
-----------------------------------------------------------
NOV-BR97.DOC -- 19970402 -- Various emails on BrainShare'97
-----------------------------------------------------------

	Feel free to add or edit this document and then email
	it back to faq@jelyon.com




Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 13:36:06 -0000
From: John Bazeley <johnb@JSB.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Brainshare or it's kind

>Has anybody heard anything about Brainshare this year?
>Or have they dropped the annual conference all together?
>I went last year for the first time and found it to be
>extremely worth while and worth the money spent.

http://brainshare.novell.com/
March 24-28 at the Salt Palace, Salt lake City.
(i.e. walking distance from the hotels/bars this time.)

Also:
BrainShare Europe  97
May 11 - 15, 1997
Nice, France

BrainShare Japan  97
June 25 - 27, 1997
Tokyo, Japan

BrainShare Australia  97
July 9 - 11, 1997
Sydney, Australia

BrainShare Africa  97
July 30 - August 1, 1997
Johannesburg, South Africa

BrainShare China  97
November 12 - 14, 1997
Beijing, China

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 97 10:21:08 EST
From: lars_schmekel@email.fpl.com
To: netw4-l@ecnet.net
Subject: Re: Brainshare - Full Classes

If you are registered, you should be receiving a CD ROM with the
complete presentation in an Adobe Acrobat form...Including the Adobe
Acrobat Reader.  I've already recieved mine.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 31 Mar 97 20:39:56 -0800
From: Randy Grein <rgrein@halcyon.com>
To: <netw4-l@ecnet.net>
Subject: Re: Brainshare

>I've seen some mentions of info from Brainshare but nothing on the event
>itself.  What is the report from UT???  Was there Love or Fear & Loathing?

It was fantastic. I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you... .
Just kidding! I'm swamped, but will try to CC the list as soon as I get
something together. Let's just say that they put everything together,
from basic NT integration to advanced file systems and far-out
superclustering. I've been laughing all week every time some stupid
pundit says Novell is dead, struggling, or about to be eclipsed by the
Redmond Juggernaut.

---------

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 08:39:00 -0600
From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com>
To: netw4-l@ecnet.net
Subject: Re: Brainshare

>>I've seen some mentions of info from Brainshare but nothing on the
>>event itself.  What is the report from UT???  Was there Love or
>>Fear & Loathing???
>
>It was fantastic. I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill
>you... . Just kidding! I'm swamped, but will try to CC the list as
>soon as I get something together. Let's just say that they put
>everything together, from basic NT integration to advanced file
>systems and far-out superclustering. I've been laughing all week
>every time some stupid pundit says Novell is dead, struggling, or
>about to be eclipsed by the Redmond Juggernaut.

Sadly, technical superiority is only a small part of marketing
success.  Beta lost out to VHS.  The Motorola 6800, 6809, and
68000 processors lost out to the Intel 8080, Zilog Z-80, and Intel
8086 processors.  Some people would point to Banyan Vines and
Novell Netware as well, although I can't comment on that contention.

If Novell doesn't do signifigantly more effective marketing than
they have been, we'll all be working on our MSCE's and MCP's.  It
might be a good idea in any case, but if Novell doesn't wake up, it
may become essential.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 97 07:27:47 -0800
From: Randy Grein <rgrein@halcyon.com>
To: <netw4-l@ecnet.net>
Subject: Re: Brainshare

>What is superclustering???

Don't feel bad, 2 weeks ago only 23 people outside the research project
itself knew anything about Wolf Mountain. I'm trying to coin a name here,
it's not very much like traditional clustering. Put it next to
Microsoft's Wolfpack and people will laugh Microsoft right off the face
of the planet.

Essentially Wolf Mountain (named for a mountain and ski resort in Utah)
provides data replicaition, automatic cutover, load balancing, and
everything else you'd expect in a killer NOS when the servers can fully
cooperate in a distributed file system. It's a pure technology
demonstration now, but I'd guess 12-18 months will see major parts out on
the street.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 02 Apr 1997 11:24:02 -0500
From: ROGER ALEXANDER <RDA413@smtp.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil>
To: netw4-l@ecnet.net
Subject: Re: Brainshare -Reply

Here's some more info.

Have a bunch of info about ways that Novell can protect us firewall-wise
that it's nothing short of incredible!  Web services that are complete,
easy to use, and powerful.  Network security that is quick, secure, and
encompassing.  I have a cd that has all the presentation slides on it.
It has all the info on what is called Border Services.  Firewalling,
INTERNET access control, unique URL access control down to the user level,
Proxy cache that gives us essentially a virtual mirror of remote sites,
and web server services is only a portion of the things coming.  I have
beta copies of most of this.  And it works for Netware, NT, UNIX, OS/2,
etc.

What I saw out there was impressive and very exciting.  The ease of
security setup and control was terrific.  You can admin Netware, NT
(servers and workstations!), 95, etc with NDS.  And don't think I'm just
trying to sell Novell.  If someone can show a package that has the same
capabilities and ease of use that can cover all the systems that Novell
does, I'm willing to discuss it, but I've not seen a system yet that can
do the things that I saw at Brainshare.

Also, there is a new technology coming:  Wolf Mountain.  This technology
allows a company/corp/site to pool their resources into a "server pool".
This means that the user logs into the "network", not just a server.
Multiple servers (and they can be a mixture of types) are used as a single
entity, hence the greatest fault tolerance of all - if any of the servers
go down, resources and work are simply redistributed to the remaining
servers and work continues and the user never knows this happens!  All
resources, files, etc are shared by all the servers and are available to
users.  This technology is still bleeding edge and about a year away, but
a simple demo was shown of this.

They also announced the new CEO - Eric Schmidt, who was Sun's chief
technology officer.  They also announced a new partnership with Netscape
and a joint company NOVONYX.  They are also binding tighter with Oracle
as well.  New admin apps will be JAVA enabled.  You will be able to admin
your server by a browser with full security done via NDS.  Netware will
soon be fully JAVA and Native-IP compliant and capable.  NDS security will
be used to control access to web server - inhouse and on the INTERNET.

Also, for Netware admins - if we're going native-IP, then there is a
migration path we need to take called NWIP - NetWare IP.  This is an IP
gateway of sorts.  I have more info on this and there's several sessions
worth of slides also.  It's fairly easy to do, yet complex.  But the main
thing is, we need to start now if we're to have things ready for native-IP
when it comes next year.  This also works for NT, 95, UNIX, etc.

Novell is making a slight direction change it appears to me.  Instead of
a Network Operation Systems company, they are becoming a Network Services
company that will be able to give you security, web access, and IP control
for all your network applications and servers, regardless of system type.

And this was just a small portion of the info!!  Jeez, 2 years ago I was
a MS supporter.  Now, after 2 Brainshares, I must say I am now firmly in
the Novell camp for networking.  MS for apps, but Novell for the network
backend.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 02 Apr 1997 14:58:15 -0500
From: ROGER ALEXANDER <RDA413@smtp.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil>
To: netw4-l@ecnet.net
Subject: Re: MicroSoft or LanWork Place -Reply

>>If you could please shed some light on your comment: Is LanWork
>>Place included with (current) versions of NetWare? Or just the IP
>>stack? Are there any advantages to running IP on a pure NetWare
>>Network? I think the answer is only Yes if you are running Novell's
>>Web Server.
>
>As to IP on a pure NetWare network, there is no reason to.  You can
>load a IP/IPX gateway on the server and get to the Web Server that way.
>The next version of NetWare is supposed to be IP compatible (like we
>haven't heard THAT before) and then it might make sense to  stop using
>IPX, depending on your religous preferences.
>Mike Avery

This is the party line at Brainshare.  IntraNetware comes with NWIP
- NetWare IP, which is an IP stack similar to Microsoft's.  Also, with
the IP/IPX gateway that is available, you can give your IPX workstations
IP access via this gateway, or run the NWIP directly on the workstation.
This software is available free and can be used on 3.12 and up.

Novell currently *recommends* that you start using NWIP NOW to be ready
for the '98 version of IntraNetware, which *will* be IP native.  IPX will
continue to be supported, but IMHO, once native IP hits the streets, IPX
will fade to obscurity.  NWIP is a migration path to native IP.  You will
be ahead of the game by using NWIP now instead of waiting for native IP.

---------

Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 16:08:45 -0600
From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com>
To: netw4-l@ecnet.net
Subject: Re: MicroSoft or LanWork Place -Reply

>This is the party line at Brainshare (Randy, help me out here!  You
>was there also).  IntraNetware comes with NWIP - NetWare IP, which
>is an IP stack similar to Microsoft's.  Also, with the IP/IPX
>gateway that is available, you can give your IPX workstations IP
>access via this gateway, or run the NWIP directly on the
>workstation.  This software is available free and can be used on
>3.12 and up.

NW/IP has been available since shortly after 4.10 was released.  It
was supposed to be included with 4.10, but it wasn't quite ready, so
a coupon was put in the box instead.  It is a reasonable package, but
it is just one step above IP tunelling.  It costs you about 10% in
performance, and there are some problems using it with laptops.
(When a laptop is disconnected from the net, an inordinate amount of
it's resources are spent trying to connect to the net that isn't
there.  Maybe NetWare Remote is a better fit for this situation.  And
maybe the problem has been fixed since I last looked NW/IP.)

Also, the last time I looked at NW/IP, installing it was not for the
naive or weak of heart.  It was fairly difficult to install.

>Novell currently *recommends* that you start using NWIP NOW to be
>ready for the '98 version of IntraNetware, which *will* be IP
>native.

I hate to doubt Novell, and their track record is better than
Microsoft's, but I've been hearing "The next version will be TRULY
IP compatible" since about 3.0.  I hate to be cruel, or rude, but all
in all, I'll believe it when I see it.

>IPX will continue to be supported, but IMHO, once native IP hits
>the streets, IPX will fade to obscurity.  NWIP is a migration path
>to native IP.  You will be ahead of the game by using NWIP now
>instead of waiting for native IP.

So far I haven't seen anything that NW/IP buys you that NSLP  and an
IP/IPX gateway don't get you more easilly.  Switching to an all IP
environment will be pretty easy for any site I've worked at.  Just
stop loading IPX, and add whatever new IP drivers are needed.
They already have DNS, DHCP, and IP everywhere.  It's duck soup.
As to the speed of the switch, my Grandmothers advice "be not the
first by whom the new is tried, nor the last to leave the old
behind" comes into play here.  I also remember that it was about 3
years before the VLM's were considered stable enough for data base
applications, and that there are still people using monolithic linked
IPX drivers.  The 32 bit drivers are widely considered a bit too new
by many people.

---------

Date: Wed, 2 Apr 97 21:12:29 -0800
From: Randy Grein <rgrein@halcyon.com>
To: <netw4-l@ecnet.net>
Subject: Re: MicroSoft or LanWork Place -Reply

>This is the party line at Brainshare (Randy, help me out here!  You was
>there also).  IntraNetware comes with NWIP - NetWare IP, which is an IP
>stack similar to Microsoft's.  Also, with the IP/IPX gateway that is
>available, you can give your IPX workstations IP access via this gateway,
>or run the NWIP directly on the workstation.  This software is available
>free and can be used on 3.12 and up.

The basic problem is running NCP and all the other services on TCP/IP,
there are currently NO defined analogs to these protocols under IP.
Microsoft handles it by using Netbios riding on top af TCP/IP, which took
years of development. Novell is faced with a similar challenge, and the
people I talked to freely admitted that we're likely to always see both
differences from 'pure' IP as well as a small performance penalty. Let's
face it, they need to replace SAP with something better (Radia Perlman
hinted at NLSP for IP because it handles the SAP issue, but the IP
community is likely too stogy to even consider it), add NDS, as well as
add NCP and a few other protocols. This is NOT an easy task. This effort
is being made so that they can run on the internet, as well as those
shops that insist on a single protocol. It should be much better in the
next version, which BTW is NOT Netware IP. It should be a 'true' TCP/IP,
but to be honest I haven't scoped it even Netware IP yet, and would
rather not get dogmatic about it until I've done so. THEN I'll get
dogmatic! (grin)

As for myself, I agree with Radia. The protocol with the biggest address
space wins, although having auto configuring features (IPX) is also
great. The rest is just routing and service protocols, and that can be
added anywhere.

P.S. A prettty good explanation overall. I'm skeptical about losing IPX,
just because it's a great protocol, has more installed nodes than
anything else, and auto configures. If someone fixes the lack of auto
configuration of IP, (DHCP isn't it) then maybe. In about 20 years.

------------------------------

