Article

Submitted by Sgermanides on 29 April 2009 - 8:00am.

Care to comment? We want to hear from all of you: customers, partners, employees. Consider commenting with any of the following:

Your best NetWare story
Your upgrade experience
Your plans for OES
Your experiences with Training Services or Support

We chose to launch the Move IT programs on Cool Solutions so we could start a conversation. Let us know what you think...

Sophia Germanides
Product Marketing Manager
Novell Open Enterprise Server

Submitted by ecyoung on 29 April 2009 - 11:56am.

For my organization, now is not yet the time to upgrade. Several important things from Netware are still missing in OES Linux, for example:
1) Netware FTP remote server functionality
2) cross-protocol file-locking across AFP/NCP/CIFS
3) NSS filesystem auditing

This is unacceptable (especially the lack of NSS filesystem auditing), given that OES is over 4 years old now.

Now that SLES 11 has been released, we see little value in deploying SLES 10 and enduring its relatively short remaining lifecycle. Hopefully OES for SLES 11 is Novell's top priority and releases soon, finally bringing the missing Netware services to us.

Submitted by ronnys on 30 April 2009 - 2:31am.

We have been running Netware for 12years since Netware 4.11
We still run Netware (6.5 SP7) but have been realizing that NW is a dead end in future. OES2 for Linux is the next step and we consider to upgrade.

The problem is the huge different between NW and OES2 Linux. OES2 Linux is not one product, but two. This is because OES2 is in fact not the OS, but the services. SLES is the OS and SLES is completly different from NW. Its complex and advanced. You need to learn a completly new OS.
OES2 is just an Add-on. These services may be working fine and users doesnt feel any different, but for us who is managing servers, its a completely new world.

Since OES2 and SLES is not integrated, then you will allways have to troubleshoot both. If something doesnt work like iManager, then you really dont know if it is SLES or OES that is the problem. The new OES2 is far more difficult to troublshoot than the old Netware.
I really like Netware since its so easy to set up. Everything is integrated in one OS-package. Even Apache is more easy to setup on Netware than in SLES. The OS Netware had become increddible stable. In a small office we run (sorry to say) Windwos2003 R2. Its just 5people there and they are sharing 2printers. Allmost every week we have to reboot the Windwos server, because the printer-spooler stops.
But on our main site we run one Netware that only hold iPrint. It share 40printers and has been running for 200days without any problems.
This is the real strengt of Netware!

SLES is of course a very good OS. Its modern and support new server-platforms and lots of RAM. It is more easy to set up in a SAN(iSCSI/FC) sollution. Alsmost no new HW-platform in SAN-sollution support Netware now, but many faithfull Netware users are struggeling to learn the new SLES and it doesnt make it easier when we know that we need to stick to the right version of SLES to can install OES2-services; SLES10-SP1 + OES2, SLES10-SP2 + OES2-SP1
And now SLES11 is out! There is no bound between SLES and OES.

How many did an "Move to SLES10-SP2" on a OES2-setup? this breaks the whole OES2. This is the result when we have to deal with two products.
What Novell should consider is to pack SLES and OES in one package alik Out-of-box installation and upgrades. This meen SLES must be change into another product and call the whole product OES. One DVD and one line of support. This of course demand allot from Novell and development. Let SLES be SLES and OES be OES.
This will make it more easy to migrate to OES Linux.

Thanks!

Submitted by Jublian on 5 May 2009 - 7:39pm.

We are a moderate sized School District, some 13.5k students, 2k employees and 36 Novell servers in 16 different buildings. I've always loved Linux and have worked towards increasing its impact in our District so when Novell announced its plans several years ago on running OES on SUSE I was thrilled. We waited until we felt it was mostly mature and started deploying last summer, OES2 on SUSE 10.1

Things went ok when school started. We had some glitches and adjustments we needed to perform but that wasn't unexpected after shifting from a back-end that had been finely tweaked for over 12 years. What we didn't expect was the constant little things and adjust ments that never ended; "fix" one problem, something else starts going wrong. Always in namcd, NDSD, nldap and NSS sub-structures. Never anything in the logs, no errors, no warning. Just suddenly a perfectly functional server that was rebooted yesterday dropped its IPrint, etc. But we were confident we could fine-tune the system back to the 300+ days of uptime we enjoyed under Netware. After all, our lone SUSE 9 box had been running for over 2 years at that point under OES1, though it had almost no load on it.

In December we made the final removal of Netware; our Groupwise server was migrated, and successfully was running and happy. Our little issues continued but at least Zenworks was staying up for several days in a row now.

By the time I left for ATT in Provo, things had got much worse. During my absence one of our primary servers killed its replica, and I wasn't there to fix it. Another server the next week did the same thing; and after 3 days of Tech support working on it the final response was "Don't put a replica on it anymore". 3 weeks later I could guarentee that if I was out of the office for more than one day 2-4 servers would drop their IPrint or NSS volumes, and in many cases just completely hard-lock requiring unplugging to reset.

Desperate, and not having anymore SRs to blow unless absolutely needed, we started tracking our failures and comparing notes. We came to one conclusion. That day I loaded ESX on one of our boxes and brought up a VM with Netware 6.5, sticking it in the replica. Over night our systems gained in stability by many times. Now we are slowly shutting down our SUSE/OES2 servers and deploying Netware in VMs; we have done 5 so far and haven't had a server failure (including in the SUSE machines) in 2 weeks.

We aren't inexperienced and we are willing to work, but our experiences tell me one thing: OES2 on SUSE is not ready. The SUSE side is rock stable but the OES integration components are flaky. All the service patches that Tech Support has made me load to "fix" issues has done nothing but make them worse. These issues, combined with the how abysmal Zen 10 was until the latest patches, have left a sour taste with Administration, our users and us. I don't think that anything short of years of proof can regain that trust we had in Novell's products, and we don't have years do we?

Simply, the death of Netware == the death of Novell in our organization. Its been a great 11 years (since I can't count this last one) but all good things must come to an end.

Submitted by gmwnhs1 on 15 May 2009 - 7:28am.

The end of NetWare will in my organization mean the end of GroupWise and eDirectory as well. If only NetWare had been developed and re-invented. It is the end of an era and the market now has no replacement that is as quick, stable and hardware efficient. I am afraid that Novell's stance on support will lose them more customers of products such as eDirectory and further decrease the market share. The market share that Novell has lost within the last 15 years is a tragedy and they seem determined to do everything they can to make it worse. It should not have been like this.

Submitted by xitec75 on 17 May 2009 - 11:00pm.

Novell OS really rocks. I understand that virtualization is an important step to bypass a lot of trouble with 3rd party vendors.

Anyway, I think some things went wrong since version 4.11 of netware.

BACK TO THE ROOTS. BE A LEADER AGAIN.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I understand the migration to linux. I would use linux kernel and follow global rules for linux-OS (locations for general files, drivers,..) and develop a new linux novell superpower-os for the future. By using general kernels, you won't loose anything.

My vision of novell looks like this:
a) computer boots up
b) loads linux kernel
c) loads some linux stuff (drivers,modules,shell,perl)
d) load novell-stuff
e) shell-console root login (SSH, Telnet, this page you can look up ASCII characters and descriptions.">ASCII, no KDE or GNOME... )
f) all novell services loaded and ready
g) clients work with everything they had before and all ways are the same

Suse-Linux itself is too big and oversized. Sorry saying so.

A lot of people building out-of-the-box solutions with linux. Firewalls, NAS Server and so on. With less than 50 MB on disk. These people show us: it works.

I would not end support for the current netware editions and rewrite everything to get all working out of the box, with linux bootup instead of DOS - without the big suse linux monster, a small linux-system with compatibility to suse.

Again: Dear Novell team: Be a technical leader again. You can do it. Show them your real skills. Do it again!

Submitted by barragae on 28 May 2009 - 3:15pm.

Just read though the comments here and I see two things:
One is - Traditional admins complaining about lack of "NetWare" in OES or the death all together of NetWare and by extension Novell in their environments.
The other is - Lack of thinking out of the box.

We would all love for the OS to be king again, but that's not reality, not even in the competitive arena. The OS is part of the platform and I think the reason Novell takes such a hit with OES, users are trying to use OES as the platform, not the OS.
It's about devices now and the content they can consume - and this is where Novell can be strong - Linux is a player and the best environments will continue to use best of breed products. We have to stop relying on an OS as a platform. OS is the foundation of the platform, but it itself does not handle the business process itself - that's the next paradigm. It's not about one box and it being up 300 days.
As a consultant - I still have no problem going in to a client with a Novell product if it's the right fit. Chances are it won't be file and print anymore, but I really don't get in to that type of work anymore either.

Submitted by Jublian on 28 May 2009 - 4:21pm.

The issue isn't that Netware is being retired, the issue is that the replacement tools are not ready.

When your job demands that services be available rebooting a server every week is completely unacceptable. We *know* that Novell can do better, but for some reason they haven't with OES2.

SUSE is solid, I trust my SUSE boxes completely. Netware is solid, I trust those machines completely. OES2 on SUSE is NOT stable; I know that if I leave the office for 3 days I will have servers that aren't running when I get back. This is completely unacceptable. And like my original post mentioned, by leaving Netware in the structure the SUSE/OES2 boxes run much better and more stable.

When you need file and print services and they have to stay running it really doesn't matter if something else is more flexible or not, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is you didn't have to interrupt the work day by rebooting a machine that failed. Our businesses demand that services and data be available at all times, if the servers keep crashing you have failed.

I have always expected and received one thing from my Novell products, they were always there when I needed them to be. This last year has been the most disappointing one of my IT career, its the year I had to admit that the Evil Empire had surpassed the one company I thought I could count on to get it right. Between OES2 and Zen 10 I have no choice, my administrators aren't going to sign another contract with Novell.

It is too early to force this change. Read the numbers again: 51% of our customers have deployed 25%. 80% of those are satisfied or better. Those are aweful numbers both in the number of deployments AND satisfaction rates. Novell should listen to the other 49% that haven't deployed, those that haven't deployed to all their machines AND those 20% that aren't happy.

Submitted by stikboy on 28 May 2009 - 8:01pm.

Barragae, that has to be one of the dumbest posts I've read in a long time. OS, or Operating System is software, and the Platform is the hardware it runs on. Most of your post makes no sense - use software as the hardware?

If you, as a consultant, think that up-time isn't important to businesses and that somehow content consuming devices are what's important - well I think you're in the wrong business. Tossing out marketing terms like business process is the next paradigm as relevant and ignoring dependable file and print services is just plain mental deficiency.

Netware was the best of breed for file and print services - it allowed businesses to focus on what they do and not have to worry about having a huge IT shop to constantly prop up the system. The dependability is why people stuck with Netware; and the loss of that is why people are running from SLES.

Lets pretend your comment was about cars - you are saying you'd recommend your customers use a car that breaks down every three blocks because it uses a flashy new fuel source - and it's more about consuming than dependability.

Novell was a great company, my blood ran Novell Red - but like most of the posters here, it's not an issue of not thinking outside the box, it's thinking about not having to constantly worry about the "box".

Submitted by dmahalko on 28 May 2009 - 8:36pm.

Those mobile devices don't work if they can't get to their data, served up 24/7 from a box that never goes down. Businesses still rely on fast central servers with huge uptime to make it all work, Mr. Barragae.

Cubicle and classroom desktops are still mostly hard-wired and that isn't changing. They work best when each user has the account, application, and desktop preferences follow them from machine to machine, with their desktop, mydocs, and appdata served up straight to them from the file server. It's called roaming profiles, and it works well with Novell's alternative to Microsoft's implementation. (If Novell were to eliminate ZENworks for Desktops I would have absolutely no incentive to keep me from going straight to Microsoft.)

,

What Novell is really getting with the move to linux is a pre-emptive OS, where programs can be assigned priority access the CPU and some can be idled, and where a single misbehaving application cannot drag the entire system to its knees.

Classic Netware puts all software in "ring 0" with the kernel running at the same priority. All software must behave perfectly and must be written to give over idle time to other software, or the whole works freezes up.

Years ago I determined that users can never be allowed to run their own perl scripts on Classic Netware, because a tight infinite loop in perl hangs the machine so hard that all server disk activity screeches to a halt and the test user program cannot be killed. A hard reset was the only option to regain control of the server.

,

That plus the 32-bit memory limitation capping server memory at around 3 gigabytes (and the rest is only for NSS caching) severely hobbles the future of Classic Netware.

That is the primary reason they've gone to linux. To attempt to rewrite classic Netware as a pre-emptive 64-bit OS would have been a far larger project than simply buying SUSE with a ready-made server OS that already had those features, and just rewriting the core apps (eDir, NSS, Groupwise, ZEN, etc) to work with the pre-existing 64-bit SUSE kernel..

The main problem right now is for Novell to finish the job and optimize their code to equal the speed and efficiency of the original non-preemptive 32-bit code. NSS needs to be equal or faster, and SHOULD be faster if it is running in 64-bit mode. Groupwise mail agents need to exit cleanly, without blocking ports, becoming a zombie process, and requiring a full reboot to clear. NDS/eDir must be rock-solid without needing to revert to a Classic Netware replica to keep it all stable, as mentioned above.

In essence, the migrated Classic code needs to be tightened up a bit more before we'll all be comfortable making the switch.

- Dale Mahalko

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 2 June 2009 - 7:01am.

"Upgrade" generally means to encompass everything in the previous version and having some add-on value. We have had nothing but problems with OES-Linux and have never been able to get it out of the test environment.

Like others here, we want to continue to use Novell, but our customers need 24x7, and OES-Linux just doesn't do it. It needs to be just as good as Netware in every aspect, and better in others. Even some from Novell Consulting recommended we not use Groupwise on it, for example.

It's normal to expect some bugs, but the awful integration and very difficult way to manage it as compared to Windows and Netware make it un-deployable at this time.

NSBS was great (except for the excessively greedy pricing structure past the initial deployment), and NOWS was an unqualified disaster.

Submitted by willtur on 9 July 2009 - 8:31am.

Its unfortunate as we benefit so much from the services you guys provide yet
the trend of support and jobs for novell/zenworks admins seems to be going the way of the dinosaur.

So in the end I am sad to see it go and I will no doubt have a tougher job ahead of me as the network and application engineer but in the end at least I will have a skill that someone needs. Try doing a search for netware or novell sometime on a job site. This is a bummer.

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 7 July 2009 - 11:00pm.

The silence from Novell is deafening. Marketing must be involved.

Submitted by jhedge on 16 July 2009 - 7:03am.

Wow!

I'm almost scared to purchase Linux after reading this.
I have a very small company running NW 6.5.7, 40 users.

I was told by " one in the know" that at the end of July 09, there would be a mirgration tool that would do it all

Edir, Nss volumes, GW all of it.

Now will it really happen - ?

If it works it would maybe solve some of these issues.

thanks

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 16 July 2009 - 2:23pm.

Why migrate? What's the business or technical reason, if you're allowed to share?

It's like parachutists - why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?

Submitted by GROETZIT on 23 July 2009 - 2:49am.

of course there a lot of arguments for this or that.
I'm doing NetWare for about 20 years and i am a fan of NetWare too. But there are many things NetWare can't do really good (i hate the non-preemtive multitasking (pseudo-multitasking) and priority handling (years ago there has been OS/2 that did this perfectly and much better than any Win system today)). Who does not know downing a server when only one process hangs - esp. Antivirus, Backup etc. The only products that really worked on NetWare are Novell's own products. Did you choose to run a database other than flaim on NetWare? No way.
Linux does all that and much more but you have to learn a lot of new stuff. I think this is the main problem. There are only a few things you won't get for Linux and when installed initially (could be hard) it works rockstable until your hardware dies.
I have running systems on SLES9/OES1 (3 years) and OES2 + GW7 (2 years) without main problems. ZCM is a problem yet that has to be solved fast. Sever based admin tools like dsrepair would be nice on Linux (ndsrepair is a bit puristic yet). Time and SLP management and coexistence with NetWare boxes is suspicious so is the certificate handling.
Linux is the right way and XEN is the answer to your NetWare lifetime. Run all the good OES stuff on Linux and maintain a NetWare VM for things that won't work as you want. Novell did a good job to migrate their main services from NetWare to Linux in only 3 years (OES1), OES 2 is a big step forward (@Novell: please don't miss NSS, NCP; Samba is not a real alternative).

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 23 July 2009 - 10:26am.

You just laid out a lot of good arguments as to why Novell's Linux isn't ready yet. Until it is, I can't recommend it. Novell has had over three years to get it right and still misses the mark.

As far as databases on Netware goes, I've run Oracle and Sybase without any issues to speak of.

I have no qualms about moving to Linux, but it's SUCH a change and Novell could have made SO MUCH easier, but failed to do so. Heck, they still can't figure out what management tool to use!

They simply bought the company, slapped a new logo on it, and said, "We're now a Linux company!". It took how long just to get a Linux Client rolled out?

ndsrepair? Please!

Download and install Netware or Windows server, and you can install Directory Services, etc. Download SLES, and it's an entirely separate process. Why? Why not have one DVD download for it all?

It seems that Novell still doesn't know what they want to do with it and they still can't get some parts to work right.

It's as if the only vision is "Linux-only" and don't have the technical time / ability to make it work.

The Microsoft coupon and driver thing? Relying on a company that's sworn to destroy you (and has the means and motivation to do it) for your very survival is not a good business decision.

A better business decision would have been to integrate Linux, get it working right and bulletproof, then start the retirement of Netware. Offer free training and certification, have a road tour in the top 50 US cities to demonstrate it and get into the board rooms to be able to talk to the mailroom clerk to the CxO if need be (IOW, make the language so everyone can understand it at their level), oh - and ADVERTISE. You know, that Marketing thing that Novell is so anemic to.

They've got what - $1.5 billion just sitting around? They can afford it. This isn't the 90's anymore - you really do have to advertise and "spend it to make it".

It's not Novell's far past that is so depressing, it's what they are currently doing as it seems they refuse to learn from their mistakes.

The best thing Novell has done is keep the Novell Support Forums open and still run by the same great leadership as before. Without it, Novell would certainly have folded long ago.

Submitted by Jublian on 24 July 2009 - 10:30am.

Then re-read my comments above, plus other posters' comments. OES2/SLES is NOT stable enough for production environments as it currently stands.

We were 100% migrated and very soon after our last Netware box was replaced we started having massive stability issues with EDir and related services. I have 4 boxes that can no longer even have a replica on them or they start crashing! And yes, I had a SR on it; after 2 weeks of Novell's support working on one of them their response was "Don't put a replica on it any more". They also made me patch every system, which just made matters worse. At our worst we were having 2-3 servers go down PER DAY, all of them dropping IPrint, NSS volumes or just locking up. The funny thing is that Groupwise 7 on our SUSE server runs for 100s of days with no issues, while most people complain about stability of GW 7 on SLES....

We put ONE Netware 6.5 server in a VM and put a replica on it, over night our systems stabilized and instead of several a day we had a failure every other week. Now we are slowly shutting down the SLES systems and deploying Netware in VMs.

These were all hand-loads, not "conversions" of existing servers, so no bugs could have come across from any oddities in the replaced Netware boxes.

By November all of our SLES /OES2 servers will be gone. We will still have multiple SLES servers handly various tasks, but none will have the OES2 components on them. By next summer we will be a Microsoft shop :(

These tools are flaky, unstable and tech support doesn't seem to understand them any better than we do. And don't get me started on Zen 10, I might get banned from the forums on that one.

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 24 July 2009 - 10:39am.

How about 2 downloads - one for SLES and then the OES add-on and one that combines the two and has a seemless installation / integration as Novell has done so well with Netware over the years, like an overlay? I understand that not everyone who wants a Linux server wants all the Novell-developed apps, such as eDirectory, NDPS, Certificate Server, et al.

One huge problem Novell has is that OES acts like it's an add-on and not a "natural extension of the operating system", to quote Microsoft. Square peg / round hole. They've planned this for at least a decade, and this is the end result. Are you 100% satisfied with it? I'm not, and neither are my customers. We still put on our happy faces and prop up Novell as much as we can, but the results speak for themselves.

Novell wants their Netware customers to move to Linux. Ok, fine. How about making it easy to do?

How about making it so that at least some if it has a "Netware-mode" where it looks and feels a little like Netware? What about a few utilities like Monitor, DSRepair, etc? (No, ndsrepair doesn't cut it, and you know it.)

I downloaded SLES 11 and OES 2 to install, and the OES DVD continually stopped after about 2.1 GB.

SLES downloaded and installed, but it took 3 days to install it! Windows takes about a day, to include everything, Netware a few hours, and SLES a few days. What's wrong with this picture? I never was able to get OES to download, so I had to borrow a DVD from someone else.

A few other areas where Novell has dropped the ball -

1. iManager. The standalone version has been rendered impotent as far as NDPS is concerned. Novell in their great wisdom, built in some Active-X controls that will ONLY work with IE - not the standalone, not via Firefox, etc. Try updating the standalone to SP3. It won't do it for me.

2. NSS. 'nuff said.

3. SLES / OES integration

4. ZCM 10 - it requires a Windows server, but does not support Netware. Huh?

5. XEN - bought by Citrix, owned by Microsoft. Want to bet your business on a competitor playing nice with you?

6. Killed Netware too soon. SLES isn't ready to take over yet. Novell panicked a lot of Netware shops into moving on to Windows when the time to change comes. I can name a few dozen off the top of my head.

7. Small Business - killed the one area that was having great growth. NSBS was a success, except for the part where Novell decided to screw the customer by having such a greedy pricing plan after the inital install.

8. NOWS - try to get support for it. No one knows what part gets supported by what group at Novell.

9. Marketing. They have a CMO, but what exactly does he do but blog about once every few months?

10. Management tools. What do I use? iManager? ConsoleOne? NWAdmin is still needed, too. Why can't their Product Managers agree on one management tool that a) works like it should, b) consistent across all products, c) easy to find and install plugins as necessary, d) not crash my PC, e) does not require a particular desktop operating system, f) can run on servers if necessary, and g) takes into consideration input from actual admins - not engineers?

11. Company direction. I get Google Mail Alerts about Novell, and I see that they are buying this and coming out with that, but nothing that gives them a general direction other than "all things to all people". The need to diversify is always understood, but there comes a point of diminishing returns. It's as if they are throwing everything to the wall and see what sticks instead of forging ahead to be the best in a particular direction. Is it security? Directory Services? Systems Management? Data center servers? Groupware? Desktop operating system? Server operating system? Or is it simply a race to see who can own the most property, as if it were a game of Monopoly?

Red Hat out-performs Novell consistently. They have a specific business model and direction - and they execute very well.

Novell was castigated when Frankenberg was buying WordPerfect and trying to compete with MS on the desktop. Novell got out of that and started to excel at what a network does - Directory Services, desktop support, security, printing, identity management, and added Groupware into the mix.

IMO, they are spreading themselves out too thin and the main products are suffering because of it.

Submitted by RiceLock on 24 July 2009 - 7:25pm.

I work in a 30,000 user shop which used to be a solid Novell customer running NetWare, eDir, IDM, iPrint, ZDM, GroupWise and a whole lot of various services that came with the above products.

As you can imagine, a customer of this size has a dedicated onsite Novell engineer and a lot of attention from Novell.

For over a year we tried to migrate services to OES2 on Linux but faced huge stability issues with code quality, feature parity and ease of migration.

At the end of the day it became apparent to those above that projects involving Microsoft technologies finished on time and on budget more often than those involving Novell.

As a result we are now moving to a Microsoft solution with some Linux and the absolute minimum of OES2 and then only as a temporary solution.

From what I've personally seen, it seems that SuSE is excellent and stable - missing some of the features that existed in NetWare* when you compare but what is there works well. In some cases the missing features made it impossible to migrate to SuSE and a Windows platform was used - I think this is because Microsoft competed with NetWare for so long that most of the feature set was offered on Windows to help people migrate.

*Yes, I'm comparing SuSE and NetWare because some of the migration paths take you to a SuSE componant rather than an OES2 service - e.g. FTP (which btw does NOT have feature parity in SP2 as was indicated in one of the initial posts)

Products that Novell have built on SuSE e.g. OES2 are totally different. They are often missing features or have performance and stability issues and often larger customers must spend significant time, resource and money helping Novell get their bugs out. Eventually I would suggest that this will all be sorted out and the core product set maybe stable enough to actually use in large production environments however significant damage will be done to the Novell customer base and in my opinion Novell will never recover.

With the EOL of NetWare next year my customer was forced to act and has since launched a multimillion dollar migration away from Novell to Microsoft and Microsoft-based technologies - As with so many of the authors above, the death of NetWare has triggered the death of Novell for this customer.

Submitted by GROETZIT on 25 July 2009 - 1:29am.

OES2 on SLES 11 is unsupported.
SLES11 installs in about 1 hour and runs pretty nice esp. when using XEN.
XEN is an open source project, Citrix bought the company XENsource not XEN, i hear this misunderstanding very often.
Think in GPL and try to think in Linux. To quote distrowatch.com
"Put the fun back to computing".

If you are so unhappy with Novell don't do Windows, take a deep look into Linux. There are so many things you can do with it out of the box you never dreamt about or haven't heard about for years - remember UNIX. Of course, you will be missing something like eDir.
Will stop this discussion in a forum now. (will become TROLLING)

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 27 July 2009 - 10:59am.

You asked for people's experiences and they heve been submitted.

You don't like the answer, so you close the discussion.

This is but ANOTHER reason Novell demonstrates that they are not listening to their customers.

Submitted by GROETZIT on 27 July 2009 - 11:32pm.

@lisaldiaz
Sorry lisaldiaz, I am not from Novell and I did not ask for nothing. We are only a customer from Germany with a small network (150 User). I only gave you my own opinion and my own experience with OES/SLES.
I understand a lot of what you said, and I agree in many parts.
In fact, I don't like to discuss this in an open forum.

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 28 July 2009 - 10:32am.

Your post indicated that you wanted to close discussion as it relates to forum management.

I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Submitted by RiceLock on 29 July 2009 - 3:48am.

I'm talking about feature parity between NetWare FTP and the Novell solution offered as the migration path to Linux.

It makes it difficult to migrate an FTP service to Linux when the Windows one behaves closer to NetWare: the time, effort and risk of changing scripts vastly outweighs the initial cost.

Submitted by lisaldiaz on 29 July 2009 - 9:49am.

Now I get it. Thanks for the clarification.

When Novell bought into Linux and the CEO was asked point blank if they were going to get rid of Netware in favor of Linux, the response was that customers bought into Novell for the services, not the underlying operating system.

The FTP services was one of the most basic of all services that was "brought over", at least in my opinion. Did Novell screw this up, too?