'Big Event' gets Bigger

the Big Event, an IT show being held Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, is produced by the West Michigan Novell User's Group and promises to draw a broad ranger of information technologists. Now in its third year, it outgrew its Grand Rapids Community College space to find a home in the Calvin College Prince Conference Center. Details and registration at the WMNUG site.

NetWare backup bundle

Tandberg Data Corp., a supplier of backup and archiving technologies, has announced that the company will ship Symantec Corp.’s Backup Exec QuickStart Edition with its VXA and Exabyte Magnum (LTO) lines of tape drives and autoloaders. The new bundle provides customers with a full-featured Backup Exec QuickStart backup and recovery application for one individual server, with the purchase of select Tandberg Data tape systems.

Symantec Backup Exec QuickStart Edition is ideal for supporting tape drives and autoloaders in single-server environments, Tandberg said. For customers requiring fast, reliable data backup and recovery for Windows and NetWare servers, as well as desktops and laptops, the bundle enables end-user file retrieval without complex IT intervention, the company said. Backup Exec QuickStart can be easily upgraded through Symantec’s sales channel to the core version of Symantec Backup Exec, Tandberg added.

Pegasus Phoenix

David Harris claims he was inundated with "an absolute avalanche of mail, phone calls, faxes and other communications" when he announced that he was ceasing development and distribution of Pegasus email and the Mercury mail server for NetWare (and Windows, but who cares?).

In response, he's announced that he will try to go on, but with a restructured financial model:

I and my test team are still working out the exact details of the changes we will make, but in a nutshell, it is likely that Pegasus Mail will become "donationware", while Mercury will become fully licensed based on numbers of mailboxes, with a certain base number of mailboxes provided free of charge. Public discussion (on the Pegasus Mail and Mercury mailing lists) will be solicited before any final decision is made.

So here's your opportunity to step up and put your money where your mouth is - support Harris' efforts and you can continue to have Pegasus and Mercury for as long as your NetWare will last - seemingly forever, IMHO.

NetCrunch 4.3

AdRem software, makers of tools and utilities for NetWare for many years, have released version 4.3 of NetCrunch, their network monitoring package. "This newest version of NetCrunch supports browsing larger event log data sets, combines redundant event notifications coming from different sources into one event and optimizes access to event database," according to a story in LinxPR.

AdRem is best known for their SFConsole product, a secure remote console for NetWare servers which is also available in a lightweight, free version for NetWare 4.x SP9, 5.x, 6.x, 6.5, and OES.

CA fixes multiple BrightStor ARCserve Backup flaws

CA has released security updates to fix several security flaws in BrightStor ARCserve Backup products. Attackers could exploit them to run malicious code on targeted machines and do other damage according to an advisory from Danish vulnerability clearinghouse Secunia.

BrightStor ARCserve Backup products provide backup and restore protection for Windows, NetWare, Linux, and UNIX servers as well as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, AS/400, and VMS clients.

New tools for NetWare 4.x and above

CNW is a Hungarian software company which still respects the Netware platform. They've just released v. 2.53 of CNW Commander, the "ultimate file manager of the NetWare server console."

Both commercial and freeware versions are available.

The company has also released a new version of their replacement for edit.nlm, the CNW Editor. This is also freeware.

Novell Access Manager (NAM) vulnerability

FrSIRT has identified A vulnerability in Novell Access Manager Identity Server, which could be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary scripting code. A patch is available.

New NetWare utilities

Two new postings on the NetWare Cool Solutions site:

NetWare Control Tomcat - "This is the perl script which provides simple interface to control the Tomcat server on NetWare machine. It enables user to easily and quickly start, stop or restart the Tomcat server."

Get NetWare File Attributes - "This perl script lists standard information about a file including the attributes that are set. If the attribute is set it is listed. The attributes can include: readOnly, hidden, system, subdirectory, archive, shareable, noSuballoc (no Suballocation), transaction, notVirtual, immediatePurge, renameInhibit, deleteInhibit, copyInhibit, adminLink, link, remoteDataAccess, remoteDataInhibit, compressImmediate, dataStreamCompress, doNotCompress, noStreamCompress, attrArchive (metadata archive bit), or volitile. "

Sadly noted

I've known David Harris for almost 20 years, even though we've only met once (in January, in Boston, some years ago at a NetWorld conference where we hoped to launch the "Association of NetWare Users" as an alternative to Novell's in house user-group, NUI). He's contributed much to NetWare through his Pegasus email and Mercury mail router software. So it's with great sadness that I noted this announcement on the Pegasus web site:

Effective January 2007, development and distribution of Pegasus Mail and Mercury has ceased. We regret this decision, but ongoing difficulties with funding have forced it upon us.

Take a moment and reflect on where we've come in 20 years, then join me in lifting a parting glass to David as he moves on with his life.

Need more/faster storage?

ATTO Technology Inc. has announced that its ATTO Express PCI UL5D SCSI host adapter and Celerity FC-42ES Fibre Channel host adapter have received the Novell YES CERTIFIED compatibility designation with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and NetWare 6.5. Yeah!

Windows cheaper to maintain than NetWare?

The Norwalk, Conn. Board of Education just recently approved spending $500,000 to replace NetWare with Windows servers. According to director of technology Ralph Valenzisi. "The Microsoft switch will cost $500,000 but will be cheaper long term because it includes a less expensive technical support system than the district's current Novell system", Valenzisi said. (The Advocate).

I have a feeling there may be an opening for a director of technology in the Stamford school system Real Soon Now.