To be fair, if you were going to deploy Netware 6, you would have a trained Novell engineer (CNE) configure it on a Netware 6-certified box from a major manufacturer. We, nevertheless, decided to wipe our Windows 2000 clone server and start afresh with Netware.
While earlier versions of Netware (4 and below) would run on just about anything, Netware 6 is fussier about its hardware.
One of the first problems we encountered was a compatibility issue with our Intel clone (DC21143 chipset) network cards. The cards are well supported under Windows (all versions) but vendor support for Netware is limited (with clone vendors rarely supporting Netware 5 or above). The lesson: check which cards are supported out of the box and use those rather than attempting to find uncertified drivers.
Our next casualty was our ET6000 chipset video card (which performed flawlessly under Win2K). Although Netware 6 supports the ET6000, it objected to our card with some strange visual effects, particularly when attempting to view a text screen in a GUI window.
The dots and dashes were annoying, but the server abends (Novell's equivalent of the blue screen of death) were too much. Out with the ET6000 and in with an S3 Virge DX running under the vanilla VESA driver. Finally our server was (almost) stable enough to begin tests.
As Netware 6 is now graphical, we attempted to use the console GUI to administer the server. Novell runs its own version of X Windows that is functional but clunky compared with Win2K or Linux. On our machine the GUI was slow (sometimes waiting a minute between mouse click and response) although on higher spec'd hardware things would presumably be snappier. Just like Windows 3.1 was DOS with pictures, the GUI is essentially a picture interface for text-based commands. Like Win3.1, we too were able to lock up the server by choosing an inappropriate (but supposedly supported) video mode, experience mouse troubles using our CPU switch and discover that certain functions (such as the online help and links to Novell) failed without meaningful error messages. If you switch to the text screen you find that errors occurred because files were missing (despite a full install) or there was an abend (as detailed in the logs) but within the GUI you'd be wondering why nothing was happening.
We attempted to administer the server using Console One (Novell's GUI control panel) and again suffered the occasional abend when we switched from the text screens back to the GUI. On the other hand, administering the server from the browser or NWAdmin utility on the client gave no grief.
One of the strengths of Netware 6 is that it no longer requires you to load client software on your Windows computers as Netware natively supports Windows (CFIS) protocols. Our NT workstations were able to see the Novell server, but were unable to log onto the system because Netware rejected our username and password. No doubt this was just a configuration issue, but with an out of the box install, there were problems.
Netware 6's strengths are in its robust NDS directory, security and its excellent remote access functionality that allows you to connect to the server via the browser using NetStorage or using iShare-synchronised folders. NetStorage allows you to easily and securely access files whereas iShare is a small program you download to your machine to automatically synchronise files between the server and workstation. Netware 6 also provides secure Web access to your printers and email client via 'gadgets' that provide a back-end connection to print services and your mail server. Remote administration is fully browser-based making the most of Java applets to provide a realtime connection to the server console and administrative tools.
Overall if you are properly trained and use certified hardware, Netware 6 is a versatile Internet-enabled network operating environment with outstanding remote access features.
However, don't count on running it straight out of the box as it is not as easy to configure or as hardware-tolerant as Microsoft Windows 2000.