Since Novell is moving away from NetWare as a stand-alone server, the topic of 'what now?' has been brought up. So I built a chart of the key service we provide on NetWare and what could replace them.
OES-Linux is the easier option, but still is not without effort. While the whole thing would present to the end users the same way it always had, there are severe changes on the back end as far as we're concerned. Part of that is learning how to deal with the problems of a new OS, and how to keep it un-hacked. Plus, our print-auditing package doesn't support linux yet (if ever) so that has non-trivial impacts to how we manage paper around here.
Windows... it'll get brought up, even if we pee on it at every chance we get. The fact of the matter is that such a migration would be a lot more visible to the end users, and they'd lose certain services they've come to expect. I personally don't know of a Microsoft analog to NetStorage. The serving of web-pages from home directories is something I can't google an answer for, and I suspect involved non-trivial engineering (apache and judicious use of mod_rewrite might be able to fake it, but I don't know). SSH-based SFTP is something that'll probably require a product purchase from SSH.COM since the free stuff gives me the willies (I don't wanna run anything that requires a Cygwin installation). In short, any migration to a Microsoft based system will be the most painful of our options.
We're still a year or two from the decision point. That'll come when the nodes in the student half of the cluster start showing their age and need to be replaced. Events at BrainShare 2006 (and probably 2007) will act as wildcards as Novell makes their future plans more and more clear. We're gonna need a lot of training.
| NetWare | OES-Lin | Windows | |
| Printing | iPrint | iPrint | Spooler |
| Print-Audit | pCounter | pCounter | |
| NetStorage | NetStorage | NetStorage | [custom or none] |
| MyWeb | mod_edir | mod_userdirs | |
| SFTP | OpenSSH | OpenSSH [restricted] | |
| Login Scripts | Login Scripts | Login Scripts | GPO + vb-scripts |
OES-Linux is the easier option, but still is not without effort. While the whole thing would present to the end users the same way it always had, there are severe changes on the back end as far as we're concerned. Part of that is learning how to deal with the problems of a new OS, and how to keep it un-hacked. Plus, our print-auditing package doesn't support linux yet (if ever) so that has non-trivial impacts to how we manage paper around here.
Windows... it'll get brought up, even if we pee on it at every chance we get. The fact of the matter is that such a migration would be a lot more visible to the end users, and they'd lose certain services they've come to expect. I personally don't know of a Microsoft analog to NetStorage. The serving of web-pages from home directories is something I can't google an answer for, and I suspect involved non-trivial engineering (apache and judicious use of mod_rewrite might be able to fake it, but I don't know). SSH-based SFTP is something that'll probably require a product purchase from SSH.COM since the free stuff gives me the willies (I don't wanna run anything that requires a Cygwin installation). In short, any migration to a Microsoft based system will be the most painful of our options.
We're still a year or two from the decision point. That'll come when the nodes in the student half of the cluster start showing their age and need to be replaced. Events at BrainShare 2006 (and probably 2007) will act as wildcards as Novell makes their future plans more and more clear. We're gonna need a lot of training.
Speaking of training, how much do you get sent to per year?
The official line is, "Make the business case, and we'll talk." It seems like Brainshare will be a regular thing for me, so that's one. The big thing that hampers us is that there are zero training centers in driving range so anything we go to will have to include Hotel and probably car rental. So your classic $2250/week class suddenly starts costing us $3100/week instead (unless we have family or friends nearby), and that puts a hamper on things.