Single servers running single services in NetWare 6.5

There is indeed, a lot included in the upcoming shipment of NetWare 6.5. We’ve been looking at some of the additional features for the past few weeks, and we’re only halfway through. NetWare 6.5 is not a minor upgrade but a major new package with many very usable features. Today, we’ll continue our look at “Business Continuity,” which is where the features most useful to network executives can be found.

We’ve talked about the server consolidation utility, branch office package and the new iSCSI component of clustered servers. Brand new with NetWare 6.5 is an installation method called “patterned deployment.”

Since your NetWare license allows you to put up as many different servers as you’d like, and since NetWare now includes very many different services, people may decide to install some services on their own hardware. For example, you might want to have a database server running MySQL on NetWare 6.5 (it’s in the box). Maybe you want to have a stand-alone Web server using Apache running on NetWare (it’s also “in the box”).

Your enterprise’s needs might be best served with a stand-alone Lightweigtht Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server, or an Application Server running Novell’s SilverStream services (which are, by the way, included “in the box”).

In the past if you wanted to run a single service on a NetWare server you simply installed everything, but only ran those applications and services you thought you’d need. Sometimes you guessed right, often you didn’t. Many times there was a lot more installed on that server then you would need.

Patterned deployment allows you to pick from the various functions a NetWare 6.5 OS supports and only install what’s necessary to fulfill that function. You can choose among the following deployments:

* NetWare 6.5 File Server.

* SilverStream Application Server.

* Apache Web Server.

* MySQL Database Server.

* IFolder Server.

* IPrint Server.

* J2EE Web Services Server.

* Storage Server.

* LDAP Identity Server.

Choose any one of those “personalities” and everything you need is installed for you. There’s nothing extra to buy, plus you’ll know that your server is only storing the modules you need for the chosen service.

As an extra, added attraction, because you will be running more server hardware platforms – it only makes sense to allow intensive operations such as database or Web services to have all the resources they need without sharing – Novell is also including a new remote upgrade and migration utility. No need to run from server to server, server room to server room or site to site. You can do all the upgrades and migrations from the comfort of your office (well, it is more comfortable than the server room, isn’t it?).

So there’s a resource saver (patterned deployment) and a time saver (remote upgrade and migration), but there’s still a whole lot more. Stay tuned.