NetWare
is a discontinued computer
network operating system developed by
Novell, Inc.
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi- platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the lea ...
It initially used
cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the
IPX
Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is the network layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol suite. IPX is derived from Xerox Network Systems' IDP. It also has the ability to act as a transport layer protocol.
The IPX/SPX protocol suite was very po ...
network protocol.
The original NetWare product in 1983 supported clients running both
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
and
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
, ran over a proprietary star
network topology and was based on a Novell-built file server using the
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...
processor. The company soon moved away from building its own hardware, and NetWare became hardware-independent, running on any suitable Intel-based
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...
system, and able to utilize a wide range of network cards. From the beginning NetWare implemented a number of features inspired by
mainframe
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
and
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
systems that were not available in its competitors' products.
In 1991, Novell introduced cheaper
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
networking products for
DOS and
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, unrelated to their server-centric NetWare. These are
NetWare Lite 1.0 (NWL), and later
Personal NetWare 1.0 (PNW) in 1993.
In 1993, the main NetWare product line took a dramatic turn when version 4 introduced
NetWare Directory Services
eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was in ...
(NDS, later renamed
eDirectory
eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was i ...
), a global
directory service
In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network r ...
based on
ISO X.500 concepts (six years later,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
released
Active Directory
Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...
). The directory service, along with a new e-mail system (
GroupWise
GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, whi ...
), application configuration suite (
ZENworks
ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Micro Focus International for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire life cycle of servers, of desktop PCs (Windows, Linux or Mac), of laptops, and of handhel ...
), and security product (
BorderManager
BorderManager is a multi purpose network security application developed by Novell, Inc. BorderManager is designed as a proxy server, firewall, and VPN access point. Novell has announced that migration to SuperLumin 4.0 Proxy Cache is "Novell's p ...
) were all targeted at the needs of large enterprises.
By 2000, however, Microsoft was taking more of Novell's customer base and Novell increasingly looked to a future based on a
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
. The successor to NetWare, ''
Open Enterprise Server
Open Enterprise Server (OES) is a server operating system published by Novell in March 2005 to succeed their NetWare product.
Unlike NetWare, Novell OES is a Linux distribution—specifically, one based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The fir ...
'' (OES), released in March 2005, offers all the services previously hosted by NetWare 6.5, but on a
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise (often abbreviated to SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop compu ...
; the NetWare kernel remained an option until OES 11 in late 2011.
The final update release was version 6.5SP8 of May 2009; NetWare is no longer on Novell's product list.
NetWare 6.5SP8 General Support ended in 2010; Extended Support was available until the end of 2015, and Self Support until the end of 2017. The replacement is Open Enterprise Server.
History
![Networking card yes it runs with NetWare](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Networking_card_yes_it_runs_with_NetWare.jpg)
NetWare evolved from a very simple concept: file sharing instead of disk sharing. By controlling access at the level of individual files, instead of entire disks, files could be locked and better access control implemented. In 1983 when the first versions of NetWare originated, all other competing products were based on the concept of providing shared direct disk access. Novell's alternative approach was validated by
IBM in 1984, which helped promote the NetWare product.
Novell NetWare shares disk space in the form of NetWare ''volumes'', comparable to
logical volumes. Client workstations running DOS run a special
terminate and stay resident (TSR) program that allows them to ''map'' a local drive letter to a NetWare volume. Clients log into a server in order to be allowed to map volumes, and access can be restricted according to the login name. Similarly, they can connect to shared printers on the dedicated server, and print as if the printer is connected locally.
At the end of the 1990s, with Internet connectivity booming, the Internet's
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
protocol became dominant on
LAN
Lan or LAN may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics
* Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...
s. Novell had introduced limited TCP/IP support in NetWare 3.x (circa 1992) and 4.x (circa 1995), consisting mainly of FTP services and UNIX-style LPR/LPD printing (available in NetWare 3.x), and a Novell-developed webserver (in NetWare 4.x). Native TCP/IP support for the client file and print services normally associated with NetWare was introduced in NetWare 5.0 (released in 1998). There was also a short-lived product, NWIP, that encapsulated IPX in TCP/IP, intended to ease transition of an existing NetWare environment from IPX to IP.
During the early to mid-1980s
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
introduced their own LAN system in
LAN Manager, based on the competing
NBF protocol. Early attempts to compete with NetWare failed, but this changed with the inclusion of improved networking support in
Windows for Workgroups
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was Released-to-manufacturing, released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a Shell (computing), shell ...
, and then the successful
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems sc ...
and
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
. NT, in particular, offered a sub-set of NetWare's services, but on a system that could also be used on a desktop, and due to the vertical integration there was no need for a third-party client.
Early years
NetWare originated from consulting work by
SuperSet Software, a group founded by the friends
Drew Major
Drew Major (born June 17, 1956) is a computer scientist and entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is n ...
, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell and later Mark Hurst. This work stemmed from their classwork at
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
in
Provo, Utah
Provo ( ) is the fourth-largest city in Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the largest city and county seat of Utah County and is home to Brigham Young University (BYU).
Provo lies between the ...
, starting in October 1981.
In 1981,
Raymond Noorda
Raymond John "Ray" Noorda (19 June 1924 – 9 October 2006) was a U.S. computer businessman. He was CEO of Novell between 1982 and 1994. He also served as chairman of Novell until he was replaced in 1994.
Early life
Noorda was born in ...
engaged the work by the SuperSet team. The team was originally assigned to create a
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
disk sharing
Disk or disc may refer to:
* Disk (mathematics), a geometric shape
* Disk storage
Music
* Disc (band), an American experimental music band
* ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby
Other uses
* Disk (functional analysis), a subset of a vector space ...
system to help network the CP/M Motorola 68000 hardware that Novell sold at the time. The first
S-Net
S-Net is a worldwide inter-satellite communications network consisting of four satellites and being operated by the Technical University of Berlin.
Description
The project has the goal to investigate and demonstrate inter-satellite communication t ...
is
CP/M-68K
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initiall ...
-based and shares a hard disk. In 1983, the team was privately convinced that CP/M was a doomed platform and instead came up with a successful file-sharing system for the newly introduced IBM-compatible
PC. They also wrote an application called
Snipes
Snipes may refer to:
* Snipe, a wading bird
* Snipes (surname)
* ''Snipes'' (film), a 2001 film
* ''Snipes'' (video game), a 1983 text-mode networked computer game
* Snipes Mountain AVA
Snipes Mountain AVA is an American Viticultural Area l ...
– a text-mode game – and used it to test the new network and demonstrate its capabilities. Snipes
ka 'NSnipes' for 'Network Snipes'is the first network application ever written for a commercial personal computer, and it is recognized as one of the precursors of many popular multiplayer games such as ''
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* L ...
'' and ''
Quake''.
First called
ShareNet
S-Net (aka ShareNet) was a network operating system and the set of network protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of ...
or
S-Net
S-Net is a worldwide inter-satellite communications network consisting of four satellites and being operated by the Technical University of Berlin.
Description
The project has the goal to investigate and demonstrate inter-satellite communication t ...
, this
network operating system (NOS) was later called Novell NetWare. NetWare is based on the
NetWare Core Protocol
The NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the client-server operating system Novell NetWare which originally supported primarily MS-DOS client stations, but later su ...
(NCP), which is a packet-based protocol that enables a client to send requests to and receive replies from a NetWare server. Initially, NCP was directly tied to the
IPX/SPX
IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became widely used on netwo ...
protocol, and NetWare communicated natively using only IPX/SPX.
The first product to bear the NetWare name was released in 1983. There were two distinct versions of NetWare at that time. One version was designed to run on the
Intel 8086
The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...
processor and another on the Motorola processor which was called
NetWare 68 (aka
S-Net
S-Net is a worldwide inter-satellite communications network consisting of four satellites and being operated by the Technical University of Berlin.
Description
The project has the goal to investigate and demonstrate inter-satellite communication t ...
); it runs on the Motorola 68000 processor on a proprietary Novell-built file server (Novell could not write an original network operating system from scratch so they licensed a
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
kernel and based NetWare on that
) and uses a star
network topology. This was soon joined by NetWare 86 4.x, which was written for the Intel 8086. This was replaced in 1985 with Advanced NetWare 86 version 1.0a which allows more than one server on the same network. In 1986, after the
Intel 80286 processor became available, Novell released Advanced NetWare 286 1.0a. Two versions were offered for sale; the basic version was sold as ELS I and the more enhanced version was sold as ELS II. The acronym ELS was used to identify this new product line as NetWare's Entry Level System.
NetWare 286 2.x
![Novell_NetWare_2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Novell_NetWare_2.2_floppies.jpg)
Advanced NetWare version 2.x, launched in 1986, was written for the then-new 80286 CPU. The 80286 CPU features a new
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...
protected mode that provides access to up to 16 MiB RAM as well as new mechanisms to aid multi-tasking. (Prior to the 80286, PC CPU servers used the Intel
8088/8086
8-/16-bit processors, which are limited to an address space of 1 MiB with not more than 640 KiB of directly addressable RAM.) The combination of a higher 16 MiB RAM limit, 80286 processor feature utilization, and 256 MB NetWare volume size limit (compared to the 32 MB that DOS allowed at that time) allowed the building of reliable, cost-effective server-based local area networks for the first time. The 16 MiB RAM limit was especially important, since it makes enough RAM available for disk caching to significantly improve performance. This became the key to Novell's performance while also allowing larger networks to be built.
In a significant innovation, NetWare 286 is also hardware-independent, unlike competing network server systems. Novell servers can be assembled using any brand system with an Intel 80286 CPU, any
MFM,
RLL,
ESDI, or
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...
hard drive and any 8- or 16-bit network adapter for which NetWare drivers are available – and 18 different manufacturer's network cards were supported at launch.
The server could support up to four network cards,
and these can be a mixture of technologies such as
ARCNET,
Token Ring and
Ethernet
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
. The operating system is provided as a set of compiled
object module
An object file is a computer file containing object code, that is, machine code output of an Assembly language#Assembler, assembler or compiler. The object code is usually Relocation (computing), relocatable, and not usually directly executable. T ...
s that required configuration and linking. Any change to the operating system requires a re-linking of the
kernel. Installation also requires the use of a proprietary low-level format program for
MFM hard drives called COMPSURF.
The file system used by NetWare 2.x is
NetWare File System
In computing, a NetWare File System (NWFS) is a file system based on a heavily modified version of FAT. It was used in the Novell NetWare operating system. It is the default and only file system for all volumes in versions 2.x through 4.x, and th ...
286, or NWFS 286, supporting volumes of up to 256 MB. NetWare 286 recognizes 80286
protected mode
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking d ...
, extending NetWare's support of RAM from 1 MiB to the full 16 MiB addressable by the 80286. A minimum of 2 MiB is required to start up the operating system; any additional RAM is used for
FAT
In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.
The term often refers spec ...
, DET and file caching. Since 16-bit protected mode is implemented in the 80286 and every subsequent Intel x86 processor, NetWare 286 version 2.x will run on any 80286 or later compatible processor.
NetWare 2.x implements a number of features inspired by
mainframe
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
and
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
systems that were not available in other
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s of the day. The ''
System Fault Tolerance (SFT)'' features includes standard read-after-write verification (SFT-I) with on-the-fly bad block re-mapping (at the time, disks did not have that feature built in) and software
RAID1
In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...
(disk mirroring, SFT-II). The
Transaction Tracking System (TTS) optionally protects files against incomplete updates. For single files, this requires only a file attribute to be set. Transactions over multiple files and controlled roll-backs are possible by programming to the TTS
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...
.
NetWare 286 2.x normally requires a dedicated PC to act as the server, where the server uses DOS only as a
boot loader to execute the operating system file . All memory is allocated to NetWare; no DOS ran on the server. However, a "non-dedicated" version was also available for price-conscious customers. In this, DOS 3.3 or higher remains in memory, and the processor time-slices between the DOS and NetWare programs, allowing the server computer to be used simultaneously as a network file server and as a user workstation. Because all
extended memory (RAM above 1 MiB) is allocated to NetWare, DOS is limited to only 640 KiB;
expanded memory managers that used the MMU of 80386 and higher processors, such as EMM386, do not work; 8086-style expanded memory on dedicated plug-in cards is possible however. Time slicing is accomplished using the keyboard
interrupt, which requires strict compliance with the IBM PC design model, otherwise performance is affected.
Server licensing on early versions of NetWare 286 is accomplished by using a key card. The key card was designed for an 8-bit ISA bus, and has a serial number encoded on a ROM chip. The serial number has to match the serial number of the NetWare software running on the server. To broaden the hardware base, particularly to machines using the IBM MCA bus, later versions of NetWare 2.x do not require the key card; serialised license floppy disks are used in place of the key cards.
Licensing is normally for 100 users, but two ELS versions were also available. First a 5-user ELS in 1987, and followed by the 8-user ELS 2.12 II in 1988.
NetWare 3.x
NetWare's 3.x range was a major step forward. It began with version 3.0 in 1990, followed quickly by version 3.10 and 3.11 in 1991.
A key feature was support for
32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
protected mode
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking d ...
, eliminating the 16 MiB memory limit of NetWare 286 and therefore allowing larger hard drives to be supported (since NetWare 3.x cached the entire
file allocation table
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...
and directory entry table into memory for improved performance).
NetWare version 3.x was also much simpler to install, with disk and network support provided by software modules called a
NetWare Loadable Module
A NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) is a loadable kernel module (a binary code module) that can be loaded into Novell's NetWare operating system. NLMs can implement hardware drivers, server functions (e.g. clustering), applications (e.g. GroupWis ...
(NLM) loaded either at start-up or when it was needed. NLMs could also add functionality such as anti-virus software, backup software, database and web servers. Support for long filenames was also provided by an NLM.
A new file system was introduced by NetWare 3.x – "
NetWare File System
In computing, a NetWare File System (NWFS) is a file system based on a heavily modified version of FAT. It was used in the Novell NetWare operating system. It is the default and only file system for all volumes in versions 2.x through 4.x, and th ...
386", or NWFS 386, which significantly extended volume capacity (1 TB, 4 GB files), and could handle up to 16 volume segments spanning multiple physical disk drives. Volume segments could be added while the server was in use and the volume was mounted, allowing a server to be expanded without interruption.
In NetWare 386 3.x all NLMs ran on the server at the same level of processor
memory protection, known as "
ring 0". This provided the best possible performance, it sacrificed reliability because there was no memory protection, and furthermore NetWare 3.x used a
co-operative multitasking
Cooperative multitasking, also known as non-preemptive multitasking, is a style of computer multitasking in which the operating system never initiates a context switch from a running process to another process. Instead, in order to run multiple a ...
model, meaning that an NLM was required to yield to the kernel regularly. For either of these reasons a badly behaved NLM could result in a fatal (
ABEND
Abend is a German-language surname, meaning "evening". Notable people with the surname include:
*Edward Abend, (1822–1904), German American politician
*Guy Abend (born 1990), Israeli footballer
*Harry Abend (1937–2021), Venezuelan artist
See ...
) error.
NetWare continued to be administered using console-based utilities.
With version 3.x, Novell increased the rigors of compatibility testing with their third-party vendors, revamping their certification program in October 1992 and unveiling a two-tier cooperating marketing program. The first tier provided Novell's vendors a package containing a compatibility guideline book, engineering support lines, self-testing tools, and limited marketing resources, the latter including a license to promote products with a logo stating "Yes, it runs with NetWare" – all free of charge and followed at the vendors' discretion. The second tier required a one-time application fee of $7,000 but replaced the logo's byline with a more confident-sounding "Yes, it's NetWare tested and approved" and accorded partners with more extensive support, including on-location testing by Novell Labs. Initially limited to the United States, this program was rolled out in the United Kingdom in the following year.
For a while, Novell also marketed an
OEM
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
version of NetWare 3, called Portable NetWare, together with OEMs such as
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
,
DEC and
Data General, who ported Novell source code to run on top of their Unix operating systems. Portable NetWare did not sell well.
While NetWare 3.x was current, Novell introduced its first
high-availability clustering system, named NetWare SFT-III, which allowed a logical server to be completely mirrored to a separate physical machine. Implemented as a
shared-nothing A shared-nothing architecture (SN) is a distributed computing architecture in which each update request is satisfied by a single node (processor/memory/storage unit) in a computer cluster. The intent is to eliminate contention among nodes. Nodes do ...
cluster, under SFT-III the OS was logically split into an interrupt-driven ''I/O engine'' and the event-driven OS core. The I/O engines serialized their interrupts (disk, network etc.) into a combined event stream that was fed to two identical copies of the system engine through a fast (typically 100 Mbit/s) inter-server link. Because of its non-preemptive nature, the OS core, stripped of non-deterministic I/O, behaves deterministically, like a large
finite state machine. The outputs of the two system engines were compared to ensure proper operation, and two copies fed back to the I/O engines. Using the existing SFT-II software RAID functionality present in the core, disks could be mirrored between the two machines without special hardware. The two machines could be separated as far as the server-to-server link would permit. In case of a server or disk failure, the surviving server could take over client sessions transparently after a short pause since it had full state information. SFT-III was the first NetWare version able to make use of
SMP hardware – the I/O engine could optionally be run on its own CPU. NetWare SFT-III, ahead of its time in several ways, was a mixed success.
With NetWare 3 an improved routing protocol,
NetWare Link Services Protocol, has been introduced which scales better than
Routing Information Protocol and allows building large networks.
NetWare 4.x
![Novell NetWare 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Novell_NetWare_2.0_packages.jpg)
Version 4 in 1993 introduced NetWare Directory Services, later re-branded as
Novell Directory Services
eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was i ...
(NDS), based on
X.500
X.500 is a series of computer networking standards covering electronic directory services. The X.500 series was developed by the ITU-T, Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T). ITU-T was former ...
, which replaced the Bindery with a global
directory service
In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network r ...
, in which the infrastructure was described and managed in a single place. Additionally, NDS provided an extensible
schema
The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms.
Schema may refer to:
Science and technology
* SCHEMA ...
, allowing the introduction of new object types. This allowed a single user authentication to NDS to govern access to any server in the directory tree structure. Users could therefore access network resources no matter on which server they resided, although user license counts were still tied to individual servers. (Large enterprises could opt for a license model giving them essentially unlimited per-server users if they let Novell audit their total user count.)
Version 4 also introduced a number of useful tools and features, such as transparent compression at file system level and
RSA public/private
encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...
.
Another new feature was the NetWare Asynchronous Services Interface (NASI). It allowed network sharing of multiple serial devices, such as
modems
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
. Client port redirection occurred via a DOS or Windows driver allowing companies to consolidate modems and
analog phone lines.
NetWare for OS/2
Promised as early as 1988, when the Microsoft-IBM collaboration was still ongoing and
OS/2 1.x was still a 16-bit product,
the product didn't become commercially available until after IBM and Microsoft had parted ways and OS/2 2.0 had become a 32-bit, pre-emptive multitasking and multithreading OS.
By August 1993,
Novell released its first version of "NetWare for OS/2". This first release supported OS/2 2.1 (1993) as the base OS, and required that users first buy and install IBM OS/2, then purchase NetWare 4.01, and then install the NetWare for OS/2 product. It retailed for $200.
By around 1995, and coincidental with IBM's renewed marketing push for its 32-bit OS/2 Warp OS, both as a desktop client and as a LAN server (OS/2 Warp Server), NetWare for OS/2 began receiving some good press coverage. "NetWare 4.1 for OS/2" allowed to run Novell's network stack and server modules on top of IBM's 32-bit kernel and network stack. It was basically NetWare 4.x running as a service on top of OS/2. It was compatible with third party client and server utilities and NetWare Loadable Modules.
Since IBM's 32-bit OS/2 included Netbios, IPX/SPX and TCP/IP support, this means that sysadmins could run all three most popular network stacks on a single box, and use the OS/2 box as a workstation too. NetWare for OS/2 shared memory on the system with OS/2 seamlessly. The book "Client Server survival Guide with OS/2" described it as "
glue code that lets the unmodified NetWare 4.x server program think it owns all resources on a OS/2 system". It also claimed that a NetWare server running on top of OS/2 only suffered a 5% to 10% overhead over NetWare running over the bare metal hardware, while gaining OS/2's pre-emptive multitasking and object oriented GUI.
Novell continued releasing bugfixes and updates to NetWare for OS/2 up to 1998.
Strategic mistakes
Novell's strategy with NetWare 286 2.x and 3.x proved very successful; before the arrival of
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Windo ...
Server, Novell claimed 90% of the market for PC based servers.
While the design of NetWare 3.x and later involved a DOS partition to load NetWare server files; while of little technical import (DOS merely loaded NetWare into memory and turned execution over to it; in later versions, DOS could be unloaded from RAM), this feature became a marketing liability. Additionally, the NetWare console remained text-based, when the Windows graphical interface gained widespread acceptance. Novell could have eliminated this technical liability by retaining the design of NetWare 286, which installed the server file into a Novell partition and allowed the server to boot from the Novell partition without creating a bootable DOS partition. Novell finally added support for this in a Support Pack for NetWare 6.5.
As Novell initially used
IPX/SPX
IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became widely used on netwo ...
instead of
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
, they were poorly positioned to take advantage of the Internet in 1995. This resulted in Novell servers being bypassed for routing and Internet access in favor of hardware routers,
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
-based operating systems such as
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
, and SOCKS and HTTP
Proxy Servers
In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource.
Instead of connecting directly to a server that can fulfill a request ...
on Windows and other operating systems.
A decision by the management of Novell also took away the ability of independent resellers and engineers to recommend and sell the product. The reduction of their effective sales force created this downward spiral in sales.
NetWare 4.1x and NetWare for Small Business
Novell priced NetWare 4.10 similarly to NetWare 3.12, allowing customers who resisted NDS (typically small businesses) to try it at no cost.
Later Novell released NetWare version 4.11 in 1996 which included many enhancements that made the operating system easier to install, easier to operate, faster, and more stable. It also included the first full 32-bit client for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
-based workstations,
SMP support and the NetWare Administrator (NWADMIN or NWADMN32), a GUI-based administration tool for NetWare. Previous administration tools used the
Cworthy interface, the character-based GUI tools such as SYSCON and PCONSOLE with blue text-based background. Some of these tools survive to this day, for instance MONITOR.NLM.
Novell packaged NetWare 4.11 with its Web server, TCP/IP support and the
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...
browser into a bundle dubbed IntranetWare (also written as intraNetWare). A version designed for networks of 25 or fewer users was named IntranetWare for Small Business and contained a limited version of NDS and tried to simplify NDS administration. The intranetWare name was dropped in NetWare 5.
During this time Novell also began to leverage its directory service, NDS, by tying their other products into the directory. Their e-mail system,
GroupWise
GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, whi ...
, was integrated with NDS, and Novell released many other directory-enabled products such as
ZENworks
ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Micro Focus International for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire life cycle of servers, of desktop PCs (Windows, Linux or Mac), of laptops, and of handhel ...
and
BorderManager
BorderManager is a multi purpose network security application developed by Novell, Inc. BorderManager is designed as a proxy server, firewall, and VPN access point. Novell has announced that migration to SuperLumin 4.0 Proxy Cache is "Novell's p ...
.
NetWare still required IPX/SPX as NCP used it, but Novell started to acknowledge the demand for TCP/IP with NetWare 4.11 by including tools and utilities that made it easier to create intranets and link networks to the Internet. Novell bundled tools, such as the IPX/IP gateway, to ease the connection between IPX workstations and IP networks. It also began integrating Internet technologies and support through features such as a natively hosted
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...
.
NetWare 5.x
With the release of NetWare 5 in October 1998 Novell switched its primary NCP interface from the
IPX/SPX
IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became widely used on netwo ...
network protocol to TCP/IP to meet market demand.
Products continued to support IPX/SPX, but the emphasis shifted to TCP/IP. New features included:
* a
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
for NetWare
*
Novell Storage Services
Novell Storage Services (NSS) is a file system used by the Novell NetWare operating system. Support for NSS was introduced in 2004 to SUSE Linux via low-level network NCPFS protocol. It has some unique features that make it especially useful for ...
(NSS), a file system to replace the traditional
NetWare File System
In computing, a NetWare File System (NWFS) is a file system based on a heavily modified version of FAT. It was used in the Novell NetWare operating system. It is the default and only file system for all volumes in versions 2.x through 4.x, and th ...
(which Novell continued to support)
*
Java virtual machine
A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
for NetWare
* Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), an infrastructure for printing over networks
* ConsoleOne, a Java-based GUI administration console
* directory-enabled
Public key infrastructure
A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a set of roles, policies, hardware, software and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption. The purpose of a PKI is to facilit ...
services (PKIS)
* directory-enabled
DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
and
DHCP servers
* support for
Storage Area Networks (SANs)
* Novell Cluster Services (NCS), a replacement for SFT-III
*
Oracle 8i with a 5-user license
The Cluster Services improved on SFT-III, as NCS did not require specialized hardware or identical server configurations.
Novell released NetWare 5 during a time when NetWare's
market share
Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...
had started dropping precipitously; many companies and organizations replaced their NetWare servers with servers running
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems sc ...
operating system.
Around this time Novell also released their last upgrade to the NetWare 4 operating system, NetWare 4.2.
NetWare 5 and above supported Novell NetStorage for Internet-based access to files stored within NetWare.
Novell released NetWare 5.1 in January 2000. It introduced a number of tools, such as:
*
IBM WebSphere Application Server
WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is a software product that performs the role of a web application server. More specifically, it is a software framework
In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, ...
* NetWare Management Portal (later called Novell Remote Manager), web-based management of the operating system
*
FTP
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
,
NNTP and
streaming-media servers
* NetWare Web Search Server
*
WebDAV
WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for concu ...
support
NetWare 6.0
NetWare 6 was released in October 2001, shortly after its predecessor. This version has a simplified licensing scheme based on users, not server connections. This allows unlimited connections per user to any number of NetWare servers in the network.
Novell Cluster Services was also improved to support 32-node clusters;
the base NetWare 6.0 product included a two-node clustering license.
NetWare 6.5
NetWare 6.5 was released in August 2003. Some of the new features in this version included:
* more open-source products such as
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
,
MySQL
MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...
and
OpenSSH
* a port of the
Bash
Bash or BASH may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992
* ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961
* '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych
* ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game
* "Bash" ('' ...
shell and a lot of traditional Unix utilities such as
wget,
grep,
awk
AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems.
The AWK langu ...
and
sed to provide additional capabilities for scripting
*
iSCSI support (both target and initiator)
* Virtual Office – an "out of the box" web portal for end users providing access to e-mail, personal file storage, company address book, etc.
*
Domain controller A domain controller (DC) is a server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a computer network domain. It is a network server that is responsible for allowing host access to domain resources. It authenticates users, store ...
functionality
* Universal password
* DirXML Starter Pack – synchronization of user accounts with another eDirectory tree, a
Windows NT domain or Active Directory.
* exteNd Application Server – a
Java EE 1.3-compatible
application server
An application server is a server that hosts applications or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol.
An application server framework is a service layer model. It includes software components available to a ...
* support for customized printer driver profiles and printer usage auditing
*
NX bit
The NX bit (no-execute) is a technology used in CPUs to segregate areas of memory for use by either storage of processor instructions or for storage of data, a feature normally only found in Harvard architecture processors. However, the NX bit is ...
support
* support for
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
storage devices
* support for encrypted volumes
The latest – and apparently last – Service Pack for NetWare 6.5 is SP8, released May 2009.
Open Enterprise Server
1.0
In 2003, Novell announced the successor product to NetWare:
Open Enterprise Server
Open Enterprise Server (OES) is a server operating system published by Novell in March 2005 to succeed their NetWare product.
Unlike NetWare, Novell OES is a Linux distribution—specifically, one based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The fir ...
(OES). First released in March 2005, OES completes the separation of the services traditionally associated with NetWare (such as Directory Services, and file-and-print) from the platform underlying the delivery of those services. OES is essentially a set of applications (eDirectory,
NetWare Core Protocol
The NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the client-server operating system Novell NetWare which originally supported primarily MS-DOS client stations, but later su ...
services, iPrint, etc.) that can run atop either a
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
or a NetWare kernel platform. Clustered OES implementations can even migrate services from Linux to NetWare and back again, making Novell one of the very few vendors to offer a multi-platform clustering solution.
Consequent to Novell's acquisitions of
Ximian and the German Linux distributor
SuSE
SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux Ent ...
, Novell moved away from NetWare and shifted its focus towards Linux. Marketing was focused on getting faithful NetWare users to move to the Linux platform for future releases.
The clearest indication of this direction was Novell's controversial decision to release Open Enterprise Server on Linux only, not NetWare. Novell later watered down this decision and stated that NetWare's 90 million users would be supported until at least 2015.
Meanwhile, many former NetWare customers rejected the confusing mix of licensed software running on an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
Linux operating system in favor of moving to complete Open Source solutions such as those offered by
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become ass ...
.
2.0
OES 2 was released on 8 October 2007. It includes NetWare 6.5 SP7, which supports running as a paravirtualized guest inside the
Xen
Xen (pronounced ) is a type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was
originally developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory an ...
hypervisor and new Linux based version using SLES10.
;New features include:
*
64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...
support
* Virtualization
* Dynamic Storage Technology, which provide Shadow Volumes
* Domain services for Windows (provided in OES 2 service pack 1)
From the 1990s
some organizations still used Novell NetWare, but it had started to lose popularity from the mid-1990s, when NetWare was the de facto standard for file- and printer-sharing software for the
Intel x86 server platform.
Microsoft successfully took market share from NetWare products from the late-1990s.
Microsoft's more aggressive marketing was aimed directly at non-technical management through major magazines, while Novell NetWare's was through more technical magazines read by IT personnel.
Novell did not adapt their pricing structure to current market conditions, and NetWare sales suffered.
NetWare Lite / Personal NetWare
NetWare Lite and
Personal NetWare
NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.
NetWare Lite
In 1991, ...
were a series of peer-to-peer networks developed by Novell for
DOS- and
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
-based computers aimed at personal users and
small business
Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...
es between 1991 and 1995.
Performance
NetWare dominated the network operating system (NOS) market from the mid-1980s through the mid- to late-1990s due to its extremely high performance relative to other NOS technologies. Most benchmarks during this period demonstrated a 5:1 to 10:1 performance advantage over products from Microsoft, Banyan, and others. One noteworthy benchmark pitted NetWare 3.x running
NFS services over TCP/IP (not NetWare's native IPX protocol) against a dedicated Auspex NFS server and an SCO Unix server running NFS service. NetWare NFS outperformed both 'native' NFS systems and claimed a 2:1 performance advantage over SCO Unix NFS on the same hardware.
The reasons for NetWare's performance advantage are given below.
File service instead of disk service
When first developed, nearly all LAN storage was based on the disk server model. This meant that if a client computer wanted to read a particular block from a particular file it would have to issue the following requests across the relatively slow LAN:
# Read first block of directory
# Continue reading subsequent directory blocks until the directory block containing the information on the desired file was found, could be many directory blocks
# Read through multiple file entry blocks until the block containing the location of the desired file block was found, could be many directory blocks
# Read the desired data block
NetWare, since it was based on a file service model, interacted with the client at the file API level:
# Send file open request (if this hadn't already been done)
# Send a request for the desired data from the file
All of the work of searching the directory to figure out where the desired data was physically located on the disk was performed at high speed locally on the server.
By the mid-1980s, most NOS products had shifted from the disk service to the file service model. Today, the disk service model is making a comeback, see
SAN.
Aggressive caching
From the start, the NetWare design focused on servers with copious amounts of RAM. The entire file allocation table (FAT) was read into RAM when a volume was mounted, thereby requiring a minimum amount of RAM proportional to online disk space; adding a disk to a server would often require a RAM upgrade as well. Unlike most competing
network operating systems prior to Windows NT, NetWare automatically used all otherwise unused RAM for caching active files, employing delayed write-backs to facilitate re-ordering of disk requests (
elevator seeks). An unexpected shutdown could therefore corrupt data, making an
uninterruptible power supply
An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power system ...
practically a mandatory part of a server installation.
The default dirty cache delay time was fixed at 2.2 seconds in NetWare 286 versions 2.x. Starting with NetWare 386 3.x, the dirty disk cache delay time and dirty directory cache delay time settings controlled the amount of time the server would cache changed ("dirty") data before saving (flushing) the data to a hard drive. The default setting of 3.3 seconds could be decreased to 0.5 seconds but not reduced to zero, while the maximum delay was 10 seconds. The option to increase the cache delay to 10 seconds provided a significant performance boost. Windows 2000 and 2003 server do not allow adjustment to the cache delay time. Instead, they use an algorithm that adjusts cache delay.
Efficiency of NetWare Core Protocol (NCP)
Most network protocols in use at the time NetWare was developed didn't trust the network to deliver messages. A typical client file read would work something like this:
# Client sends read request to server
# Server acknowledges request
# Client acknowledges acknowledgement
# Server sends requested data to client
# Client acknowledges data
# Server acknowledges acknowledgement
In contrast, NCP was based on the idea that networks worked perfectly most of the time, so the reply to a request served as the acknowledgement. Here is an example of a client read request using this model:
# Client sends read request to server
# Server sends requested data to client
All requests contained a sequence number, so if the client didn't receive a response within an appropriate amount of time it would re-send the request with the same sequence number. If the server had already processed the request it would resend the cached response, if it had not yet had time to process the request it would only send a "positive acknowledgement". The bottom line to this 'trust the network' approach was a 2/3 reduction in network transactions and the associated latency.
Non-preemptive OS designed for network services
One of the raging debates of the 1990s was whether it was more appropriate for network file service to be performed by a software layer running on top of a general purpose operating system, or by a special purpose operating system. NetWare was a special purpose operating system, not a timesharing OS. It was written from the ground up as a platform for client-server processing services. Initially it focused on file and print services, but later demonstrated its flexibility by running database, email, web and other services as well. It also performed efficiently as a router, supporting IPX, TCP/IP, and Appletalk, though it never offered the flexibility of a 'hardware' router.
In 4.x and earlier versions, NetWare did not support
preemption,
virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
,
graphical user interfaces, etc. Processes and services running under the NetWare OS were expected to be cooperative, that is to process a request and return control to the OS in a timely fashion. On the down side, this trust of application processes to manage themselves could lead to a misbehaving application bringing down the server.
See also
*
Novell NetWare Access Server
DESQview (DV) is a text mode multitasking operating environment developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Running on top of DOS, it allows users to run multiple programs concurrentl ...
(NAS)
*
Comparison of operating systems
These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld (including smartphone and tablet computer) operating sy ...
*
Btrieve
Btrieve is a transactional database (navigational database) software product. It is based on Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), which is a way of storing data for fast retrieval. There have been several versions of the product for DOS, Linux, ...
*
NCOPY
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
External links
NetWare Cool Solutions– Tips & tricks, guides, tools and other resources submitted by the NetWare community
*
Epic uptime of NetWare 3 server, arstechnica.com*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Novell Netware
1983 software
Network operating systems
NetWare
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol.
The original NetWare product in 19 ...
Proprietary software
X86 operating systems
PowerPC operating systems
MIPS operating systems
Discontinued operating systems