NetWare 4 Green River Beta Release
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Manager
SDK CD-ROM Product Team
01 Jul 1996
Novell Delivers Software to Developers
Novell recently announced it shipped beta software for the next release of the NetWare 4 network operating system, code named Green River, to over 2,800 development and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners. Green River will improve users' access to information and resources throughout networks, intranets, and the Internet, while reducing the overall costs of owning and maintaining those networks. Based on positive beta customer response regarding the reliability of the Green River software currently in testing, Novell has expanded its beta program to include developers and OEMs, giving them time to optimize their products and solutions for the launch of Green River this fall. By first customer ship, Novell anticipates thousands of third party partner products will run with Green River.
Novell worked with its installed base to identify the network server features they required; based on that feedback, the company designed Green River as a powerful solutions platform that requires less network administration than other network operating systems.
Major enhancements to the next version of NetWare include:
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability to support network applications and intranets;
Integrated TCP/IP support to simplify network management and ease user access to both corporate intranet and Internet resources;
C2 level security to protect sensitive data during transmission across networks;
Advanced network printing capabilities to give users more control over their printing;
Easier network migration and installation functionality; and
New graphical administration tools to better manage companies' network and Novell Directory Services (NDS) environments.
Developers can now incorporate these services into their own applications, enabling their customers to create and use networks that can adapt to their business processes and provide them with an enduring competitive advantage.
"We're extending the industry's leading network operating system to become an integrated solutions platform by adding new services," said William Donahoo, senior director of product marketing for Novell. "Using these new services in Green River, companies will find they can extend their existing corporate networks to intranets and the Internet, streamline their network installation and administration processes, and significantly cut their overall cost of ownership in the process."
Scalable, Secure Platform for Intranet and Internet Applications Companies can install Green River and leverage SMP with NDS, C2 grade network security, and NetWare/IP 2.2 with dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) support to safely run and access critical applications such as Oracle and Sybase databases, leading messaging systems including Novell GroupWise, search engines, and other network applications across corporate networks, intranets and the Internet. C2 network security will also enable NetWare to serve as a platform for electronic commerce. In addition, full TCP/IP support gives users the freedom to choose IPX/SPX or TCP/IP protocols to run their networks and benefit from direct intranet and Internet connections.
Easier Installation, Migration and Administration The Green River release of NetWare simplifies NOS installations and upgrades from previous NetWare versions.
New hardware auto detection identifies network cards in a server and automatically installs the correct LAN drivers to speed NetWare installation. Two new utilities help administrators upgrade NetWare 2 or NetWare 3 servers by automatically migrating modeled bindery information to existing NetWare 4 trees.
To simplify overall network user and resource administration, Green River also features new NDS Manager and NetWare Administrator (NWAdmin) tools. NDS Manager provides a new GUI NDS utility that lets network managers see and administer multiple directory trees simultaneously, and NWAdmin enables global changes to multiple user, resource and data objects in the directory to further expedite administration processes.
End Users Realize Benefits Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS) will give network users and administrators access to, and better control over, all network printing resources, letting users check the status of their network printing. The NetWare Application Launcher (NAL) gives users more control over their network environments by providing consistent access to their network applications and resources, enabling complete location independent networking. NAL works with Novell 32 bit client software for Windows, Windows 95 and Windows NT environments. Also included in Green River is desktop client support for all major operating systems, including DOS, Macintosh, OS/2, Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT, and UNIX.
Green River Delivers on Net2000 Green River supports Novell's Net2000 developer initiative to enhance and ease the development and deployment of new network aware applications and components. With Net2000 application programming interfaces (APIs), developers can create network applications and components easily using popular development environments and tools.
"The networking services in Green River provide developers with a networking infrastructure for distributing objects across global networks, introducing a reliable foundation for distributed network, intranet and Internet applications," said Gary Mueller, vice president and general manager of Novell's Developers Services Division. "The DeveloperNet Update, Novell SDK CD ROM, Release Eight gives developers full Basic and Visual Basic scripting capabilities to create networked applications that can leverage computing logic across those networks."
Green River incorporates Net2000 features including remote and source level debugging to give developers easier ways to trap NLM errors, enhance and fine tune operations, and provide more reliable components.
"We are very excited about integrating our WAN adapters with Green River," said Igor Krichevsky, business unit manager at Eicon Technology. "Its IP functionality and scalability make it an excellent platform for intranet and Internet connectivity, while its source level debugging facilities allow us to bring our solutions to market that much sooner."
The NetBasic Network and Management Extensions (NMX) engine in Green River allows NLMs and components to share a common interface to expose their services and functionality. "The Green River release represents Novell's attention to the developer. Both client and server programming of NetWare applications will be much easier," said Gary Dowdy, president of Apiary, Inc. "On the client side, developers want ActiveX Controls for Visual Basic, Delphi and C scripting languages; Green River delivers these tools."
Availability and Features Green River is slated to ship in the fall. The NetWare developer beta of Green River is currently available to all Novell ISV partners through DeveloperNet, Novell's premier developer relations program. To learn more about Novell SDKs, development options or to join DeveloperNet, call 1 800 REDWORD or visit the Web site (http://developer.novell.com).
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Green River Beta Included in Novell SDK CD-ROM, Release 8 The June delivery of TheDeveloperNet Novell SDK CD-ROM, Release 8 marks the addition ofsome important new tools for DeveloperNet subscribers. Along withenhancing many of the SDKs that are contained on the CD set, threesignificant new items are included: NetWare Green River Developer Beta Includes a Developer Beta of the Green River NetWare OS andthe Green River SDK. The NetWare SDK provided with Green Riverprovides a single interface for writing DOS, OS/2, and Windowsapplications that directly access the core services of the GreenRiver operating systems through a library of client APIs. The DeveloperNet Education CBT See the article on page 67 for more information. The SDK Navigator SDK Navigator (Beta) is an early version of the SDK Navigatorwith limited support for the NLM, NetWare, GroupWise and ManageWiseSDKs, and the Novell Labs Certification Toolkit. The SDK Navigatorallows you to launch SDK resources, reference APIs, access SDKinformation, do a build of a project, configure your own tools,and more. For a complete list of features and instructions seethe SDKNAV User Guide in /FUTURES/TOOLS/SDKNAV/DOC/. For a listing of the contents of The DeveloperNet Novell SDK CD-ROMRelease 8, see page 95. We will continue to bring DeveloperNet subscribers not only newand exciting products on the quarterly release of the SDKs, butare also working to improve and enhance the use of the CDs. Someof the areas we are working on are : We would also like to hear from you with ideas and suggestionsfor improvements in the SDK CD-ROM product. Please E-mail to rlsmith@novell.com. Richard Smith Manager, SDK CD-ROM Product Team |
Better and more comprehensive installation
Integration of the installation and the SDK Navigator
Additional and improved examples
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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