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Novell Agreement with IBM To Unify Network Management of Multiple Platforms Novell Directory Services (NDS) Support Will Lower Costs and Simplify Access and Administration of Networks with IBM RS/6000 and S/390** Systems PROVO, Utah -- July 9, 1997 -- In a move to unify business networks, Novell, Inc. today announced a major new agreement with IBM Corporation to license Novell Directory Services™ (NDS™) and NetWare® file and print services for IBM's RS/6000 systems and to enable support for S/390 enterprise servers. Now, PC users will be able to more securely and easily connect to the wealth of corporate information residing on company UNIX systems and enterprise servers. The NDS support will also help lower the costs and complexity of managing networks in businesses with multiple enterprise server, UNIX, and LAN systems. For software developers, NDS on IBM and other vendor platforms will provide a consistent directory and security resource for application development. Similar agreements signed over the past year will make NDS available on systems from Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Company, The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) and Sun Microsystems, Inc. by year-end in addition to Novell's IntranetWare and NetWare. NDS for Windows NT will be available from Novell later this year. Developers will be able to write applications that give users a secure, single sign-on to network resources while providing information technology (IT) professionals a single point of heterogeneous network administration. "Businesses are investing in intranets because they provide employees unprecedented access to job information," said Robert Henson, manager of software marketing, IBM RS/6000 Division. "To provide this access, customers are turning to RS/6000 enterprise systems to facilitate unlimited conversations between browser clients and legacy data. Support for NDS strengthens the already pervasive use of RS/6000 as the operator of business intranets." "For our customers, which include several large financial institutions, IBM support for NDS will provide one way to cut network management costs because it reduces the number of places we have to manage user accounts and network resources. NDS support will make files and printers on Unix and S/390 systems as easy to access and manage as PC LANs," said John Laurencelle, Applied Systems Management Group. "It will also make access to all of the information stored on the IBM servers much more transparent and simple for users." With this agreement, Novell achieves its objective to deliver NDS on 70 to 80 percent of all currently shipping UNIX platforms by the end of 1997. "Under the direction of our new CEO Eric Schmidt, Novell is making the net work for customers. This includes addressing the need for directory-enabled network services, and our partners are strongly supporting this effort," said Jeff Hawkins, vice president, Network Services Division. "The agreement to license NDS to help PC users securely access S/390 and RS/6000 servers will increase the strategic value of NDS for partners, customers, and developers." "S/390 provides options for our customers -- from IBM and other leading companies -- to configure solutions to their computing requirement," said Tom Rosamilia, director S/390 Software Product Line for IBM S/390 Division. "A unified networking structure across heterogeneous environments is key to ensuring seamless network computing operations. NDS provides our customers with a way to achieve this end." Simplified Network Administration and Improved Information Access NDS is Novell's multiple-platform directory technology that provides global access to resources of any kind, whether those resources reside on corporate networks, intranets, or the Internet. Under the agreement, IBM is licensed to current and future versions of NDS. Through the industry-standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-based port, IBM will make NDS available with RS/6000 systems and plans to make it available with S/390 systems at no charge to their customers. IBM is also licensed to add- on directory functionality, including directory-to-directory replication and other services from Novell, including file and print, for resale to its customers. For customers, NDS on RS/6000 and S/390 will help simplify network administration, thereby helping to reduce what industry analysts have identified as the highest cost of network ownership, by allowing IT professionals to unify network file access through a single security infrastructure and interface. This will allow multiple mainframe, UNIX and LAN systems to be treated as a single entity, helping to reduce the complexity for users and administrators and lowering the cost of networking for businesses around the globe. End users will be able to link with enterprise server data and applications not previously accessible via PCs. In addition, NDS integration will provide a convenient and transparent upgrade path for customers upgrading or consolidating large numbers of networked servers. Availability IBM will make NDS and other services available on RS/6000 later this quarter. IBM also intends to release an NDS-enabled S/390 version in 1998. Pricing is not yet available. For More Information Founded in 1983, Novell (NASDAQ:NOVL) is the world's leading provider of network software. The company offers a wide range of network solutions for distributed network, Internet/intranet and small- business markets, as well as the network computing industry's most comprehensive education and technical support programs.
Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks and IntranetWare, NDS, Novell Directory Services and
Novell DeveloperNet are trademarks of Novell, Inc. Editor's Note: S/390 news releases and fact sheets are available on the Internet, via the S/390 Home Page at http://www.s390.ibm.com. RS/6000 releases and fact sheets are available via the RS/6000 Home Page at http://www.rs6000.ibm.com. IBM news releases and fact sheets are available via the IBM Home Page at http://www.ibm.com.
Press Contacts:
Jennifer Janson Kinsmann
Jess Blackburn |
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