Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!darwin.ntu.edu.au!t_anstey From: t_anstey@darwin.ntu.edu.au Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell Subject: TERMINAL ACCESS TO NOVELL SERVER Message-ID: <1991Apr21.151025.864@darwin.ntu.edu.au> Date: 21 Apr 91 05:40:25 GMT Lines: 79 This is a posting that I hope will provoke some comment as we need some outside and knowledgeable ideas on the topic to help us on our way. I am sending it to a number of LISTs as well as NEWS so do not be surprised to see it again. We are facing stringent financial times, in common no doubt many people, and our current mainframe sytems are just too expensive. Solution, lets down size to say a Novell LAN running Netware 386. The problem is that many people will will not believe that you can run large scale multi access systems with Novell. This is nonsense people have been doing it for years and there are lots of examples. We even have a few ourselves but some people do not want to believe it. Everyone knows the world is flat. The one problem I have with Novell and always have had is that of terminal access. In time all our users will be PC based so no problem, but I have to live thru the interim and have to provide for users with terminals who are not likely to get a PC and LAN card in the near future. There is also the very genuine one off remote user whom will never be connected to the LAN proper. There is PCANYWHERE etc and a myriad of solutions none of which I like much. They all have to do with driving a terminal from a PC connected to the LAN. We have even had PC XTs with 'bank select' memory options, (that puts me in the ancient age group for starters). This was all done in software, and each PC XT could handle up to four or more concurrent terminal sessions through one network card. The number of terminals was limited only by the memory size in the PC. It worked well, but to me it was a complete kludge. If I understand Netware 386 correctly then a solution to this may be at hand. I should say my understanding of Netware 386 is sketchy at best, hence my request for help on this. All our system development for Novell was done using a multi-user PC based database system which would run on PCs, Novell, UNIX, ULTRIX, XENIX, VMS etc. By this I mean the system could be developed on a PC and then copied to say a VAX and it would work without modification. I tried this and it worked, much to my surprise at the time. The actual files that contain the 'executables' and 'data' on the PC were uploaded to a VAX running VMS, via KERMIT, and they ran without any need for re-compilation or conversion. The reverse was also true. The system could be developed on a VAX and moved via KERMIT to a PC and off it would go. At the time this was a curiosity to me as I did not have any need to run the system on a VAX. I understand that in Netware 386, there is support for the Sun PC-NFS option. The server provides common disk storage to a UNIX box via TCP/IP but not the reverse ie the disk is attached to the server but is accessable from Netware and the UNIX box. Now this being the case we could have a Netware 386 server with BIG SCSI drives running a LAN and providing a PC-NFS type service to a UNIX box. The UNIX box would service terminal users via TCP/IP ethernet and our existing DECSERVERS. If the data and executables were being shared and the database system was loaded on both the server and the UNIX box, then in theory we are home. We have data and applications being shared between a UNIX box to handle the terminal users and a Novell Netware 386 server to handle the PC and MAC users on the LAN. I may not have the complete story on this as I have no firm information on Netware 386 other than news and trade sources. Obvious question is why go to all this trouble? Well the updating function of the common data would be done on the LAN with a processor being dedicated to each transaction in true LAN fashion, whilst in our case anyway, the ad hoc queries come from the terminal users and present a lighter load also much more spasmodic use, so a multi-user option makes sense. If anyone can pick holes in this by virtue of knowing more about Netware 386 than I do, not hard!, then I would love to hear from you. As I feel this could be a very real possibility and I would hate to waste my time on something that could never work. Tery Anstey Computer Services Northern Territory University Darwin, NT Australia INTERNET: T_ANSTEY@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU - "The LAN at the end of the INTERNET"