NetWare 5.0 packed with futuristic features

Server-side Java, LDAP Version 3 and X.509 certificate support will come in handy - eventually.

By Christine Burns
Network World, 09/14/98

Provo, Utah - Novell officials are the first ones to tell you they've made significant advances in the company's network operating system with this week's release of NetWare 5.0.

But in the same breath, the officials readily admit that customers are not likely to take advantage of many of the advanced security, Java and directory features in the new release - at least not right away.

Users are unlikely to put these features to use immediately upon installing their NetWare 5.0 servers because there currently is a dearth of applications on the market that can take advantage of these improvements.

Specifically, features included in NetWare 5.0 that the company claims to be ahead of their time are:

The ability to administer dynamic IP client and host addresses via Novell Directory Services (NDS).
Support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Version 3.
The capacity to run server-side Java applications.
The ability for NDS to store X.509 certificates, which are expected to be a key part of customers' public key infrastructure (PKI)-based security schemes.

Novell has included these features in NetWare 5.0 as a way of "seeding the market," says Michael Simpson, Novell director of product marketing.

"Our customers probably won't use these features for quite a while. But if we put them in NetWare 5.0, when customers are ready to use [PKI, server-side Java or LDAP Version 3] in a year or two, we can say 'You're soaking in it!,' " Simpson says.

He contends there is no downside to putting these features into NetWare now because they do not tax the server or affect network performance while inactive.

Will users bite?

Users say they are encouraged by Novell's efforts to lead the industry, even though they are hesitant to deploy all of NetWare's new features.

"It's strange thinking of Novell as actually being ahead of the pack on these new items," says Andrew Smith, a network engineer who manages a 10-server, 2,500-seat NetWare 4.11 network at Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Ill. "I'm so used to Novell playing catch-up that I'm a little nervous when they do something innovative."

Because Smith is planning to upgrade to NetWare 5.0 and use the new native IP support, he is likely to give the NDS-enabled Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Domain Naming Server management a try. He also anticipates that the LDAP Version 3 support in NDS will help increase security for remote users accessing the university's network through Netscape Web servers, which also support this latest version of LDAP. Novell officials, however, say LDAP Version 3 clients still must emerge in order for users to really take advantage of the directory access technology.

As for Novell's delivery of server-side Java support, Smith says the technology is useless to him at this point.

"Novell is definitely way out in front of us in the Java field," Smith says. "To date, we do not even have any qualified Java programmers. We get by with static HTML and Perl on the NetWare servers for now."

Another user says NetWare 5.0's advanced features could play a factor in whether his company decides to upgrade its NetWare 4.X network to 5.0 or move to Windows NT Server 5.0.

"PKI and LDAP Version 3 support in NetWare 5.0 will definitely factor into our decision because we could actually use those features fairly soon," says Tom Ferris, a network consultant with a Washington, D.C. financial firm he asked not to be named.

But server-side Java is not a draw for the financial firm because of the lack of applications available to take advantage of the technology, he says.

And while IP client and host address management benefit from NDS integration, he says it's unlikely the bank will take on the expense of ripping out and replacing its existing Unix-based IP management scheme any time soon.

Todd Chipman, an industry analyst with Santa Clara, Calif.'s Giga Information Group, says Novell's "seeding" technologies will likely have little impact on NetWare 5.0 sales.

"These extras will be nice to have at some point way down the road," he says. "But the bottom line for NetWare 5.0 sales is going to be the native IP support and things like memory protection that will help make these NetWare 5.0 machines better for running business applications. That's the type of thing Novell should be pushing."