Novell 3.12 to Windows NT (AREV Specific)
At 30 JUL 1998 05:06:51PM Doug Fullenkamp wrote:
We are thinking of switching from Novell 3.12 to Windows NT in our manufacturing plants.
Will AREV perform as well on this new platform?
What do I need to do to prepare?
At 31 JUL 1998 12:34AM Curt Putnam wrote:
The little experience I have with NT and the much experience I have with Arev based manufacturing systems strongly suggests that using NT will be a disaster. IMHO, NT is not yet industrial strength (100+ users.) Actually, I've seen it fall apart with 20 users.
Later,
Curt
At 31 JUL 1998 06:54AM Steve Smith wrote:
Doug,
My experience (8 user manufacturing site, AREV based MRP system) is that a 75 mHz 486 with 16 mB of RAM running Novell 3.12 performs as well as a NT server on a 266 MHz Pentium with 128 mB RAM. AREV 2.12. No NLM, Win 95 workstations (mostly Pentium 100,120 166 and 200). Low traffic.
The workstations identical in each case. If you do go NT then apply all service packs and count on a truckload of administration and tuning chores.
Average time between server reboots on Novell, 140 days (over five years). Average time between server reboots on NT, 7 days (over one year). Microsoft Office is the only other package run.
Personally I do not favour NT. Novell is relatively painless by comparison. Then again, my prejudices are well known . If you use NT, get some diazepam from your doctor - then your response time will more closely match the server's.
Hope this helps,
Steve
At 04 AUG 1998 01:52AM Larry Wilson TARDIS Systems, Inc. wrote:
The Novell to NT switch should work fine, but my cardinal rule is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER (did I mention NEVER, NEVER, NEVER? ) install NWLINK. Back up the NOvell server and restore to NT. NWLINK sucks, and you can NEVER remove all of the damage it does to the registry and re-coordinating DLL and OCX version numbers is a Nightmare on ELM street.
As far as the number of uses, it depends entirely on how well the server is configured, and then how well the workstations are configured to work with the server. 200+ for me has been no sweat.
At 07 AUG 1998 07:00AM Kevin Gray wrote:
We have a now successful NT install after some difficult
startup experiences that were primarily hardware and
systems integrator related.
When we succeeded in having our client install a quality
brand name file server and technically competent systems
installation of NT suddenly and of course mysteriously
all of the hassles went away.
We then upgraded to the NT Service 1.5 from 1.x which to
us seemed to be more stable.
We now have extremely heavy traffic over a 25 user install
and rarely experience any down-time.
Future Strategy:
Unquestionably, we now recommend the NT environment over the Novell
environment although we have clients in each camp.
As to number of users, we would never recommend more than 30 to 40
users per server in any case.
Interestingly enough, our system is virtually full blown fully
integrated MRPII manufacturing as well as Financials and we are
butting heads with MFG/Pro all of the time in our particular market place.
Regards,
Kevin Gray