No indication of when Novell Inc will produce its implementation of IBM Corp’s Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking code, but in the meantime, the company has launched a product that will squirt NetWare traffic over existing SNA backbones. NetWare SNA Links is a NetWare Loadable Module designed to work with NetWare SAA and looks to be useful for network managers who have dispersed NetWare local area networks and an existing SNA infrastructure. Details of how the product works are sketchy, but IPX/SPX traffic is encapsulated into SNA packets. The company says that for branch office configurations, NetWare for SAA and NetWare SNA Links can run alongside file and print services on a single NetWare v3.11 server, providing access to 3270 applications, links to remote local area networks and access to local file and print services. For larger configurations it might be worth using a dedicated NetWare Runtime server, however as rule of thumb the company says that a Systempro from Compaq Computer Corp with a 25MHz 80486 can support 500 sessions while using only around 20% of CPU capacity. It works with SDLC or Token Ring connections and supports concurrent local net-to-local net and local net-to-host traffic over the same physical connection. The software comes in one, 20 and 60 server packages for UKP740, UKP10,590 and UKP23,530 respectively.
