). Non-preemption also has the effect of reducing the number of context switches, which helps performance.
  • The main loop in the NetWare kernel loops through seeing if there are outstanding File/Print NCP requests. If so, it services them -- there are multiple (you can set the number) worker threads. The networking layer is designed to quickly dispatch incoming NCP requests into the appropriate queue. These threads either run to completion (if no I/O is involved), or block waiting for an I/O operation to complete. Either way, they're running as fast as they can to get a result back to the user.
  • All 'unused' memory on NetWare is used for file caching. When you load an application, it needs memory, right? The file cache is shrunk just enough so that the application can load and run. When the app is done, the memory goes back to the file cache. The basic idea is that it's way faster to serve a file from memory than it is to serve it from disk (it will get synched back to the disk as changes are made though).
  • Linux and Windows are designed to be general purpose OSes, so they can't afford to use such huge file caches, or optimize scheduling for file/print serving requests. They have to be prepared to do things like play 3d games (which your win2k3 kernel has optimizations for). Why is it again that I want to have accelerated graphics on my server, at the expense of stability?
So, for a fileserver, I say go with NetWare.

I admit that I am somewhat biased against Microsoft, mainly because of their horrible security track record, their hijacking and bastardization of established standards, and their instability. But other than that they're pretty good I suppose.
 
Thanks for all the input. Much appreciated.

I suspected that Netware and Linux out-performed Windows, but I thought the gap had closed some. I know the Netware 3.12 server I have now is no slouch, and it has the highest uptime of any box I've ever personally worked on. It would be nice to have a MS box that I am more familiar with and could run any requested future apps, but perhaps the best performing setup would be to continue running a dedicated Netware fileserver alongside a 2k/2k3 business apps box for compatibility. Time to get the test box ready...

I must say this has really peaked my interest in Linux. As this thread topic kind of excluded it, I'll begin a new one.
 
One thing we have experienced is that a lot of Windows developers write their apps with the assumption that a) their app is the [only] thing running on the box and b) their app is running as Administrator. We have encountered numerous vendors who required their app be the only thing installed on the box.

That's all the more reason to keep file/print seperated from apps servers.
 
Having worked with both, I can honestly say that they are both good. I can say though, that if you're going to run a pure microsoft shop, AD edges out NDS simply because it will work out of the box.... no need to install an extra client. Microsoft has also been adding a lot of value to AD lately, and if you are going to use Exchange for email, you MUST use AD. You can deploy apps with ZEN or with an AD GPO... I think the GPO (for windows) is much easier as long as the installer is a .msi.... otherwise you're stuck taking a snapshop just like you would do with ZEN..... although the last time I deployed an app through ZEN was about 2 years ago, they may have improved it. Also, with Win2k3, you have a lot more control over workstations through GPOs.... even to the point where you can prohibit apps from running based on their hash value (or disk location, filename etc.). Easy control like that is very nice to have...... reading over my reply, it looks like I really like AD.... and I do, it has come a long way since the first release version that came with Win2k....... but don't get me wrong, in a mixed shop, I would rather use Novell.

As far as Win2k or Win2k3.... I really like Win2k3, and I think MSFT actually did a great job on it.
 
I word in a mixed NW/AD environment. I am very comfortable with Win2k and really don't like working in NW (we run v5) if I can help it.

If I had to choose and felt comforatable using either, I would have to still lean towards Microsoft. For speed, I feel (subjectively) that a clean win2k workstation will access a MS file server much faster than a NW, with either the Novell client or the MS client for Novell networks. We have some computers that only access MS shares, some that access both with the MS Netware client, and some with the NW client itself and there is no doubt that the clean systems hitting the MS shares are faster.

BUT, NW doesn't have the security problems, plus they are as stable as you can get. Hell, we had to shutdown all of our servers a few weeks ago and we didn't even know exactly where the power button was on our main NW server because the damn thing hadn't been downed in over a year. No shit.

I like MS because it is what I know. And I feel it works better with MS clients. But there is no denying that NW is a great NOS.
 
Originally posted by Blitzrommel
Netware has nice security, but I hardly consider it fast.
Click to expand...
Well, it certainly is designed to be fast. I've disassembled part of the kernel and can tell you that it works the way I described above. File caching on NetWare is also well documented (LRU sitting time metric is used for determining if you need more memory).

Are you suggesting that somehow Microsoft and/or Linux is able to retrieve data from disk faster than NetWare can from memory? Somehow Microsoft and/or Linux are able to perform context switches faster while at the same time doing more?
 
I don't care all that much, seeing that Novell bought SuSE not too long ago, Netware is hardly the preferred NOS anymore and they knew that. :)
 
Netware is hardly the preferred NOS anymore and they knew that.
Click to expand...

So then AD is the preferred by default? Making a very blanket statement like that puts you on some pretty shaky ground. Novell has been in the directory services game for a lot longer than MSFT has been. They were doing x.500 style trees while MSFT was still using the domain model... and getting stuck with the problem of setting up trusts between those domains... what a mess that was.

If you're given the task of setting up a DS that has to service Macs and PCs, are you really going to WANT to use AD? Personally, I wouldn't. How about when a user calls and says "I deleted xyz file".... you know how nice it is to simply have them "salvage" their file? There are so many nice things about Netware that you wouldn't even know about if you never spent any time administering it..... so to say that MSFT has the clear and obvious edge isn't correct IMO.
 
Yeah, the salvage feature is really nice in Netware. I would miss that if I went to another nos. Hard to believe that MS hasn't been able to implement that as well, it seems like such a basic necessity.
 
To be fair, I'm not all that familiar with the new shadow copy feature of win2k3; but after reviewing the docs on the MS site I'm not sure I would agree that the shadow copy feature is equal to Novell's salvage utility. From what I understand, you have to set a schedule to create the shadow copies, and you are limited to the snapshot of files taken at that time. So if a user accidentally deletes or changes a file that was created or changed after the shadow copy snapshot, you're sol. You can attempt to resolve that by increasing the frequency of snapshots, but it appears as though this takes additional resources and performance from the system.

Novell's salvage is more akin to a system recycle bin, every file changed or deleted is able to be immediately restored, provided there is enough disk space available. There is no need to create a schedule, and system performance does not suffer.

It appears to me that Novell's implementation (which has been a feature for years) is much superior. Please correct me if I am wrong.
 
You're not wrong. But the ability is there. The resources required to snapshot with shadowcopies isnt that intensive. But yeah you do have to schedule when you want shadow copies to be made.
 
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