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Microsoft

Novell vs. Microsoft - Benchmarks 177

Posted by HeUnique from the round-1 dept.
I Just found this article in The Register which talks about KeyLabs comparing Novell's NDS eDirectory vs. MS's Windows 2000 Active Directory. Here is the KeyLabs benchmark report (requires PDF reader) and here is another link to Novell's eDirectory Benchmark. (also, here is what Novell says about it). I'm sure this is only round 1 and we will surely see some other reports...
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Novell vs. Microsoft - Benchmarks More

Novell vs. Microsoft - Benchmarks

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  • Love that graph.. (Score:3)

    by Tarnar ( 20289 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2000 @04:32PM (#1266735) Homepage
    On the Novell page, comparing reliability..

    The scale is between 80 and 100 percent. The low 90 that MS scores just PALES in comparision to that full-height 100.

    Of course, ~10% downtime is an extremely significant number if you're talking mission critital.. But still, it's not the 50% that it looks like.
  • The report lists a number of tuning paramaters that were used for Novell. On the other hand, very few were used for Windows NT.

    My question is: How do we know whether the two directories were tuned to equivalent performance parameters?

    Until this is answered, I would take these results with a salt lick.
  • True, it's possible they were not tuned fairly, but as we've seen from previous benchmarks, tuning does not turn a low score into a winner. Windows NT may improve with more tuning, but I don't think it would match Novell if Novell hadn't been tuned at all.

    I don't do sigs.
  • Anyone who has not read it, should read How to Lie With Statistics [amazon.com]. Highly recommended for becoming alert to a lot of tricks like this one.

    Cheers,
    Ben

  • There are four kinds of falsehoods. (Score:3)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2000 @05:01PM (#1266743) Journal
    Lies.
    Damn lies.
    Statistics.
    Benchmarks.
  • Well, MS just proved that Win2000 crashes half as often as Win95, so Win95 would have been down around that 80%... if you had Directory services running on 95..

  • Bias? (Score:1)

    by ajakk ( 29927 )
    We railed against Microsoft when they published the Mindcraft results. Now, Novell sponsers a study that shows their main money winner is incredibly better than its new competitor. I think the grain of salt we need to take this with is as big as Utah.

    This doesn't mean that I don't believe that NDS is faster and more reliable than Active Directory. My gut feeling would lean that direction. But I would like to see real benchmarks from an unbiased company.
  • Ummm, NDS and Active Directory are not just different implementations of a standard, they're completely different pieces of software. They serve a similar purpose, but I honestly can't see how they could be objectively compared...

    MoNSTeR
  • Microsoft-Certified Test Lab Verifies Novell's NDS eDirectory Fastest in Delivering Real-World Web Performance with Zero Failure Rate

    from Novell's offical press release [novell.com]

    Active Directory is Microsoft's first real attempt into the directory space, and, frankly, their inexperience is evident in important real-world functions.

    Things like this give me a good laugh. A M$ certified partner saying M$ is inexperienced.

  • It's going to be a tough job for Novell. M$'s marketing machine has swung into full gear. Hopefully when companies make decisions about their company-wide Directory Service they will let themselves be lead by facts instead of the m$ fiction. By the way, guys (and gals) - I've been playing around with the NDS for Linux Beta and it's GREAT! Check it out when it's in open beta (should be VERY soon).
  • These statistic wars are a dirty little game that will only get dirtier. Obviously if you read the results from Novell's website, the results will be in favor of Novell. Obviously if you read ANYTHING on The Register, you can't believe it. That leaves us with only one thing left to do. Wait for another benchmark. Honestly, I don't really know enough about this to comment on which is better or why, I've never needed directory services like these, and it's unlikely that I ever will. However, I know that Windows 2000 is a step up from Windows NT 4.0, and I know that I've NEVER been impressed with ANYTHING I've seen from Novell. As far as I'm concerned these benchmark results are totally useless.
  • Yeah yeah yeah, one set of benchmarks shows one thing, another shows something different. Consider them equal and make your choice based on economics... choose the option which will increase competition in a monopolized market.
  • Well, M$ always claims AD to be a replacement (indeed, improvement) for NDS and they positioned it that way, too. Both products are Directory Services in the broad sense of the term, but the approach is different. M$ thinks domains are still a good thing to base your security model on, together with rights assigned only to users and groups. Novell on the other hand believes in flexibility, allowing you to extend NDS to your liking, with the ability to grant rights to any object. Somewhat different, but not different products, sorry.
  • Mindcraft didn't lose credibility, they did the tests Microsoft asked. In those tests Linux came second. These results were verified in an independant lab later on, with members of the open source community present.

    But anyway speaking of marketing, it is all in how you put the spin on it, for example with the Mindcraft tests Linux finished second but NT4 finished second to last :)
  • The same company was used a few days earlier by Microsoft. Microsoft won those tests. OTOH those tests were chosen by Microsoft and did not include any "contains" searches, the NT box was optimized, etc.

    As Jeremy Allison said, everybody knows ahead of time who will win a particular test, and nobody will participate if they don't honestly think they are going to win. He said that when Linux' IP stack gets optimized and Solaris' file-system gets improved that you will see him repeat the Mindcraft benchmarks - but not until...

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • I used to be a novell fan, in fact I used to swear by it, but if someone drops the marketing game, and succumbs to the microsoft one then I think novell has no future. It has gotten to the state that novell can no longer compete with M$, So as much as I want to believe & understand and obey what they say, It will be along a lot longer before they will conform, Novell 6 I dont think so. Another company that have outdone them selves by licensing.
  • As a longtime Novell administrator, I was tempted to shout "hooray for the good guys."

    As a longtime /. reader, however, I say "before we slam anyone (Microsoft, Novell, the test lab, etc.) let folks familiar with Win2k post information about the test parameters to show any biases toward Novell in how the test was set up -- a la the accusations against Mindcraft which IIRC were mostly proven to be false in the 3rd run of that particular benchmark.

    What I like about this particular study as published is that they were very up front about the tuning parameters, such as they are. My hope would be that Microsoft will respond with their "ideal tuning parameters", and then the benchmark can be run again, with the results posted here.

  • Now, Novell sponsers a study that shows their main money winner is incredibly better than its new competitor. I think the grain of salt we need to take this with is as big as Utah.

    It's not even that big of a grain of salt. It's one the size of Utah County, Utah. Novell likely has people working for them who live farther away then that.

    Having said that, their claims are likely not all that outrageous. Remember that the Mindcraft results weren't false, just not very useful because their "real world" tests involved lots of static pages being accessed at ridiculous rates instead of testing dynamic page generation. I'm not up to date with LDAP, but for authentication purposes it's unlikely you would need to authenticate 250 people a second from a single server. And if 1 out of 8 of those people can't log in right away because the server is unreliable...well, in the "real world" 3 out 8 (totally made up numbers) of those people probably mistyped their passwords anyway and would have had to try again.

    However, the fact that ActiveDirectory is Win2000 or bust, while NDS is Win2000, Solaris, Linux, et al., (according to Novell of course) is much more important and is more proof that at least one vendor is trying to lock you in while the other is willing to play nicely (underdogs usually are).

  • OK, I'm a professional and have worked with everything from Solaris to NT to NetWare. I'm a Master CNE and MCSE.
    Take it from me - nothing beats Novell in manageability. Nothing beats it in fileserver (=caching) performance, too.
    What Novell product have you actually seen?
    NetWare 2.15???
    Seems like you've no idea what you're talking about here.
  • Since they serve a similar purpose comparing them seems more than fair. But as we all know everybody is sponsoring statistics which is destined to have a certain predetermined result - in this case the benchmarking was done on request from Novell. Even so it kind of hard to lie about certain obvious facts(remember Mindcraft were we all had to back down). From the document it seems quite obvious that eDirectory is a superior product within the benchmarked application area.

    Another thing to keep in mind is that Novell has been around for a quite a while - shipping networking and directory services for many years. Their expertice should result in a superior product - otherwise they should be out of business. For all I know ActiveDirectory might just be as full of bugs as the rest of Windows 2000(roumored to have 65000 bugs :).
  • Nobody got fired for buying IBM^H^H^HMicrosoft.

    Burris
  • Want a copy of the free Netware 5.1 3-user version?

    Sounds like you need one. (Or rather, sounds like you need to stay up to date)
  • I told you I wasn't really qualified to enter into the debate per se, but anyone can see the bias on the NOvell site, and the register is a steaming pile of misinformation.
  • Yeah, but each platform has its advantages.
    (Every moron can write windoze apps in visual basic :))

    Novell recognizes this by releasing NDS for *a lot* of platforms, while m$ still believes in a one-platform world - theirs (duh).
  • And for those of us who are boycotting Amazon.com, you can find the book here [barnesandnoble.com].
  • Umm, leave the multi-platform argument.
    Have you read the article on Novell's site about the *ahem* security HOLE (it's that big) in M$'s AD?
    Go read it. Change your opinion.
  • Novell lack the Marketing power M$ has. I think many people underestimate the power and flexibility of Novell's NDS. Truly an unsung hero. Also, many people thing that one OS fits all. Here's how I see OS's:

    Novell: Large LAN File/Print servers and user auth
    Linux: Web/Mail/Internet, firewalls. Samba isn't as efficient as M$'s SMB
    NT: General purpose small-size File/Print/Web server, database server
    Solaris: database/web
  • sorry. Already tried that ;)

    Is ok, though. You can still turn in into an application server. It comes with IBM websphere and VisualAge for Java. Pretty cool stuff.
  • Do you think windoze is freeware or something??

    Sorry dude, but if you want to stay legal you have to BUY yourself a windoze license just the same.
    And surprise - it costs as much as a NetWare license!!
  • I am curious...how does OpenLDAP stack up against these two other options? Will Windows2000 machines talk standard LDAP or will we be forced to use Active Directory even if we have an already existing LDAP solution?
  • I mean, I don't care about the past and I don't care that Novell has so few apps that it makes Linux look like application paradise. But if you really like operating systems and utilities in general, you really should play around with Netware and NDS. Of course it's not as much fun as getting ZENworks to work at a real world place but...

    The thing is, Novell may never become a great application platform (their Java-induced delusions notwithstanding) but you don't really need to use Netware for that. In fact, it's now downright easy to manage NT servers through NDS and use them for what their good for.. (uh, that's nothing!) well, application support. and then do file and print services with Netware.

    I'm still not sure how they plan on making money off this (they have to deliver more directory apps) but Active Directory is NO compitition, it's really not even worth talking about unless you have a 100% MS shop. Now you can manage solaris, linux, etc. users with it as well (this includes file rights, group membership, password..). Then there's a product that let's you manage Exchange and Notes directories through NDS, hot damn.

    While I'm babbling on about Novell.... ever notice their products just appear suddenly. No preanouncement, no nothing. Just BAM: now shipping. Unfortunately it's that kind of marketing that gets them screwed all the time. Anyway, don't mean to sound like a shill for Novell, but you don't hear much rah rah about them around here so.... here it is: rah rah Novell.

  • You can use bestbookbuys.com [bestbookbuys.com] to find an even cheaper copy [bestbookbuys.com].
  • Luckily, M$ has some huge security holes built into AD to make the first companies to implement it scare their pants off.

    Read the arcticle about it on Novell's site - complete with a guide how to reproduce it.

    By the way, could all those assholes trying to get a first post leave?? They're clogging my view.
  • Keylabs here is presented with a clear problem: having to work with a client(s) who wish to (ab)use their standing in the industry to the inflated benefit of the client.

    If Keylabs jumps up and down, stating "These were the given parameters of the tests required, which implies that they are not as realistic as benchmarks should be". or some such, would they suffer client backlash?

    Maybe. But I think it would present a clear case of the organisation receiving better credit for presenting clear, unbiased reports. Which can only give you more business, not less.

    Companies will not cease in their quest to get 3rd party endorsement of their product (however implicit), but it is important that all the circumstances are states, in bold, underlined, and maybe even restated in the conclusions of the report.

  • I work at a Novell Support Partner, and i notice that WE do get news about new products.

    But hey, we were ALREADY convinced....
    Indeed they need to change their strategy.

    By the way, one product that has been 'in the pipe' for a long time now in NDS for Linux...
  • Keylabs was spun off from Novell years ago and initally funded by none other than the CEO of Novell(correct me if i'm wrong). The people that started Keylabs were former Novell internal test-lab employees. So yes, I think we could assume a little bias here.
  • Virtually every aspect of Netware can be tweaked and configured depending on your configuration. WindowsNT doesnt give you that level of modification. For example, you can set the Maximum Number of File Locks on a Netware server. On a WindowsNT server, you cannot set this (It is theoretically set to be infinite. If I'm wrong, tell me).

    The reason why NT was not tweaked nearly as much as Novell is because that the things that were configured under Novell are simply not accessible under NT.

    This underlies the fundamental difference btw NT and Novell (or NT and Linux for that matter). While Netware (or Linux) is more difficult to set up and optimize, it is far faster and far more stable because the server can be optimized far more than NT, with a lot less garbage code (Who needs a GUI on a server anyways?).

    Jailbrekr.

  • Novell's Shortcomings are Obvious. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It was written by women, who are incapable of doing CS beacause their minds are wired differently than those of the average adolescent male who posts on Slashdot (e.g., they have something better to do with their time than post incoherent and indignant gibberish on Slashdot, unlike me and the rest of you, most of whom don't even exist).

    Microsoft, on the other hand, has an objectively verifiable Aristotelian Epistemology, which has created vast wealth in the form of their fantastic market cap, and which also leads them to hire only men and to create superior software. This is the real reason why Janet Reno hates them so much: They are a threat to the Socialist Hermaphrodite Power Structure which she represents.

  • you mean slowaris???
    SparcLinux rulez....
  • Hey, don't tell me - I loved VAP's, too!
  • My thoughts exactly.
    Ever tried to increase the directory cache buffers on an NT server so it reads large dir listings faster???
    Relatively simple tuning on NetWare.

  • Not surprising. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They didn't even mention the whole unreached scalibilty of NDS, two years ago they demo'd a WORKING directory with a billion objects, using shipping code, not alpha not beta. Something that actually exists.

  • Where's Netscape (Score:3)

    by ogren ( 32428 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2000 @06:16PM (#1266805) Homepage

    As a Nescape employee, I can't help but ask why Netscape Directory Server wasn't included in these tests? Since Netscape Directory Server has > than 70% market share in the LDAP market, I don't understand how it wouldn't included in a major benchmark.

    I don't know the particulars of these benchmarks, but Netscape Directory Server has been benchmarked at speeds almost an order of magnitude higher. Of course, I don't know if that's comparing apples to apples. But I'd like to know!

  • Did you know this NDS tree you're talking about still exists and is still growing?
    They have not reached the end of the scale yet...
  • This just in from someone who entered a quantum state and saw what the future of another parallel universe was.

    The title says it all but read on if you must.

    News Flash

    Today Microsoft(c) announced that according to studies, done by an independent lab, Microsoft's active directory beat out Novell's eDirectory by a wide margin in all tests used to simulate real world usage.

    News Flash

    In yet another update on the ongoing battle between microsoft and Novell over who's product is the best Novell anounced that yet another bug had been found in microsofts active directory found on Windows 2000. This bug accourding to Novell will expose all of you pr0n to any script kiddie with some spare time on his hands.

    News Flash

    After close diagnosis of a bug in their new windows 2000 product microsoft determines that the bug is less of a threat then any of the over 5000 as yet unfixed bugs in the new operating system. Although no longer CEO Bill Gates had this to say"it all comes down to inovation do you want a really secure computer that just sits their and serves web pages or do you want a machine that will do everything from fixing your breakfast in the morning to runing the latest dos game" Gates also commented that Novells product might fix breakfast for you but only if you liked eggs sunny side up.

    News Flash

    Bill Gates the richest man in the world was just instatutionalized. Gates seems to be halucinating penguins with computers running Novel products.

    News Flash

    Congress along with the president died today. Evidentaly an insane Bill Gates hired near eastern terrorists to build a giant space station on the moon and had a huge laser built to destoy Washington DC. Luckily only politicians/criminals were killed since only DC was affected by the blast. The only statement provided by Gates was a comment on the recent decision of the supreme court to strike down the Digital millinai act.

    News Flash

    Bill Gates was apprehended today by the new government of people's liberation. The new government first gave Gates a medal for destroying DC, then found him guilty of trying to take over the world. As punishment Gates eyelids were taped open and he was forced to look at windows blue screen of death for over 20 hours. After this he was subjected to a message that said if you don't want to see this message then close your eyes. I don't know about you folks but that message seems very like the message that you get on a windows 98 computer after having to power off because a program crashed. The message says if you do not wish to see this message again be sure to always shut down you computer in the proper way.

    News Flash

    It's been nearly a year since the unfortunate Bill Gates incedent. Now Novell seems to be heading in the same direction. Novell's CEO today said that since the fall of microsoft Novell has had to be the inovator in the computer industry. He went on to describe the many things that Novel had created including:Email, dos, windows, html, and almost all other computer related inventions in the last century.

    I don't know about you but I think our new government ought to have Nasa look to see if another laser has been built on the moon. You know the saying about history repeating itself.

    News Flash

    The end is near with all disasters that have happened lately we have all ignored AOL/TimeWarner and the MPAA/RIAA they seem to have gotten together and used their recources to buy all the land on earth. Now with all broadcasts and laws being made by the AOL conglomerate we can only hope that our new masters are kind.

    Moderate if you must I have Karma to burn

    End Message

  • It hardly matters. Netware may well be superior but Novell's share of the market is declining and will continue to do so, IMNSHO. Their turnaround came too late to save them. If Operating System choice was normally decided on logic alone, Microsoft would have gone bust just after the second time they released a buggy OS. The problem is *not* a technical one - Microsoft has won the hearts of the suits, Apple the hearts of the artists, and *nix hearts of the geeks. There's just not sufficient room left to Novell for them to survive in the long term.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Who needs a GUI on a server anyways?

    *GASP!*

    You mean you don't want the same OS for your server as you use for your workstations? THIS IS RANK HERESY! Quick Quasimoto! The boiling oil!

    Now, if you really want a usefull test, lets test a propery patched, configured and secured server farm and see how long it takes to get root/admin/administrator access on Linux, BSD, Novell 5.0 and NT 4.0.

    Now that would be a kick ankle report!

  • ..this is my fear.

    Active Directory. This is the "Big New Feature." I've used Microsoft products for 9 years+. I've seen big new products, and big new features, before. Win3.1, Win95, WinNT (with no service packs, *shiver*). Anytime something this big tries to change it causes a trainwreck.

    I use NT a lot. I moved every PC in our company to it. And our webroutfireservers to Linux. NT works, it gets the job done. It has problems. The biggest problems it has ALL have to do with networking; remembering network drives, using networked files, sharing, being nice to friends, etc. This code, I'm sure, is the foundation of Active Directory. Either that, or it's brand new and merged into the existing code. 30 million lines of it.

    I can believe it's stable, I've seen NT stand through some interesting tasks (and balk at some babies), so I'll believe they have that part down. But I don't think Kirk, Picard, or Janeway, would trust it for the Enterprise.

    --

  • Re:Benchmark reliability and tuning (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Looking at the Benchmark reports from KeyLabs for the MS-sponsored and Novell-sponsored benchmarks of AD vs. NDS8, I happened to notice only one significant difference (and I don't mean uni-processor and quad-processor vs. dual processor. As near as I can tell, KeyLabs got lazy - both lab setups are the same (hardware, configuration, etc. except for the afore-mentioned processors difference) and the benchmark techniques were pretty much identical (Sun server(s)generating LDAP requests to the servers using similar LDIF imports). The major difference: One Netware 5.1 SET parameter SET DSTRACE=!mb300000000 This one sets the size of the DS cache. Since the server has 2GB of RAM, setting this makes the NDS8 installation much more efficient in use of server resources, since the default cache size is only 8 (eight) MB, while the more optimal setting of 300 (three-hundred) MB RAM produces (amazingly enough) better results. See TID #2955099 at support.novell.com for more details on the settings. In looking at the other settings for the Windows 2000 server, both the MS-test and Novell-test have the same settings, so presumably this is an optimal configuration for AD as an LDAP application server. Basically the MS-sponsored test demonstrates that not configuring NDS8 properly will cause a great decrease in performance. So the real conclusion? Active Directory is faster than NDS8\eDirectory if you don't set the DS cache size to a real world value. In the real world, NDS8 (setup properly) is much, much faster.
  • I get the impression that the searches aren't simple password verifies. They appear to be searches for actual files or directories on the server.

    Now put that at 8-8:30 AM at a mid-large sized business, and your server ignoring 12% of the directory lookups it gets would be a bad thing.
  • Netware is faster but hardly more stable ...
    Maybe recently something changed but before .. hehe, ever tried to run crappy NLMs there ? or running short on memory ?

    Netware is stable , in the way DOS was.
  • What evidence do you have for that?

    Mindcraft?

    The problems were not in Samba, they were in the Linux TCP-IP stack being a bottle-neck with 4 network cards. And Solaris has problems with slow file-systems. Samba itself performed just fine.

    Regards,
    Ben
  • Yes, you want the network as homgenous as possible, but there are ALWAYS going to be the oddball box. You could use AD and just find hacks and workarounds to get those systems that can't run 2k to work, OR you could use a directory service (Novell) that is cross-platform and have few (if any) problems integrating the oddballs with the network
  • This allways blows me away. During the last 2 years I've heard alot of Developers and Sys admins complaining about WinNT. I have never heard the amount of complaining about Novel. As a matter of fact I can name alot of Network admins that Hate WinNT and want their Novel servers back. My Opinion? As a developer I would feel alot better if my source code was on Novel box and on a different sub-net then any Win2000 servers.
  • SMP support in Windows is way ahead as compared with Linux ...

    If you don't know about that then obviously you know nothing about Windows ....
    Huh,, just anonther vi expert ..

  • There are lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.

    Just look at the paragraph in which the same benchmarking house releases two benchmarks, one after another, claiming that each product is superior to the other. Excuse me?
  • Possibly cause there's more NT servers out there than there are novell servers?

    You should tell your friends not to play quake on their NT servers :P
  • This is pretty funny... I just finished reading a "report" from Key Labs comparing various Fibre Channel switches. They grade each switch (A, B, C, etc) overall and on specific tests. One particular swich, from Brocade, scored straight As - on every test. The other switches barely passed (according to Key Labs). Shortly after I read this eye-opening report, I found an article that shed some light on the situation (although I can't find the link now...). Low and behold, Brocade funded the Key Labs report.

    Free suggestion to Microsoft - get these guys to run your next Linux vs. Win2k FUD benchmarks. Be sure to write them a big check.
  • I agree! My mom works for Novell in the main marketing office and I helped her out for a couple weeks as receptionist when I was between jobs, and I must say! I saw some of the stuff they were doing in the test labs and the software I was using to do the little I was doing. It was some VERY cool software. The NDS directory tools from a users perspective were phenomenal!! I'm a youngin' in the IT world (I'm lost when my coworkers talk about PDP's and punch cards, my first modem was a 28.8 :-) but I've heard that Novell used to be a drag, internally I mean. From what I've seen though, the "New Face of Novell" is looking good, I believe it. I disagree with people that say that Novell is decrepit, and lost in it's old ways or just don't Get It(tm). All the people I interacted with seemed to be very eager and bright talent, and thier tools ROCKED! The sentiment over there is that they are aiming to take the world by storm, not ride the Novell "name".

  • Anyone else find it funny that Novell used the "cross-platform" WingDings font in their table of how "cross-platform" their stuff is?

    Someone tell me what character this is: ü

    Man, I hope they didn't make that page with Word. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Windows 2000 Professioal supports 2 processors. Windows 2000 Server supports 4 processors and 4 GB of RAM. Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports 8 processors and 8 GB of RAM. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports up to 32 processors and 64 GB of RAM. All Windows 2000 versions are only available for the x86 architecture.

  • Yeah, but each platform has its advantages. (Every moron can write windoze apps in visual basic :))

    I guess that's an advantage if the user is a moron who can stand using a VB app written by a moron. ;-)
  • Hmmmm....

    It reminds me of a database benchmark I did a long time ago of Ingres against Oracle using a standard test suite. Ingres was much faster in every test. On one test in particular Ingres returned the result set in about 10 minutes. Oracle hadn't returned anything after 48 hours...

    But who is the market leader now?
  • But that's what this forum is for... ;-P

    Windows NT has a larger percent of servers than Netware because of specific applications that require it. If you were to compare installations of Windows and Netware in a scrictly File/Print/Directory services role, I think those numbers would be completely different.

    The fact is, stuff like Fax Servers, Database Servers, etc are primarily written to the MS platform . Netware doesn't compete in this segment, so including these servers in the comparison skews the results.

    Also, when considering File/Print/Directory Servers, a single Netware server can out-perform NT when serving large numbers of users. Windows NT is basically a workgroup platform, so more NT servers are requred to serve the same number of users. Again, this fact skews the raw numbers when comparing number of units shipped or whatever.

    Finally, people - especially the media - have been thumping the Netware is dead drum for years! Yet the platform continues to improve, and yes... sell! You might be surprised at how many Netware servers have been in production for more than five years in small offices which don't necessarily upgrade or update their systems often due to budget concerns..
  • I'm no expert with ADS, but anyone with a little knowledge of large data tables understands the necessity of indexes...it looks to me like they did not install the indexing component...which could cause exactly what they showed in this document.
  • Someone tell me what character this is: ü

    Man, I hope they didn't make that page with Word. :)


    that was supposed to be a checkmark. Actually the fault isn't necess arially with Word. I don't think it is too much for Adobe Acrobat to expect that most people on the plant have the wingDing font

    But yeah
    Creator:Microsoft Word
    Producer: Acrobat PDfWriter 3.0 for windows
    created last sunday even! I wonder if this Dave Eckert (listed as author) got paid overtime?

  • The fundamental difference, so far as these tests go, is that NDS was tuned and optimized while AD was out of the box. In fact, there are more implications than that...

    Microsoft and several independent authors have warned against using Netscape LDAP with AD; it's tuned and optimized (of course) for Microsoft's LDAP3 standard. Netscape is optimized for NetWare, because that was the most prevelant when it was released. The NetWare test is on a shipped, finished, tuned product; the AD tests were on a pre-release build (2194 is the one just before the RTM build, which is NOT identical to the retail.) Finally, the tests were designed to test functions AD is not optimized for; AD is intended to fill the distributed IntraNet environment.

    My point is that when you read a report, consider the facts before you slam Microsoft. There are good tools made by Microsoft; Windows 2000 is one of them. Oh, and by the way; a GUI is useful on a server for a number of reasons. To name three:

    • It's better to monitor performance by watching graphs than by waiting for error messages. Graphs show trends, which error messages never do.
    • In a GUI, you can have multiple control panels open at once. A command line forces you to work one at a time.
    • GUIs are more impressive and "boss friendly." Don't underestimate the importance of this one; anyone who doesn't think it's important has never had to fight for a budget.
  • Also, where's the typical Slashdot response about who paid for what? The first paragraph of the PDF file states that Novel "commisioned" the tests.

    If history is a good teacher (and it is) then people will know that these reports are targeted for the people that know no better.
  • as annyone who ever took a statistics classes in college: you can always find the statistics to prove a point, regardless.... Microsoft is a master at this. This is much like intel boosting there stock price by mentioning the 1.5 ghz willamette not out for a whiles (year?)... By the time they're tere, AMD may be wa7y ahead, rather THEY WILL BE, but consumers and investors are thinking like "hey the willamette's here tomorrow" The keyfor microsoft has always been "tweaked" information and using unfair advantages (need i mention how ie preinstalled on win 98 has given them a web browser monopoly)....
  • Allow the cracker to execute a program, and the contest is over. No matter what Microsoft says, a program under NT can hijack the entire system easily, with the person running it having only the permissions to execute it. While I find NT5 to be a fairly nice desktop OS, I wouldn't trust it to support anything important.

    --

  • Its Open Directory /Access/ Protocol.. Since (from what I saw, and then immeditly gave up on) OpenLDAP stores the directory in tect files, it will be slower.

    You can use LDAP to access NDS. You can use LDAP to access ADS. And the directory you access with O-LDAP is text files.

    So the ADS directory its self would have to be an insanly bad structure to be worse than non indexed , non hashed text files.

  • Ah, NDS is not just for login authentication. All security information, printer information, even things like DHCP pools are stored in NDS, in addition to schema addition that all the 'NDS Enabled' programs out there make, things like GroupWise.

    You want to read a file, the NDS is checked to see if you have rights. Print to printer_foo? Same thing. Computer is turned on, and sends out a dhcp request? Its in the NDS.

    Every single file has an associated NDS object, and every single other object can have there own rights to that object.

    Indeed, every single object properties has associated rights.. Its not difficult to get insanly large amounts of directory traffic..

  • that's a load of crap (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First, netware (3.X) was a very stable platform. I have seen many
    3.11 and 3.12 servers with uptimes in the range of six
    months. Yeah, NLMs were a silly, kludgy way of running
    server applictions (ah, Btrieve) but they generally weren't
    that bad.
    Second, netware is not that old netware. It's been overhauled.
    Completely. There are no more nlms. It does IP natively,
    the directory services are solid (as one would hope after the debacle
    that was NDS through the 4.X incarnations of netware), and
    are fast. The cruft has been cleaned out of it and it's
    a fairly stable, modern NOS. Give it some respect, punkass.

  • I was under the impression that the Novell-sponsored test used the same Win2k setup as the MS-sponsored test.

  • Finally, people have been thumping the Netware is dead drum for years!

    You might be surprised at how many Netware servers have been in production for more than five years in small offices

    The reason Novell is "dead" is right in your comment -- a huge portion of the customer base never upgraded from 3.x, meaning Novell has to survive on mimimal revenue. Cheers to NW 3.x, I guess.


    --
  • Good points, I was unaware of the Netscape vs LDAPv3 differences (Damnit, I hate it when FUD is distributed by a company I like). I have only one response to your comments above:

    "GUIs are more impressive and boss friendly"

    I never have underestimated this, and have had to fight many a battle (it isnt easy battling non-IT skilled ppl who are holding the pursestrings) In the past, I have fought tooth and nail for Netware (since I despise downtime and the screaming users it creates), and lost because they 'didnt get it', and went with NT. After 1 year, and with the IT budget spiralling out of control and horrible reliability due to 'undocumented features' in NT, the boss 'finally got it'.

    All too often I have seen (or been involved in) IT projects where they think that the TCO will be less if there is a common platform for both workstation and server. All I can do is put my 2cents worth in, sit back, and enjoy the overtime *smile*.

    I'm not biased. I only fight for what works (Like a Netware app server? naaaaaaah)
  • I guess what you meant by "real" was "a benchmark where Windows lost" and "any OS not made by Microsoft".
  • Err..no OpenLDAP can choose from different backends, but the default one is the LDBM structure, which is a hashed indexed database (like Berkeley DBM, or GNU DBM). You might be mistaking the LDIF dumps which serve either to restore corrupted databases or to transport the data to another server, but it's definitely not unindexed text files. If you want, you can put scripts in so that OpenLDAP will backend data queries to an SQL database, or similar.
  • > I know that Windows 2000 is a step up from > Windows NT 4.0, and I know that I've NEVER been > impressed with ANYTHING I've seen from Novell. Like what then? Why did you enter the debate, what are you basing this on... I ask again, WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN FROM NOVELL?
  • "In a GUI, you can have multiple control panels open at once. A command line forces you to work one at a time."

    Crap. If you beleive this, you know little.
  • "SMP support in Windows is way ahead as compared with Linux ..."

    Windows 2000? Linux distro/version?

    How about a comparison of NT4.0 SMP versus Linux 2.2.9, eh?...

    Although both NT and Linux serve more than twice as many dynamic pages with four CPUs as they do with one, NT in SMP mode is still just under half as fast as Linux with only one CPU.

    http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/13/186-1/

    So does that make the SMP in Linux 2.2.9 more than 4 times faster than NT4.0 SMP?

    Then we have Linux 2.4 coming! And with Intel's support of upcoming CPU's... :)

  • a GUI is useful on a server for a number of reasons. To name three:
    • It's better to monitor performance by watching graphs than by waiting for error messages. Graphs show trends, which error messages never do.
    • In a GUI, you can have multiple control panels open at once. A command line forces you to work one at a time.
    • GUIs are more impressive and "boss friendly." Don't underestimate the importance of this one; anyone who doesn't think it's important has never had to fight for a budget.
    I can do all of these with my servers, none of which have a GUI (or a monitor, for that matter). What they do have is X libraries, that let me display to any X server on my network. As for being boss friendly... do you really take your boss down to the machine room to show them a GUI? I'd say it's far friendlier to show them the same information on my personal workstation. Or even at my boss' own workstation without them having to leave their desk.
  • A gui on a server? What use is that if you have to sit in front of the damn machine to use it? It kinda makes the whole idea of a network useless for administration purposes. A CLI will always be far more flexible than any GUI. Give me xterms any day. Jeez! NT doesn't even come with a telnet server. Jeff
  • ...and you're describing the days before Linux and Windows 95.

    Technology has advanced a little since then, and NetWare has too.

    I still want to know why Undelete on an NT File server requires third party software.
  • Probably because Netscape didn't "commission" (i.e. buy) their own (favorable) benchmark, and Novell and Microsoft both disregard Netscape as a competitor in the directory market.
  • Okay, I agree with the part that AD might not have been tuned that much, but they probably weren't able to. The layer of abstraction in NT is just too high. With Novell you can get close to the bare metal, and you can sour over it at a height of 10.000 feet, whatever you want. And, a very good point is that NDS works with a lot of platforms, and AD only with *1*, namely W2K. I work with a lot of diverse platforms here, so my choice would be obvious.

    The reliability graphs and figures were also shocking. 90% reliability for AD is *propostrous*. 100% reliability is key, no matter how bad it performs. I rather have my data come back *intact*, than having my data back fast and corrupted.

    Sorry... Graphs? Why not generate graphs as .png files and host them on a webserver. No GUI on the server needed.

    Obviously you have never heard of programs like screen(1), a 'window manager' for the console/terminal. I can open as much 'windows' and 'control panels' as I like.

    A GUI is far from impressive. Why coerce the CPU to do all that graphics footwork, when it can use that horsepower to provide better/faster file access for example. I don't give a rats ass what my boss thinks about GUI. He can run it on his desktop, but it's staying away from *my* servers.

    My 2 shekels
  • If you look at it, you will see NDS is in v.8 now. It's been getting better from version to version, in fact it was unusable in its first incarnations. A directory service should better be reliable (since you have just created some single point of failure). On the other hand, you will only get a DS if you have many clients (and servers) to support (it's pretty expensive), so it better be scalable. Novell has already showed a Tree with > 1 Billion (!) Objects in it.

    How can anybody think, MS will get it right for the first time? Do you think any reasonably sized company will switch from NDS v8 to AD 1.0? Nobody wants to lose his/her job, so...
  • I told you I wasn't really qualified to enter into the debate per se, but anyone can see the bias on the NOvell site, and the register is a steaming pile of misinformation

    Then *retract* your statement: ... and I know that I've NEVER been impressed with ANYTHING I've seen from Novell.

    If it's obvious you know nothing about directory services, then don't post *bullshit*.

  • >explorer.exe does not run in kernel mode.

    But the video drivers do, and that's *much* better.
  • As off Netware 5, it is shipped with a port of X11, so there is a GUI for netware
  • Uhm, close.

    Every single file does not have an associated NDS opject. File level security is seperate from NDS level.

    No biggie, your point is still valid. When you can store every single printer, workstation, user, server, application, etc. configuration for a global 50,000 employee company in one place, that's pretty cool.
  • NOVELL IS THE FUTURE!! http://www.oldnovellguys.com
  • Netware (as a file and print server) and NDS are nice. However, I recommend that everyone run screaming from Groupwise (Novell's E-mail system).

    I beg to differ. I have been managing GroupWise systems since 1992 (it was called Word Perfect Office at that time) and in my opinion GW is the best enterprise e-mail platform around. It scales incredibly well...I have had GW systems with over 25,000 users. The current versions are fully integrated with NDS. The damn thing is bomb-proof. If you're having problems with it drop me a line and I'll help you out...
    Mad Morf
  • cause NT sucks!
  • Keep in mind that NDS eDirectory is not an Operating system. It runs on NT and Win2k, Solaris and Netware. I'm sure a Linux port isn't too far away. So the choices are not as black and white as you make out. You can be a geek and run Solaris but choose NDS as your directory instead of NIS or something. I'm sure that Active Directory will never run on anything but Windows.
  • Novell claims NetWare 5.x supports 32 processors [novell.com]. This shipped last year, not Real Soon Now.
  • One million two hundred thousand percent difference is equal?
  • Novell v. Microsoft isn't even a competition. Novell kicks Microsoft's ass handily in every area it tries to. Okay, so you can't play Solitaire on Novell, aside from that, it's great.

    As for stability, it's an admin's dream. Power, extendibility, insert buzzword here, Novell is just plain great.

    As for why you don't need those directory services, for your home machine, you don't. Now run a business. A large business. Now you need them.
    ----------------------------

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