* Why OES is pretty significant
I really don’t think the general press has given Novell’s upcoming Open Enterprise Server the attention it deserves.
The reality is that it’s a package unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s a full set of network services that will sit atop either of two vastly different computing kernels – the choice of which is yours. This has, as far as I know, never been done before. It’s as if Microsoft and Apple merged, then shipped a desktop package that gave you the exact same functionality, service and tools but also gave you a choice of the Mac or Windows kernel.
Consider the breathtaking accomplishments, available to you – at no extra cost – right out of the box: clusters of mixed NetWare and Linux servers.
Just like NetWare 6, OES ships with a two-node clustering license. For additional cost, you can boost this to 32 servers. And each of those servers can have up to 32 processors. That’s a total of 1,024 processors that can happily protect each other from failure, balance the workload and – in general – make your life easier.
Windows server clustering, by contrast, requires Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition. And oh, by the way, you can’t even mix x86-based and Itanium architecture-based computers in the same server cluster. (See https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/all/deployguide/en-us/sdccf_cls_imbq.asp)
Red Hat Linux clusters are available at an extra charge, and cover up to eight servers, all running Red Hat Linux, of course.
Are you understanding the magnitude of what Novell has accomplished here? Nobody knows networking like Novell and it has somehow produced a synergy between the old-hand NetWare engineers, the SuSE propeller heads and the Ximian whiz kids to come up with OES, a package that is much more than simply the sum of its parts.
What? You still don’t have a copy? Head over to https://www.novell.com/products/openenterpriseserver/beta.html The download problems I spoke of a couple of weeks ago apparently were an aberration. I’ve since heard from dozens of you who’ve had no problem downloading the public beta. If you don’t have it, go get it now.
