Novell Enhances Industry-Leading Directory Services With Next Release of NetWare 4

Green River Release Further Simplifies Network Management Tasks, Reducing Time and Effort

OREM, Utah -- June 25, 1996 -- Novell, Inc. today announced strong positive customer response to Novell Directory Services™ (NDS) enhancements in the next release of the NetWare® 4 operating system, code-named Green River. Green River includes a new NDS tool, NDS Manager™, that lets network administrators monitor and manage the replication and partitioning of multiple NDS trees through an easy-to-use graphical utility, making management of enterprise networks simple and efficient. NDS Manager provides administrators with improved control of user objects stored in the directory and network resources and more efficient network management.

Other Green River NDS enhancements include a User Template Object, which allows administrators to set defaults for new user objects and to make changes to multiple NDS objects simultaneously, and the ability to view and manage audit logs through NDS. Together, these features help make Green River a powerful network, intranet and Internet solutions platform that will adapt and grow with a company's business, providing an enduring competitive edge.

"With NDS enhancements such as NDS Manager, Green River is a logical update path for our NDS infrastructure servers," said Michael Lewis, senior engineer, networks at Chevron. "Nothing else offers us the security, flexibility and ease-of-management we need to maintain secure directory trees."

"NDS Manager makes my job as network administrator much faster and simpler," said Dan Blevins, technical analyst, Microsystems and LANs at Hallmark Card. "The Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows me to make changes to the company's directory tree on the fly, including replications and partitions to the directory. NDS is the only directory that offers the extensibility and scalability I need to manage a complex directory efficiently and cost-effectively."

About NDS

With over 15 million users, Novell's directory service is the most robust global directory service available today. NDS is hierarchical, object-oriented and extensible, providing unique identification of, and location-independent user access to, any network resource, such as applications, printers and other networked devices. Users and objects can be organized into logical "tree" structures that can be managed and accessed from anywhere on the network. NDS is the only directory service on the market that meets users' requirements for a secure network environment through rules-based security administration.

Novell further reduces customers' cost of ownership by leveraging NDS throughout its network solutions. GroupWise™ 5, the upcoming release of Novell's expanded client/server email system with full document management capabilities, uses NDS to unify messaging with network access and administration. ManageWise™ 2.1, announced this week (see corresponding press release "Novell ManageWise Delivers Cross-Platform Management Services"), utilizes NDS-based network information to provide a comprehensive PC LAN management system. In addition, NDS provides developers with a powerful framework for creating distributed client/network applications that leverage NDS for network management and user access to network resources.

"The directory service we provide with NetWare 4 is the industry's leading global directory service, and the enhancements in Green River continue to improve on what is already clearly recognized as the most flexible, secure and easy-to-use directory available today," said William Donahoo, senior director of product marketing at Novell. "New features such as NDS Manager allow network administrators to better manage their growing networks through NDS."

NDS Manager

NDS Manager replaces the DOS-based Partition Manager tool available in NetWare 4.1 with a hierarchical graphical tool that allows administrators to make changes to directory trees, including updating NDS itself, without taking down the server. NDS Manager also allows administrators to:

• Automatically detect and update out-of-date versions of NDS on servers;
• Incorporate and manage multiple trees through partitioning and replication services for the directory database;
• Make repairs to the directory easily from client workstations anywhere on the network; and
• Run as an integrated part of the NWAdmin™ utility.

About Green River

Green River, the next version of Novell's market-leading NetWare network operating system, provides the network platform for comprehensive network, intranet and Internet solutions. This platform significantly eases installation, migration and administration of networking processes. Currently slated for release later this year, other major features of Green River include:

• Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability to support network applications and intranets;
• Integrated TCP/IP and DHCP support to simplify network management and ease user access to both corporate intranet and Internet resources;
• C2-level security to protect sensitive data during transmission across networks;
• Advanced network printing capabilities to give users more control over their printing;
• NetWare Application Launcher (NAL) to centrally administer network applications and provide location-independent network access; and
• Easier network migration planning and installation functionality.

Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks and NDS, GroupWise, ManageWise, NWAdmin, Novell Directory Services and NDS Manager are trademarks of Novell, Inc.

Press Contacts:
Chris Rader
Novell, Inc.
(801) 861-5587
Internet: crader@novell.com

Chimene White
Cunningham Communication, Inc.
(408) 764-0751
Internet: chimene@ccipr.com