NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DAVE KEARNS ON NOVELL NETWARE TIPS
09/20/05
Today's focus: Network management tips that never get out of
date
Dear networking.world@gmail.com,
In this issue:
* Tips that are timeless
* Links related to Novell NetWare Tips
* Featured reader resource
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE
Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance. Click here to
download HP's Traffic Management Whitepaper
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=115478
_______________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________
Today's focus: Network management tips that never get out of
date
By Dave Kearns
I was cleaning up my Web site the other day, and came across
what I believe is the first article - well, first published
article - that I ever wrote about NetWare. It was published in a
long-forgotten magazine called NetWare Solutions. Oddly enough,
the editor of NetWare Solutions was Deni Connor
<http://www.networkworld.com/Home/dconnor.html?rl>, who now
covers Novell, among other things, for Network World.
The article was published back in 1993
<http://www.vquill.com/inherit.htm> (the copyright on it is
1994, because that's when I "revised" it for the newest version
of NetWare).
The article is called "So you inherited a what?" and deals with
what to do when you "inherit" the network. Back in the early
1990s, it wasn't uncommon for NetWare to be limited to
departmental duties, administered by a part-time manager.
Whenever that manager would move on to bigger and better things,
someone else in the department would inherit the onerous task of
taking care of the network. Still, since it was NetWare, there
weren't a lot of things to do - the network just ran. And ran.
And kept running. Still, there were things you needed to do and,
surprisingly, those same things are just as relevant today.
True, you rarely inherit the network any more, but many, if not
most of us have been faced with starting a new job taking care
of an existing network. Here are the steps I recommended then,
and what changes I'd make today.
1) Locate the back-up tapes. If they're not current, schedule a
full system backup.
2) Locate the installation media.
3) Get a good reference book.
4) Find the documentation (not the manual, the documented
configuration of the network) or get started in preparing it.
5) Locate your local users group.
6) Register with online support groups.
7) Contact and meet with your vendors.
For step 2, the original article talked about the installation
disks. For you youngsters, these were 5.25-inch square envelopes
holding a thin disk of magnetic media. Each held a whopping 640K
bytes of data. Today, of course, you'd need to get the CDs or
the downloaded files that were used for the installation as well
as the service packs, patches and updates that had been applied.
For step 6, the original article talked about the NetWare forum
on Compuserve. That's been gone for quite a long time; Novell's
support forums <http://support.novell.com/forums/> are the
modern equivalent.
As for the reference book, sadly, Pat Corrigan's "Building Local
Area Networks With Novell's NetWare," was last published for
NetWare 3.12. Fortunately, Novell Press has lots of books
<http://www.novell.com/training/books/> available no matter what
version of NetWare you're running.
Still, even 12 years later, most of what I wrote then holds true
now, including the conclusion that if you follow all of these
tips, you'd be well on your way to becoming a successful network
manager.
The top 5: Today's most-read stories
1. McAfee, Omniquad top anti-spyware test
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell6964>
2. DemoFall preview <http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7331>
3. EBay bid shows promise of VoIP
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7332>
4. The rise of the IT architect
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7181>
5. Volunteers rebuild Gulf Coast communications with wireless
nets <http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7179>
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dave Kearns
Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's
written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print
"Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be
found at Virtual Quill <http://www.vquill.com/>.
Kearns is the author of three Network World Newsletters: Windows
Networking Tips, Novell NetWare Tips, and Identity Management.
Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these
respective addresses: <mailto:windows@vquill.com>,
<mailto:netware@vquill.com>, <mailto:identity@vquill.com>.
Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books,
manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing,
technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill
provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail at
<mailto:info@vquill.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE
Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance. Click here to
download HP's Traffic Management Whitepaper
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=115477
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS
Archive of the Novell NetWare Tips newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/netware/index.html
Novell news page:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/financial/novell.html
_______________________________________________________________
FEATURED READER RESOURCE
IS IT THE NETWORK OR THE STORAGE THAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Midsize and larger businesses often find their IT topology has
become a complex mix of servers, networks and storage systems.
Many of these companies also route long-haul traffic over
fiber-based networks - metropolitan-area networks, WANs and
private optical networks. Who's responsible when a
storage-related problem occurs on a fiber network? For more,
click here:
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7091>
_______________________________________________________________
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