"Through its core services, NetWare 4 offers more capability and value than any other commercially available product.
FILE
File and print services have been the heart of NOS capabilities since their inception. As the pioneer in this field, Novell's NetWare offers the broadest and richest collection of such services available today. NetWare 4 accommodates shared access on a single volume from a range of clients that includes DOS, Windows, Windows NT, Macintosh, OS/2, and UNIX. NetWare's file system performance remains legendary: Users often perceive faster response time from network drives than from those on their own desktops. Besides disk compression and disk block suballocation, NetWare 4 also offers file system support for automatic hierarchical storage migration facilities for organizations that wish to support huge volumes of virtual, online and nearline storage.
PRINT
NetWare 4 offers a broad range of printing services which accommodate the same variety of clients. In the TCP/IP world, NetWare add-ons allow UNIX clients to print to NetWare printers, and vice versa. Add-ons are also available for the SNA host world. In addition, NetWare 4.1 offers full support for AppleTalk printing protocols, including bidirectional communications and status information. Novell has simplified and enhanced management of print queues, devices, forms, and user access. With NDS, users can request print services based on printer capabilities rather than name and location.
DIRECTORY
NetWare Directory Services represents a new way of organizing, accessing, and controlling network resources. From the user's standpoint, NetWare Directory Services offers access to the total network through a single login and provides transparent access to resources thereafter. In reality, NDS acts as an intermediary between the user and the network resources. NDS establishes authentication information at login that can be used any time thereafter to request and obtain resources. Granting rights to a printer is as simple as dragging a user or group icon onto a printer icon. E-mailing to 'Joe Boggs' is as easy as pointing and clicking on his name. Finding your way around the network is no longer important: all you need to know is what you want to do, and NDS will help you do it.
From an administrative standpoint, NetWare Directory Services offers a distributed database that can be replicated and partitioned. This makes it extraordinarily robust, fault tolerant, and guarantees directory accessibility. In NetWare 4.1, NDS also offers a comprehensive tool kit for directory design and maintenance. It uses Window's powerful graphical interface to make user management a matter of dragging and dropping user icons or group designations, printer icons, and access management profiles, rather than traversing any array of menus.
Novell's goal with NDS is to make the network as easy to design and maintain as it is for endusers to access. As organizations or departments merge, NDS provides tools to combine several directories under a single directory structure. Powerful access and migration tools aid organizations as they convert from older versions of NetWare to NetWare 4.1.
Another real benefit of NetWare Directory Services, which is beginning to emerge, is application integration. As applications like electronic mail, calendaring and scheduling, or document management, become directory-enabled, they too, can access a common directory, eliminating the need for multiple, redundant user listings. There will be a single-point-of-management for the network and all its networked applications. This saves both time and resources.
SECURITY
As networks become more widespread and interlinked, and as remote communications becomes more a part of everyday access, network security and data protection become increasingly important. NetWare 4.1 includes the industry's most secure encryption and digital signature technology licensed from RSA Data Security, Inc. It meets stringent Department of Defense and ISO/OSI X.509 security requirements. Novell also expects to obtain C-2 (Red Book) certification for NetWare 4.1 and a select group of client machines in 1995, making it the only networked environment that includes both clients and servers able to comply with such regulations. In normal operation, NetWare 4 offers data and password protection for networked communications, multiple levels of file system protection, and a system audit capability that meets EDP Auditor's Association requirements. No other NOS on the market offers these capabilities.
INTEGRATED MESSAGING
NetWare 4.1 includes integrated messaging services with Novell's Message Handling System (MHS) technology. A simple client electronic mail application enables immediate use of messaging technology as soon as NetWare is installed. Additional Novell products leverage MHS messaging capabilities, such as external E-mail gateways, GroupWise, InForms, and PerfectOffice. Hundreds of third-party vendors offer MHS-based message-enabled applications ranging from E-mail, to workflow, to electronic conferencing systems. Messaging is a key service in the evolution of pervasive computing.
MULTIPROTOCOL ROUTING
In environments where branch office users must access central, corporate resources, routing capability in the NOS provides essential functionality at no incremental cost. NetWare 4 is the only NOS that acts as a multiprotocol router as shipped: routing IPX, TCP/IP and AppleTalk, with add-on modules for other protocols like OSI and SNA. Interfaces for a variety of WAN technologies that include X.25, asynchronous links, T-1, and more are available for use in NetWare servers, enabling them to link local networks directly to distant ones. NetWare 4 is unique in its ability to extend and support an internetworking infrastructure.
NETWORK MANAGEMENT
NetWare 4 is remotely manageable and supports industry-standard SNMP management protocols and tools as part of the core operating system. NetWare 4 offers an add-on management console that can be run remotely as easily as locally, from any correctly-equipped DOS/Windows workstation. In addition, Novell is working to equip all of its code modules with built-in management agents that can participate in a variety of management systems and environments.
Novell's Network Management Services environment is recognized as a valuable add-on, capable of managing NetWare and SNMP-based resources of all kinds at an enterprise level. Novell has worked with other organizations to make sure that its products can be managed through other enterprise environments, including IBM's NetView, HP's OpenView, and SunSoft's SunNet Manager.
Also, NetWare 4.1 includes powerful new tools that allow you to manage the administration of your directory structure quickly and easily."
