Novell unveils IP-based version of ManageWise

Users with NetWare 5 or mixed NetWare/Windows NT networks will soon be able to more efficiently manage IP segments and devices using Novell's ManageWise.

This week's release of ManageWise 2.7 includes support for "pure IP," as well as Novell's proprietary Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) protocol. While NetWare 5, which has been shipping for more than a year, uses IP as its native transport protocol, users were only able to map and discover IP networks and segments in compatibility mode.

Compatibility mode provided a way for IPX-based applications such as ManageWise to continue to work in an IP network. IP-based NetWare 4.11 networks use compatibility mode, which can cause significant bandwidth consumption and line congestion.

"An IP-based ManageWise is important to us in our migration to IP," says Boyd Wilson, manager of computing resources at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. "We are using ManageWise to monitor our servers and for gathering SNMP statistics."

The university is migrating from NetWare 5 and IPX-based NetWare 4.11 to NetWare 5.1, Novell's most recent release.

"The rest of Novell is going to all-IP, so why shouldn't ManageWise? Most NetWare 5 and many NetWare 4 users are running IP as well," says Ray Paquet, an analyst with Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn. ManageWise provides better management of NetWare servers than other products such as Intel's LANdesk or HP OpenView, Paquet says.

ManageWise accounts for about half of the NetWare management market, according to Novell.

The firm also announced it will bundle the ManageWise Agent for Windows NT Server with ManageWise 2.7. This agent will also work with Windows 2000 networks. Previously it sold separately for $700 per Windows NT server.

ManageWise 2.7 starts at $75 per user. Novell will offer competitive upgrades to users of Intel's LANdesk, HP OpenView or Microsoft's Systems Management Server for $40 per user. Current ManageWise users can also upgrade for the same price.