SR> = Steve Rooney  <[log in to unmask]>


SR> Thanks to those of you who have replied to query: if you were to
SR> install a museum-wide LAN, would you go with Windows NT or Windows
SR> 3.x on Novell?

I'm currently running a mixed-environment network, with Unix machines
(HP 9000 Series 800 servers) running WordPerfect 5.1, WordPerfect
Office 3.1, and uniVerse (a PICK database) and NetWare 3.12 and 4.1
servers.  We use WordPerfect Office 4.0a for electronic mail _and_
scheduling, with migration to GroupWise apparently authorized but on
hold.  User workstations are HP Vectra PCs (some i486s, mostly
Pentiums) running DOS and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with Novell's
VLM client software.  We have about two hundred users.

This network is very functional for our current needs, and easily
adaptable for future plans.  It has also been quite stable since a
major redesign at the end of 1994, even with the rapid expansion of a
subsidiary organization (soon to spawn off on its own).


My manager is very interested in NT, but the costs of running such a
system are exceedingly high when compared to the costs of running
NetWare (during one interview I was told that what could be done for
approximately $5,000 on a NetWare network would cost $12,000 on an NT
network).  Note that NT's requirements for a really usable system are
much higher than those for DOS/Windows/Novell or OS/2 -- we're looking
at Pentium PCs with 24Mb of RAM as a minimal configuration.

Yes, Microsoft has very tightly integrated products and great sales
figures.  But it's also a much less open system than either NetWare or
Unix can provide.  Another truism I've heard about NT is "It works
great, as long as you don't want it to talk to anything else."  What
you've been told about performance bottlenecks is also very true.  NT
servers provide adequate performance up to around 50-60 users, after
which performance decreases rapidly.  Just looking at the NT network
model (from their manuals), it seems clear to me that NT is intended
for workgroups of about this size or smaller, which means multiple NT
servers for larger organizations.

[While NetWare servers can generally handle the load quite well -- we
have four servers in our San Francisco office, one 3.12 server
providing support for the majority of our users, one 4.1 server
providing support for our Macintosh-heavy departments (the CMA
publishes a magazine, a medical journal, and numerous newsletters and
other publications).  One tiny server runs Novell's SAA gateway
product (for connecting to an AS/400), and another is a backup for the
4.1 server's NDS tree (until a decision is made on whether or not to
upgrade to 4.1 enterprise-wide).  We also have a single small NetWare
3.12 server in our Sacramento office (the offices are connected over a
WAN link, allowing them access to the Unix-based database application
as well as electronic mail and file transfers).]


You might also want to consider going with Unix and running a Windows-
emulation application.  HP is now selling Unix-based servers which let
your X terminals (or workstations running X server software) behave
like Windows machines, with all of the files staying safe on the
server.  Other vendors have similar products (Sun has WABI, but I'm
not sure they have a solution quite like HP's available).

I heard Larry Ellison's (Oracle) speech to the Cleveland City Club the
other night, and his case for the "Network Computer" seems quite
strong.  The NC seems to me to be, boiled down, basically a newfangled
X terminal, with the addition of some local storage to allow
non-networked functionality for short periods of time.


Despite the rapid increase of NT servers on the Internet, Unix is
still the original and most popular platform for Internet
applications.  Many products are developed first for Unix, and there
are lots of public domain/shareware applications available for
downloading, compiling, and installation.  The throughput issue is
also one you should take into account if you're considering using NT
as an Internet server platform.

Transaction processing is the term used to describe the processing of
database access requests in a client-server environment.  In a small
organization, that might not seem as important as it might in a large
one, but if you were to add database searches of some sort to your Web
page, you could suddenly gain lots of users and strong transaction
processing performance would become more important.  (See
http://www.tpc.org.)


Besides getting opinions from folks on various lists, you might
seriously consider hiring some consultants or a systems integrator to
look closely at the sorts of things you do now and talk to you about
the sorts of things you might want to do in the future.  Whether you
go with Unix, NetWare, NT, or some other solution, you're going to be
making a large investment, and every bit of information you can get to
make the best decision for your organization helps.


Disclaimer:

I've been pretty unimpressed with Windows NT in particular, and with
Microsoft in general.  Our NetWare servers are, by and large, very
much equal to the demands placed on them, and have been easy to
connect to any platform we've had need for (in addition to NetWare's
IPX/SPX protocols, we're running TCP/IP (for the Unix systems),
EtherTalk (for the Macintoshes) and SAA (for the finance department's
AS/400, which is slated to be replaced by either a Unix or NT
application).

Please do not imagine that I am speaking for the California Medical
Association.  I just work there, and I often violently disagree with
my manager's opinions on network and systems issues.  (I'm also _very_
interested in getting back into a museum or other educational setting:
please e-mail me if you could help me with that.)


Apologies for the tech-talk.


   Claire

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 C.M. Connelly                                   Network Systems Coordinator
 [log in to unmask]                            California Medical Association
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