Novell Teams with Leading Server Vendors to Launch NetWare 4.1 SMP

Symmetric Multiprocessing for NetWare Increases Performance, Scalability of World's Leading Network Platform

NETWORLD+INTEROP, ATLANTA--Sept. 26, 1995--Novell today announced that it has partnered with 18 of the world's leading providers of high-performance network servers to deliver NetWare 4 Symmetric Multiprocessing# (SMP) to its customers. The following OEM partners will bring NetWare 4.1 SMP to the marketplace beginning 4Q95:

Acer America Corp.
AT&T GIS
Compaq Computer Corp.
Dell Computer Corp.
Digital Equipment Corp.
Fujitsu, Ltd.
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Hitachi, Ltd.
IBM
ICL
NEC Corp.
NetFRAME Systems, Inc.
Olivetti
Sony Corp.
Tricord Systems, Inc.
Toshiba Corp.
Unisys Corp.
Zenith Data Systems

"NetWare has long set the industry standard for both performance and scalability, giving customers more value for their hardware investment than any other network operating system available," said Richard King, executive vice president of the Novell Systems Group. "NetWare 4.1 SMP makes the best even better, enabling customers to take advantage of the latest advances in server technology and assuring them that NetWare will continue to provide a high-performance, scalable platform for their business-critical information systems.

"NetWare 4.1 SMP marks the first time Novell has offered a product exclusively through its OEM partners," King continued. "NetWare 4.1 SMP OEMs represent the best the server industry has to offer. Our partnerships with these vendors are another example of Novell and industry leaders leveraging each others' strengths to benefit our mutual customers."

NetWare 4.1 SMP Increases Server Performance, Scalability

NetWare 4.1 SMP is a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) add-on to the NetWare 4.1 operating system that enhances network performance and scalability by enabling NetWare 4.1 to take advantage of multiple processors in a single server. NetWare 4.1 SMP:

* Provides a high-performance platform for CPU-intensive network services, such as database and groupware applications.
* Gives customers the performance and flexibility they need to expand their network as their computing requirements increase.
* Provides for a new generation of high-performance, SMP-enabled NLMs while preserving complete backward compatibility for customers' current network server-based solutions.
* Increases server capacity, allowing customers to consolidate multiple network services on a single standard, high-volume server.
* Can be added easily and cleanly to existing NetWare 4.1 installations.

"We think multiprocessing support makes NetWare an even better platform for our statewide child-care database," said Algie McCoy, information research consultant and Certified NetWare Engineer (CNE) for South Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services. "We plan to move our child-care database from five servers to a single multiprocessing server running NetWare 4.1 SMP, improving database access and reporting performance both locally and from remote sites. Using NetWare 4.1 with Novell's NetWare Directory Services# will also help cut the time necessary to administer the server and the database.

NetWare 4.1 SMP Design

NetWare 4.1 SMP was designed to benefit customers in two key ways. First, it was designed to increase network throughput and server bandwidth for all NetWare 4.1 installations using existing NetWare 4 NLMs. With NetWare 4.1 SMP Novell has "multithreaded"--or, allowed to run on multiple processors--the most CPU-intensive portions of the network operating system, including management of LAN traffic, security encryption, the SPX protocol transport, and the application programming environment used by developers to write server-based applications. A preemptive SMP kernel manages the task scheduling among processors. An enhanced MONITOR utility enables network administrators to track the utilization of each processor in the server, and a series of new SET commands allow network administrators to customize NetWare 4.1 SMP for their environment.

Second, NetWare 4.1 SMP was designed to increase network performance and scalability via a new generation of SMP-enabled NLMs. These multithreaded server-based applications use the NetWare SMP API to take direct advantage of NetWare symmetric multiprocessing capabilities.

Database, Groupware Applications Mark the First Wave of SMP-Enabled Apps

"Because database and groupware network services are crucial requirements for the great majority of our customers, these are the areas they asked us to concentrate on for the first wave of SMP-enabled applications," said Toby Corey, vice president of marketing for Novell's Operating Systems Division. Novell is partnering with the leading database providers--including Oracle, Sybase and Btrieve Technologies--to deliver NetWare 4.1 SMP-enabled solutions to the marketplace, beginning with the release of Oracle's Oracle7 Enterprise Server in November and Oracle7 Workgroup Server at the beginning of 1996. SMP support from Sybase is expected in 1Q96 with SQL Server 11. SMP support from Btrieve will be released in the first half of 1996.

In the groupware category, Novell GroupWise can already take advantage of NetWare 4.1 SMP. The GroupWise Post Office--the core component of GroupWise, which handles mail delivery, database updates, status tracking and so on--has been SMP-enabled; current customers can easily activate SMP capabilities via a software switch. SMP versions of two additional GroupWise elements--the message transfer agent (MTA) and the SMTP Gateway NLM--are currently in beta test and expected to be released to customers within 90 days.

"The bottom-line benefits of GroupWise on NetWare 4.1 SMP are flexibility, scalability and performance," said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for Novell's Groupware Division. "With the ability to consolidate thousands of mail accounts on a single server, customers have the processing power and flexibility needed to create a messaging infrastructure that is easier and less costly to administer. Customers will see immediate performance and scalability gains that translate into greater productivity--all part of Novell's effort to reduce the cost of network ownership."

Availability and Pricing

NetWare 4.1 SMP will be available exclusively through Novell's NetWare 4.1 SMP OEM partners, who will also set pricing. OEMs will begin delivering NetWare 4.1 SMP to the marketplace in 4Q95. For more information about NetWare 4.1 SMP and the NetWare 4.1 SMP OEMs, customers can call 1-800-NETWARE or access the NetWare 4 World Wide Web site at http://www.novell.com/intranetware/ [link removed].