Novell NetWare

Novell is a company operating all around the world that has its corporate office in Massachusetts. The company specializes in business solutions in the data center, security and identity, resource management, workgroup, and desktop spaces. Their high profile customers include, Wal-mart, Audi, the New York City Transit, and the State of California.

NetWare is an NOS (network operating system) that runs on level 2 of the open systems interconnection. This system runs on anything from a personal computer to a mainframe computer. There have been several versions of NetWare and the current version is six, which utilizes enhanced printing, file, and directory services. The printing services are unique, providing access through a browser, through a downloaded plug in, to view and print network files from any device securely. Also any printer can be used as a network printer to anyone with authorized access. In addition to that, Netware will also list printer physical location and printer properties and features.

As far as file access goes, you can basicly take a computer out of the box with Windows, Macintosh, Solaris, or Linux... plug it into the network and immediately start accessing the files off the Netware server. All this is done without any client software. Netware is proud of its use of capitalizing on the best use of each OS platform.

Netware also uses simple user management that control configurations from one single point changing configurations on each server under it. This enables a one time update without going to each server and updating settings separately. Another tool of Netware is built in utilities that offer a decent range of services. One of these tools is Remote Manager to allow administrators access to change configurations from any connected computer with an internet browser. These options are vast and are only limited to the server based applications. Servers may also be restarted, shut down, or reset through the same remote tool.

File management with the Netware system has an outstanding list of features, without even listing half of them. One of my favorites is the ability to compress storage volumes after a set time without use. Meaning your storage would increase with after a longer period of use. It also features the standards of US Green Book File Security standard, which I guess means you can delete a file and someone can never find it, no matter what file recovery system is used. The last file management feature I'll mention is the ability to use the same file space as another network user, instead of having separate volumes set aside.

One more feature is the open ended use of the network. Meaning Novell has open, free use for developers to create their own custom programs maximizing tool and features most used on their network.