In the next release of NetWare, Novell Inc says it will separate the communications and security engines in the NCP NetWare core protocol layer to enable NetWare’s communications infrastructure to be applied to http. It will expose the communication layer APIs for users and ISVs. NetWare in effect becomes a web server, Novell claims, although it expects most users to leverage the IBM WebSphere or Oracle WebDB products on top of it.
In addition the company is packaging NetWare 5, NDS directory services and its new caching server in a box designed to plug directly into existing IP networks. It doesn’t use NetWare’s standard installation or configuration mechanisms and is claimed to provide caching performance ten times that of other mechanisms. It is also set to provide this with a proxy server that will enable users to develop a single point of access and control to multiple web servers. If it can get NDS into use at this level, it believes that users will be much more likely build out NDS services across other parts of their networks. Meantime, Novell says its only plan to pursue open source technology development at the moment is to make the Digitalme client available under an open source model.
