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Novell Extends Corporate Networks to the Internet, Outlines New Border Services Product

Articles and Tips: article

01 May 1997


Novell announced on March 25 key network solutions for business intranets and the Internet. This year, Novell will deliver a new "border services" product to enable businesses to extend their private corporate networks across the public Internet while retaining the security, manageability and performance of their current network.

Novell also outlined additional solutions to be delivered over the next twelve months including Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), Novell Replication Services (NRS), Java Application Environment for IntranetWare (JAE), and Moab, the next major release of IntranetWare.

"Novell is focused on delivering the products its customers need more now than at any time in the company's history," said Mike Hicks, systems engineer for the City of Tucson, Arizona. "We're in the process of upgrading each of the city's over 300 servers to IntranetWare and have been very pleased with the results so far. We're also are confident that Novell-with its planned release of border services and other IntranetWare solutions-will continue to deliver the products we'll need to stay competitive and to provide a high level of customer service."

"Novell is committed to delivering IntranetWare technology to customers in the most timely and efficient manner possible," said Coleman Barney, vice president of the IntranetWare Product Group. "The solutions we are outlining today reflect Novell's focus on intranets and the increased need customers have to secure their data over the Internet."

Border Services Border services will provide customers with security, manageability and performance within the intranet and at the border between the corporate network and the Internet.

The product includes firewall security, proxy/cache, circuit gateways, Virtual Private Networking (VPN), routing and remote access capabilities and a runtime version of IntranetWare as the server operating system.

"Novell is squarely positioned in the Internet space by providing customers with solutions like border services that offer security, manageability and directory integration for connecting an intranet to the Internet" said Lee Doyle, vice president, Worldwide LAN and Data Communication, International Data Corporation. "Novell knows how to deliver secure, high performance networking solutions and is uniquely positioned to help customers meet the new challenges of leveraging intranets and the Internet to help run their businesses."

Novell's border services product, now being distributed in a Brainshare special edition Early Access CD, delivers:

  • improved security for information sharing across the Internet;

  • access management and control for securing and managing user access;

  • proxy serving for enhanced performance of data look up on the intranet and Internet;

  • reduced cost of operation through single point of administration and leveraging Internet infrastructure.

Security The new product delivers an NDS-based security solution more comprehensive than simple firewalls, enabling organizations to secure the corporate network, to monitor and manage both inbound and outbound access, and to leverage the information and power of the Internet.

VPN VPN technology allows businesses to leverage the Internet backbone for securely connecting with remote sites, customers and partners through site-to-site encryption, eliminating the need for costly dedicated lines.

Proxy Novell's border services proxy provides acceleration technology to offset performance disparities between the Internet and corporate networks by intelligently caching Internet or intranet information closer to the users who need it.

Novell Directory Service (NDS) Integration Novell's solutions offer the unique ability to easily manage Internet access to the individual user level through NDS - all from a single point of administration across the enterprise. The integrated administration and comprehensive approach to all aspects of the border space will reduce the overall cost of managing corporate intranets and Internet connectivity.

Novell Distributed Print Services NDPS is Novell's next-generation printing architecture for IntranetWare. Developed in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard and Xerox, NDPS provides a fully-distributed client/server print architecture that allows IT managers to easily manage printers and provides users with improved control over their print jobs. Novell is leading the network printing industry by offering plug and print capabilities, automatic driver download to workstations, rich printer management, enhanced job control, embedded NDPS solutions, bi-directional status and feedback, drag and drop printing, tight integration with NDS, and much more.

In addition to NDPS, Novell is leading the creation drive for the new Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) standard with numerous industry partners in the IETF.

Novell Replication Services Now in open beta, NRS will improve the consistency and availability of information across business intranets. NRS is a dedicated file system tool for replicating, distributing and synchronizing information across networks of geographically dispersed servers. NRS allows network administrators to selectively replicate groups of files from one server to any number of other servers. For example, files can be replicated to other IntranetWare servers or to a Novell Web Server, in the same NDS tree. This tool provides organizations with the ability to distribute files, including documents, HTML files, software updates and utilities, graphic images and audio and video clips for quicker access and reduced redundancy.

Java Application Environment for IntranetWare JAE technology includes updates to updates to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Just-in-Time (JIT) compiler, and Java class libraries. JVMis a series of NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs) that make applications written in Java executable on IntranetWare. JIT compiler increases the execution speed of Java applications.

Moab With Moab, the next major revision of Novell's flagship IntranetWare, users can choose to use TCP/IP, IPX or a combination of the two without sacrificing security, reliability or performance. Additionally, Moab will deliver memory protection, a massively scalable file system, more Java support and an enhanced Multi-Processing Kernel (MPK).

Novell showed Moab at Brainshare, where attendees obtained a special edition CD that includes an alpha one release of Moab. The CD gives users and developers a chance to begin evaluating Moab's new features including:

  • TCP/IP;

  • An enhanced Multi-Processing Kernel (MPK);

  • Memory Protection and Virtual Memory;

  • Integrated DHCP/DNS with NDS;

  • NetWare Peripheral Architecture (NWPA);

  • Winsock;

  • Updated NT Client and Client 32; and

  • Workstation Manager.

Clustering Throughout 1997 and beyond, Novell will continue development of the Wolf Mountain project. Wolf Mountain is the code name for a project to develop technologies which enable advanced clustering, 64- bit/Merced support, and advanced file system support. These technologies will be integrated into future Novell products according to customer needs and as they become available. Novell continues to offer SFTIII to address customer needs for high availability and fault tolerance.

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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