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Services Shine

SLES and RHEL ship with the the same sorts of services that NNLS provides, but NNLS services are more polished and provide better integration.

We managed all NNLS functionality through a well-made Web-based console, called iManager 2.0.2. The NNLS management interface worked for us under Microsoft Corp.s Internet Explorer and under Mozilla, although the experience was nicer with IE.

NNLS ships with Samba, which enables administrators to provide Windows users with file services. To configure these services, however, we had to create home directories for each intended Samba user by logging onto our Linux server once as each user—a clunky process wed like to see streamlined in future versions.

We could also provide access to files on our test server over the Web with Novells iFolder and NetStorage components, both of which we could also configure through the iManager Web interface.

We provided mail, calendar, address book and to-do list services to users wed created with Novells NetMail 3.5, which ships with NNLS. We could access these services through a Web interface or via Novells GroupWise client.

NNLS includes Novells Virtual Office component, which gathers together access to e-mail and collaboration features as well as to the products file access and print functions in a single Web portal.

Check out eWEEK.coms Linux & Open Source Center at http://linux.eweek.com for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis. NNLS includes Ximians Red Carpet software management tool, with which we could pull down updates for the product.

Senior Analyst Jason Brooks can be reached at jason_brooks@ziffdavis.com.