Hi AREV Experts,

We have a HRIS developed in AREV version 1.1. Right now, it runs under Novel 3.12 aqnd works very well. Now we want to move the HRIS to NT Server 4.0 SP3. Before the actual migtation, I wanted to test how well the HRIS runs under NT. I installed HRIS in NT and changed the network driver to DOS V31+ driver. When I connected to HRIS from a Windows 98 workstation, it took more than 5 minutes to open the logon screen and it only takes 3 second to do the same thing in Novell. NT is running TCP/IP only and the 98 workstation has 64 mb of RAM. Why it is so SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!. What should I do to improve the performance. Any one out there has been successfuly running AREV 1.1 under NT. You help is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Sui Seto

OK, there's about a factor of three difference in speed between NT and Novell. Try the following, which may help a little on AREV 1.x

(a) Use the NT FORCEDOS command

(b) Use a pif which enables background tasks

© Don't have AREV.EXE read only

(d) Remove any logging

(e) Check this forum for other postings on NT - there are a few.

(f) I have a utility (commercially available) to emulate the AREV 3.x YIELD() command. This may improve logon times for you. You patch it into your programs as a subroutine call.

(g) Check your network card driver is correct (there are multiple patches to the 3COM NT drivers for some cards, for example.

(h) PERFORM "PDISK PRN" at the end of print jobs will flush them to the queue faster

(i) Netbeui may be faster than TCP/IP if you have a choice

(j) Remove server logging on AREV files, and virus checking on OV files

(k) Make sure your Windows swap file is not on the network

(l) There may be other useful tips at http://www.jsiinc.com under "registry hacks"

(m) service pack 4 fixes some slow printer issues

(n) the main problem is locking - Microsoft have altered their products to do byte range locking in a different way (effectively, if I understand correctly, locking a range beyond the file size). They changed Access and Foxpro to use the new method. Legacy DOS apps suffer as a result.

(o) Upgrade to 3.12 AREV and use the Revelation NT service.

(p) You could leave you Netware server hooked into your LAN for AREV only. One of my sites does this (AREV 1.12) with little inconvenience.

® As a benchmark, a Pentium II 266 mHz + NT 4.0 server + 128 mB RAM=486 75mHz + Novell 3.11 + 16 mB RAM/

Steve

[email protected]

Try changing the network client to Novell Intranetware Client and also if by chance there is a Revparam file in Arev directory remove any rubbish. We recently got called to a site running Arev HR app under NT Server real slow. There was all sorts of rubbish in the REVPARAM file which when removed speeded things up no doubt. There were using NT Service but same may apply.

Tony

Thank you very much for your prompt reply. Yes, I can add another protocol to the server like NETBEUI or IPX/SPX but I avoid to do it unless absolutely necessary. We want to use TCP/IP as the only protocol for our NT Network. If there is no other way that I can speed up AREV performance, I will keep Novell just running the HRIS program. To be honest, our NT server is PII 400 RAID 5 with 320 MB of RAM and our NOVELL Server is 486/sx33 with 8 MB of RAM and Netware still runs 10 times faster than NT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am using a PIF to connect to the HRIS and set EMS to 4096. How do I enable background tasks in WIN 98. This option only appears in Windows 3.1 but not in 98 but in Wins98 there is an option in the property MISC tab called Background and it is unchecked right now.

Regards

Sui

Steve,

® As a benchmark, a Pentium II 266 mHz + NT 4.0 server + 128 mB RAM=486 75mHz + Novell 3.11 + 16 mB RAM/

I've seen this general comparison between Novell and NT for some time now. Many have been by you but others have said as much also. My overwhelming impression from the Revelation community is that Novell is a far better NOS for speed and reliability than NT.

We work very closely with a company that handles all of our client's network installation and maintenance. When we first started doing business with them they were 99.9% Novell specialists but with the rising trend towards NT (not by their desire) they are now 50/50. I've asked them their opinion regarding these comparisons. While they favor Novell, they don't believe the speed and reliability differences that much. Furthermore, Netware 5.0 is about as bloated as NT (from the GUI I imagine) and is actually worse because of it.

So…I have some questions related to the "Revelation" point of view:

1. Is this a comparison between Novell and NT in general, or only how AREV/OI performs on these systems?

2. If the best installation and tweaking were made to both systems, would the comparison still be the same?

3. Are these comparison figures assuming that Novell is using the NLM and NT is using the NT Service?

I would really like to establish in real terms the worthwhileness of getting NT. For one, our clients who are now considering renewing their networks are buying into the Microsoft/NT marketing blitz. Second, we are also ready to install a server in our office and I want to make a good decision. We are considering installing a DSL or similar line for OICGI testing, so this might force us to use NT anyway. But I would rather make a decision on the general merits of the NOS. The other issue that is pushing us towards NT is the need to support our clients who will eventually get NT. We have enough background with Novell to work without it in our own office.

Any useful information would be very much appreciated. I don't want to "blindly" trump the performance limitations of NT unless I can easily substantiate them.

Thanks,

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions

This may be somewhat late as a posting but for what it is worth …

We have standardised upon NT installations away from Novell.

Yes, there is a difference in performance but there are offsetting

advantages.

We use AREV V3.12 with NT Service V1.5/NPP 1.5 and the default

network driver is the ALL Networks driver.

Despite early difficulties which eventually were confirmed as being

hardware specific we have very stable sites running 10 to 30 users

per server.

RAID 5 works acceptably well with a quality server - be careful with

your hardware selection.

Expect VERIFYLH and COPYTABLE commands to be slower - just allow more

time for these.

General system perfomance is still very good and whilst not as fast

as Novell you do facilitate other advantages for your clients.

You would be better advised to set the protocols as NETBEUI followed

by TCP/IP and eliminate IPX/SPX …. this applies to both the server

and all work stations.

Should you wish to contact us to discuss this further we are happy to

oblige.

Regards,

Kevin Gray

Graycorp ….. Australia

(email [email protected])

Don,

I have seen Advanced Revelation (and REVG) run fine on properly loaded NT systems with decent network cards and hubs/routers.

From the management perspective, earlier versions of NT were a little more difficult to manage than Novell.

Microsoft released Windows 95 and a lousy Netware client. As people insist on using Microsoft Office, and Windows to go with it, Novell was seen as the culprit. When really, it was Microsoft's client which removed confidence in Novell. And Novell goes the way of Betamax…

Revelation Technology's solution was to drill down to the transport layer and manage I/O "underneath" the NOS. Named pipes (NT service) and IPXTSR (Netware - for handling IPX packets direct) are evidence of this technique. In this way, the product is to an extent immune from all Microsoft NOS changes except for network traffic load and chatter.

Microsoft want to erode market share of competitive DOS apps and databases because MS SQL server is where they make lots of money. Back end solution ($) to a front end (Win NT) designed for it.

Anyway, we're knee-deep in it and coping, and no-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft. And come Y2K, there's no bigger liferaft. Even if it doesn't stay afloat, it was the most popular liferaft on the high seas. And popular=good if you can't think for yourself, or belong to a marketing dept, or hire grads who were born with a mouse in their right hands and a GUI up their nose and MCSE tattooed on their butts. These kids never will know the joys of RECOVER.EXE or FDISK /MBR or batch files with parameters or disk salvage armed with Norton and edlin.com, or tuning memory under 640 kB, or fiddling refresh rates in a quest for speed on an 8088. They were raised on McDonalds and they buy software solutions which to some degree match.

The half-dozen or so bods clinging to the Novell liferaft can maybe at least cling to it in comfort…..

Steve

(OK - it's an arrogant post, but at least I feel better now….)

Steve,

I don't mind the arrogance, I really do share your sentiment regarding the latest brain-wash victims to come out of the schools. Your view is very appreciated.

However, the only real technical answer I got that can help me with my clients is your first, yet short, paragraph. Can I claim the benchmark differences you were citing with a properly optimized NT system or is this the way it is "out of the box?" Believe me, I am fishing for ammo to fire at NT in hopes to keep most of our clients in Novell…but I won't take aim unless I know the bullets aren't blanks.

BTW, can Novell 5.0 run Windows executables? I would like to know if there is an alternative for running the OICGI other than NT or Win98/95.

Thanks again,

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions

Don,

I used to think that it was worth advocating Novell against NT. Now I'm treated like a luddite if I recommend Novell. The facts stand:

(a) Microsoft move from NT4 & Win 98 to one product Win 2000 (NT 5)

(b) Microsoft have released service packs instead of major re-releases. Even after 5 service packs NT 4.0 still doesn't work too smoothly

© I bought NT 4.0 Workstation and Office 2000 for a new fast Pentium PC a week or two back. It wouldn't install cleanly unless I used the IE 5.0 browser. With Netscape 4.x loaded the install hung half way through. Unless all software you use is MS you may have difficulties with peaceful interaction.

(d) There are (at a guess) 200 essential parameters to control a Novell network. There are usually close to 10000 registry entities and values on a NT server and 10000 more on a workstation. Not all are present in the vanilla install. Now which NOS is going to be easier and simpler to install, understand and maintain?

(e) The disk real estate really makes me wonder how they could write that much code without vast redundancy. You pay for this expanse every time you back up, shut down a server, load new software, add new disk hardware, or add a new user or network device or resource. The downtime cost (hidden) is huge.

(f) IPX is a better more effecient network protocol than most others.

(g) Novell is a dedicated server - this MUST add stability.

(h) Novell servers with UPS run for 200+ days between reboots here whereas the NT server reboots weekly.

(i) There are timeout parameters set in NT which expire latent network connections. So if your DOS app's batch update is waiting for 3am to roll around, the network connection will lapse before it even gets started.

(j) You can't run all software on NT (it doesn't like direct port access, it doesn't therefore like many device drivers, or games)

(k) Don't pretend you can understand NT at the bits and bytes level. You are suspended some distance above that, and NT DLLs are black boxes in many regards. MAPI….SAPI….TAPI…CRAPPI…..! You *can*, however, understand Novell & its API at the bits and bytes level. Some of it is undocumented, but it more open, simpler, and more structured than Microsoft's efforts. And it has been around longer.

(l) I am convinced the loch ness monster writes (and then erases the useful bits from) Microsoft's technical information. Whereas Novell's is written by the yeti, which is somewhat more useful (although the handwriting sucks).

Steve

One of the departments that uses our AREV 2.11 app moved from Novell 3.12 to NT 4.0 about 16 months ago. The first NT box was the old Novell server - a 233 mhz machine with 64MB of memory. Initially the speed was very bad - it reminded me of our revg app on an 8088 machine. They then switched to a souped up NT server with SCSII drives, infinite memory, dual pentium 400+ mhz machine, did some tweaking and now the speed is on par or faster than with the old novell server. It is had to really compare speeds because of the caching. The best indicator seems to be how it takes to log on and get our app running after entering hte password.

It takes about 5 secs on the NT box and 6 secs on my novell 3.12 sever (a 133 pentium with 24 mb of ram).

So our app does run ok on the NT box but the hardware issue is much greater. Also we still have printing problems onthe NT boxes thatwe did not have on the novell server. Example, it takes different amounts of time for users' print jobs to make it tot he network printer. The quese settings are the same, the client machines are the same (hardware & client software) , but in some cases it takes twice as long (20sec vs 45 sec) for the job sheet to get printed. I have not yet figured that out. Also, for some reasons network queues disapper prompting a call, "we can't print - it says no printer attached." To which i respond log out of the network and log back in and then call me if it still doesn't work. In all cases it has never been our app thatis at fault.

Hope this helps a little

ed

Ed, if you call AREV from a batch file then issue the

NET USE LPT1 command with the /PERSISTENT=Y parameter - I don't have the exact syntax to hand, so consult your docs.

Steve

Thanks steve will try that

ed

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