Novell vs Microsoft

Or rather Netware vs NT. Old article that is interesting to reflect on 12 years on. What comes over for me is how hands on we really needed to be back in the day and aware of how to optimise systems with scarce hardware features.

http://www.nickh.org/computer/nw-vs-nt.html

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it_consultant

I like the "easier to administer" and the response "do you really wan't someone that doesn't know what they are doing on your system?". This is the downfall of Windows servers, they convince bad admins they are better then they are.

Tackle

Turgon wrote: »

Or rather Netware vs NT. Old article that is interesting to reflect on 12 years on. What comes over for me is how hands on we really needed to be back in the day and aware of how to optimise systems with scarce hardware features.

Netware vs. NT

What is this Netware and NT you speak of? Sounds like gibberish to me.

JK, but I'd bet most in their 20's on here never touched it...at least in a production environment. Heck, 12 years ago I was in 4th grade and most of the computers had Y2K OK! stickers on them.

Devilsbane

I'm quite pleased that my college has finally migrated off of Novell. Took pc's 5 minutes to run all of the logon scripts and everything. Running on 2008 AD now!

I find it amusing how one sided this guy is. "Hardly!"

sambuca69

Why did companies really make the move to NT though? When I started in IT, NT was pretty much the standard already.

Was it IPX, Netware licensing costs, ??

Pishof

LucasMN wrote: »

What is this Netware and NT you speak of? Sounds like gibberish to me.

JK, but I'd bet most in their 20's on here never touched it...at least in a production environment. Heck, 12 years ago I was in 4th grade and most of the computers had Y2K OK! stickers on them.

In my twenties and currently in middle of a migration from Novell Netware 6.5/Groupwise to AD/Exchange/ZCM environment.

I won't miss netware at all.

Turgon

sambuca69 wrote: »

Why did companies really make the move to NT though? When I started in IT, NT was pretty much the standard already.

Was it IPX, Netware licensing costs, ??

NT became the standard. Netware was destroyed as a player in the NT stampede from 1995 onwards. Netware was superior on various technical levels, but the commercial drive to NT ran it over. Microsoft marketed their attack on NT cleverly. Get the product into the magazines the management read as they call the shots as opposed to the technical literature. MS was rubbish at internet integration but it was marketed aggresively at the audience that had their fingers on the purse strings, managers and executives as opposed to the technical crowd. The same could be said for netscape, a browser that had a pedigree but was run over by IE which became 'all the rage'. Marketing changes technology.

it_consultant

Turgon wrote: »

NT became the standard. Netware was destroyed as a player in the NT stampede from 1995 onwards. Netware was superior on various technical levels, but the commercial drive to NT ran it over. Microsoft marketed their attack on NT cleverly. Get the product into the magazines the management read as they call the shots as opposed to the technical literature. MS was rubbish at internet integration but it was marketed aggresively at the audience that had their fingers on the purse strings, managers and executives as opposed to the technical crowd. The same could be said for netscape, a browser that had a pedigree but was run over by IE which became 'all the rage'. Marketing changes technology.

I think someone here once said "Microsoft shows up late to the party, but they bring a keg". NT networks were potentially all the things MS said it was and more and it makes sense if you are going to run mainly Windows servers to use Windows directory services etc.

Turgon

it_consultant wrote: »

I think someone here once said "Microsoft shows up late to the party, but they bring a keg". NT networks were potentially all the things MS said it was and more and it makes sense if you are going to run mainly Windows servers to use Windows directory services etc.

Individually the MS products could be picked off by different vendor offerings, but yes you are correct, the benefits of a common platform were significant. Novell NDS was robbed by Microsoft and Active Directory sucked early doors but if you cant beat them copy them..and bring a keg.

Netware servers stay up for 1000+ days which is impressive. But nobody actually releasing major funds within an organisation gives a fig about that. Lets not also forget that if things change in a big way, lots of people prosper from that. People were happy to let it happen and soak up the 'necessary budget'.

But to defend NT, I had no major problems with it. Many of the issues could be dealt with by sensible design and deployment of the technology, something sadly lacking in the dash for cash driven I might add by some Netware converts! Money corrupts

it_consultant

You can say it out loud, a lot of the techs that lobbied for NT were simply not as good as the ones who lobbied for netware. That led to crappy networks. I still fix crappy Windows networks (there is no excuse for a crappy windows network nowadays) because there are a lot of techs who aren't very good.

Zartanasaurus

it_consultant wrote: »

You can say it out loud, a lot of the techs that lobbied for NT were simply not as good as the ones who lobbied for netware. That led to crappy networks. I still fix crappy Windows networks (there is no excuse for a crappy windows network nowadays) because there are a lot of techs who aren't very good.

What type of stuff do you see?

Turgon

it_consultant wrote: »

You can say it out loud, a lot of the techs that lobbied for NT were simply not as good as the ones who lobbied for netware. That led to crappy networks. I still fix crappy Windows networks (there is no excuse for a crappy windows network nowadays) because there are a lot of techs who aren't very good.

I think one of the problems was there was a lot of people lobbying for NT who were not techs. Timeserved techs were skeptical of NT but a lot were prepared to give it a fair go as in many shops it was a new thing. Most shops back then were Netware shops with windows desktops. For the services it was either groupwise for email or CCMail, Lotus was used good deal on desktops in those days, anyone remember 'Smartsuite'? The drive to Microsoft Office put Microsoft on the radar, along with the new desktop offerings of the time i.e Windows 95. So Microsoft had a portal so to speak with end users, importantly power users who began to talk about Microsoft regularly. It was relatively easy for Microsoft to then promote the backoffice environments of NT Server, Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server as well as Internet Explorer on desktops and IIS. All integrated, all one flavour. Netware had a solid file and print server and with NDS offered with Netware 4.x and then later 5.x they had more facilities. But they were generally targetted at the administrator community as opposed to the end user. Windows promoted roaming profiles, mobile working and other things that could be sold as a benefit to non skilled end users and outlook. Netware offered an internet server Netscape but this was no longer sexy with Internet Explorer in the face of every desktop user and more people starting to invest in their first modem and internet access at home.

A lot of people poured into the NT party circa 1997 onwards, many of them relatively new to IT and the startup IT companies mushroomed. These companies were desparate for qualified people to have on the books so they could win the IT provisioning business that was out there. Companies were desparate to hire external contractors to design and deploy the new NT domains. It meant the internal politics of the IT department demanding training budgets could be sidestepped and the consultants moved in. Some were very good, others got their MCSE in 6 weeks and you can read their reviews on used Sybex books on Amazon. Back then it wasn't just college kids swarming the boards studying for MCPs and looking for an 'in', it was housewives.

mikedisd2

it_consultant wrote: »

I like the "easier to administer" and the response "do you really wan't someone that doesn't know what they are doing on your system?". This is the downfall of Windows servers, they convince bad admins they are better then they are.

Can't agree with this at all. Who wants their job to be harder just for the sake of it? With this logic, everyone should use Linux based platforms and we can spend all day just trying to making the damn wireless card drivers work. Having ease of administration means I can put my time and effort to more challenging tasks.

To be honest I couldn't be bothered reading much of this article; it's just a blatant soapbox Microsoft bash. I guess he was sore about his Novell stocks dropping in price.

mikedisd2

it_consultant wrote: »

I still fix crappy Windows networks (there is no excuse for a crappy windows network nowadays) because there are a lot of techs who aren't very good.

I can sympathise with this though. I'm constantly paying the price for past sins of stupid design.

Turgon

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Can't agree with this at all. Who wants their job to be harder just for the sake of it? With this logic, everyone should use Linux based platforms and we can spend all day just trying to making the damn wireless card drivers work. Having ease of administration means I can put my time and effort to more challenging tasks.

To be honest I couldn't be bothered reading much of this article; it's just a blatant soapbox Microsoft bash. I guess he was sore about his Novell stocks dropping in price.

I know what you mean, although the Linux hippies are telling me that it's getting so much easier to setup these days. Netware came in with tools in 4.x and 5.x that did make things easier to administrate, not least Zen Works and to be honest you could just as easily drive a Netware environment as an NT one without being a guru. For all tasks you do want ease of administration.

What I will say though is that getting even a simple Novell network operation back in those days was far from straightforward for the uninitiated. The redbooks that came with the NOS were a cure for insomnia and far fewer people had external help by way of the internet. Throw in locating the right disk drivers and NIC drivers for your Netware server, autoexec.ncf editing, IPX addressing issues, hexadecimal memory addressing, cryptic support for server CDROM, login script hassles, Novell client hassles, jumpers on token ring NICS and the dark art of setting up a printer server or backing the fileserver up using Arcserve and you were in for a fun time. Perhaps people who went through all that aggravation over countless late nights and weekends were skeptical of the comparatively rapid speed at which a domain could be put together.