OS FOR LAN (MS WINDOWS VS NETWARE)

Windows Server 2003 is the name of Microsoft's line of server operating systems. It was introduced in April 2003 as the successor to Windows 2000 Server, and is considered by Microsoft to be the cornerstone of their Windows Server System line of business

·         Most versions of Windows Server include Terminal Services support (using the Remote Desktop Protocol), enabling multiple simultaneous remote graphical logins. This enables thin client computing on the windows platform, where all applications run remotely on the server. This feature was first introduced with a special "Terminal Server Edition" of Windows NT Server 4.0, but became more important when made a standard part of Windows 2000.

·         Internet Information Services (IIS) v6.0 - again, versions of IIS were available on Windows 2000 and earlier, but IIS is improved significantly in Windows Server 2003.

·           Active Directory - like Terminal Services, significantly improved since Windows 2000

·          Increased default security over previous versions, due to the built-in firewall and most services being disabled by default.

·           Message Queuing - significantly improved since Windows 2000

·        Manage Your Server - a role management administrative tool that allows an administrator to choose what functionality the server should provide.

Improvements

There are a number of improvements from Windows 2000 server, notably:

·           Improvements to Active Directory (such as the ability to deactivate classes from the schema, or to run multiple instances of the directory server (ADAM))

·           Improvements to Group Policy handling and administration

·         Improved disk management including the ability to backup from shadows of files, allowing the backup of open files.

·          Improved scripting and command line tools, which are part of Microsoft's initiative to bring a complete command shell to the next version of Windows.

·         Support for a hardware-based "watchdog timer", which can restart the server if the operating system does not respond within a certain amount of time

Netware Intro

NetWare is a client/server based network operating system(NOS) that consists of client programs that run on a DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh, or OS/2 workstation and server programs that run on a central resource. It can also be used with UNIX when 3rd party utilities are employed. Netware 4.11 provides central disk storage and print sharing services.

NDS

NDS is the fundamental network service provided by Netware 4.11. It is a database of information on all network resources and allows access to these resources based on security settings for these resources. This database is known as "The Directory". The directory is commonly compared to a phone book. When a client sends a request to access a shared resource such as a shared printer, the printer is located in the database and authenticated. If the client has appropriate permissions then it will be allowed access to the resource.

There are 3 components that make up an NDS directory - Objects, properties and values.

Objects: These are the network resources that users wish to access.

Properties: Each object has properties associated with it. Properties include items such as the name, title, location, department, password, etc.

Values: These are the actual property entries. For example if "Name" is a property, then John Smith would be the value of that property.

There are different types of objects on a Novell network and they are laid out in a tree like structure known as the Directory Tree. There are 3 different types of objects:

Root: Referring back to the concept of a tree, the root is the base or most fundamental part of a tree. It is the starting point. While a Novell network can have multiple directories on the network, there can be only one root object per directory. All other objects are placed below the root object. Objects that contain other objects are called "Containers". This means that the root object is a container, however it is different than the containers found further down the tree in that the root object does not have any properties and cannot be modified, moved, deleted or renamed.

Containers: These are the next type of object. As previously mentioned, containers are objects that contain other objects. In the tree analogy, containers are like the branches of the tree. There are 3 types of container objects:

Country object: As you might guess, the country object organizes the directory by valid 2 digit country codes.

                                    Organization object:This object represents an organization such as a company.

 

Organizational Unit object: This type of container organizes objects by subunits such as departments in a company. These containers are placed in an organization container or another organizational unit container and are optional.

Leaf Objects: These are end nodes on the directory tree. These are various classes of objects that represent the actual entities on the tree, e.g. users, groups, servers, applications, printers, etc. These objects do not contain other objects and may not be placed directly under the root object.

Tree Structure

How do users access network resources? This is accomplished by using the objects Common Name(CN). An object's CN is what is displayed next to the object in Netware Administrator. In order for a client to access a resource, they must know where it is located. This is where the term "Context" comes in. The context specifies the path from the object up to root. This is similar to the UNC path that is used in a Windows environment. The context is specified in the following format - OU=XXX.O=XXX where OU is the organizational unit object and O is the Organization object and "XXX" represents the names of these objects. To take it a step further, we can now identify an object by its "Distinguished Name". This is a combination of the Common Name(CN) and the context. Let's look at an example:

Let's define the distinguished name of a user object named JasonS that is located in the Organizational Unit object "sales" and Organization object "MCMCSE". The distinguished name for JasonS would be .CN=JasonS.OU=Sales.O=MCMCSE.

Once you understand this, you will be able to access network resources from a DOS prompt on a client. The CX command line utility will allow you to change context, and thus, navigate the tree.

There is an easier way to identify objects called "Typeless Naming". The typeless name for our previous example would be JasonS.Sales.MCMCSE.