Novell's Directory-Enabled NetWare 5 Continues to Build Momentum with Support Pack 1
Articles and Tips: article
01 Apr 1999
Novell recently announced the availability of the first support pack for NetWare 5 that provides customers with updates and tools to make moving to Novell's pure IP-based NetWare 5 easier than ever. Since September, customers have been taking advantage of the performance, reliability, scalability and security offered by NetWare 5. Customers can now obtain the NetWare 5 Support Pack 1 via the Web at http://support.novell.com/misc/patlst.htm#nw5. Also available for download is a new Accelerated Upgrade utility designed to meet customer demands for reducing upgrading costs and rapid deployment prior to Year 2000 lockdowns.
"By using the first support pack for NetWare 5 we've enjoyed improved performance, the LDAP interface to Netscape products, and many graphical user interface improvements to NetWare 5's DNS/DHCP ," said Brent Hall, network project manager, Business Communications, Inc. Novell's NetWare 5 Support Pack 1 has set new standards for reliability. "NetWare"5 was solid to begin with, and Support Pack 1 delivers the next level of stability. Many of the changes in Support Pack 1 resolve obscure error handling and advanced configuration situations before they become an issue," said Craig Miller, Novell's vice president of engineering.
NetWare 5 Support Pack 1 also includes the Network Address Translator (NAT) which allows customers to have a single valid IP address which can significantly reduce the need for authorized IP addresses and accelerates IP deployment.
"We listened to our customers and strengthened IP migration and rapid deployment," said Brian Faustyn, NetWare 5 product marketing manger.
"Customers were telling us that they can't deploy NetWare 5 fast enough."
Faster NetWare 5 Upgrades
Customers have asked for a quick way to deploy NetWare 5 upgrades and Novell has responded with the Accelerated Upgrade utility. Upon release, NetWare 5 included a new graphical installation utility that greatly improved the ease of upgrading servers with the Upgrade Wizard, but the upgrade process took 50 minutes on average. The Accelerated Upgrade utility can now complete an upgrade in 4 to 10 minutes depending on the speed of the network. "We have looked at the bare minimum requirements for server upgrades," said J.D. Nyland, IS"T engineer for Novell. "With the Accelerated Upgrade utility, we upgraded 125 servers in six hours with eight people"that's incredibly fast and unheard of in our industry." The Accelerated Upgrade utility can be downloaded from http://www.novell.com/download.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
Disclaimer
The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.