Novonyx

The Beginning of a Beautiful Partnership

Terry L. Jeffress

Novell and Netscape announced Novonyx, a joint venture to port Netscape's SuiteSpot server products to the IntranetWare/NetWare platform, only nine months ago. Despite this short time period, Novonyx will soon release Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare, a full-featured World-Wide Web server, which runs on an IntranetWare or NetWare 4.11 server. As we go to press, the product is scheduled for release at the end of 1997. (Novonyx is also planning to release Netscape Messaging Server for NetWare, an e-mail server based on open Internet standards. For information about Netscape Messaging Server for NetWare, visit Novonyx's web site at http://www.novonyx.com.)

Both large and small companies can benefit from Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare, which provides all of the features you expect from an enterprise web server, including support for secure connections and the ability to handle thousands of hits per hour. You manage Netscape Enterprise Server through web-based tools that make server management easy.

This article describes Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. Because I cannot explain every feature of this product in one article, this article focuses on the advanced features of Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare and then includes a summary of the product's features. (See "Features Offered by Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare.") Although some of these features will not be available in the initial release of Netscape Enterprise Server, Novonyx plans to include them in future releases.

NETSCAPE ENTERPRISE SERVER FOR NETWARE

Like every web server based on the HTTP specification (which you can view at http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2068/rfc2068), Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare accepts requests from a user's web browser and returns the appropriate HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document to the user. However, Netscape Enterprise Server surpasses most web servers by providing web-based management and publishing tools. As a result, you do not have to manually edit server configuration files with a word-processing application or a text editor. Instead, you use any web browser from anywhere on the Internet or on your company's intranet to access the tools included with Netscape Enterprise Server. (See Figure 1.) (Oddly enough, Netscape Enterprise Server does not include a console monitor. To determine if an IntranetWare or NetWare 4.11 server is running Netscape Enterprise Server, you must scan a list of active NetWare Loadable Modules, or NLMs, or you must access the web server from a web browser.)

Built on open Internet standards, Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare enables you to publish information and distribute applications across the Internet or an intranet. Netscape Enterprise Server also provides advanced features such as the following:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

To make publishing documents and managing content easier, Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare includes Netscape Web Publisher, a Java-based utility. With Netscape Web Publisher, you can directly access, edit, and manage documents stored on all of the Netscape Enterprise Servers on your company's network, Internet, or intranet.

In addition, users who have been granted the necessary rights can launch Netscape Web Publisher from their workstation and easily publish documents on Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. These users do not have to understand server file structures or web publishing. With Netscape Web Publisher, users see the document exactly as a web browser will display this document. Users can also control other users' access to their own documents. They can reorganize documents and validate or update hypertext links. (Validating links ensures that all of the hypertext links still point to a valid document.)

Netscape Web Publisher provides the following capabilities:

File Management

Netscape Web Publisher enables you to manage documents and directories on remote web servers. (See Figure 2.) The Netscape Web Publisher file management window displays these documents and directories in a hierarchical list. You can copy, move, rename, and delete documents and directories. You can also download documents to your workstation and upload documents to the server.

Each document and directory on Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare has a set of properties that provides information about that document or directory, including its name, owner, lock status, size, and creation date. Netscape Enterprise Server updates this information whenever you edit a document or add a new document or directory.

You can perform a search on any of these document properties. For example, you can search for all of the documents that belong to a certain user, for all of the locked documents, or for a document with a particular string in the title field.

Version Control

Netscape Web Publisher includes a version control feature that allows you to track the changes made to a particular document. When you enable version control for the document, Netscape Web Publisher increments the document's version number each time this document is changed and then maintains a history of the document's versions.

When a user requests the document, Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare delivers the latest version of this document to the user's web browser. However, you can access a previous version of the document, and you can then compare the differences between each version of the document.

Publishing and Editing

With Netscape Web Publisher, you can publish documents created in any file format, not just documents created in HTML format. (This feature will be included in a future release of Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare.) You can also configure Netscape Web Publisher to automatically launch the appropriate application when you want to edit a document. For example, you could configure Netscape Web Publisher to launch Netscape Composer for documents created in HTML format, Adobe Acrobat for documents created in PDF format, and Microsoft Excel for documents created in spreadsheet format.

When you edit a published document, Netscape Web Publisher locks the document so that other users cannot write to it, although they can still view it. To make your changes to this document publicly available, you simply publish the edited document on Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. Netscape Web Publisher then performs the following tasks:

Search Capabilities

Netscape Web Publisher allows you to search the contents and properties of documents and directories on Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. For example, you could search for documents that contained the word web, or you could search for documents created after a particular date.

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare can simply use the document and directory properties from the IntranetWare or NetWare 4.11 file sys-tem. However, if you want to store additional information about your documents and directories, you can configure Netscape Enterprise Server to maintain its own database of document and directory properties.

As a result, you can extend the types of properties that Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare stores. When you perform a search based on properties, you can use values of both the native IntranetWare and NetWare file system and any new properties you have added as the criteria for your search.

Agent Services

With Netscape Web Publisher, you can create intelligent server-based agents, which are sets of rules that tell the Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare how and when to perform a certain task. (This feature will not be included in the initial release of Netscape Enterprise Server. Instead, Novonyx plans to release agent services as a snap-in module, which you should be able to download from Novonyx's web site at http://www.novonyx.com within two months of the initial release.) In some cases, you may want Netscape Enterprise Server to perform a task without requiring you to interact directly with the web server.

For example, you might want Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare to automatically send you an e-mail message every week, listing the most recently updated web pages. If you configured a server-based agent, Netscape Enterprise Server would automatically perform this task, without you having to start your web browser, access the web server, or perform a search. You can configure server-based agents that respond to two types of events:

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare includes a set of predefined server-based agents that handle frequently performed tasks. For example, one agent sends a specified user an e-mail message whenever a particular document is updated; another agent sends a specified user the results of a search performed every day at the same time.

Users can register to use the predefined server-based agents, or they can create their own agents. Server-based agents are also tightly integrated with access control lists (ACLs) so a user's agents can access only the documents to which the user has rights.

Users can bookmark server-based agents just as they bookmark uniform resource locators (URLs). Users can also assign names to their server agents (such as StockAgent, AirlineTicketAgent, or BookAgent) to refer to them more easily.

Access Control

Netscape Web Publisher enables you to use ACLs to control users' access to documents and directories. Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare provides several ACL options. For example, you can store ACLs on the web server's hard drive or in any directory that supports Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), including Novell Directory Services (NDS). Because NDS supports LDAP and is both distributed and replicated, the option of storing ACLs in NDS provides the greatest flexibility for a growing network. (See Figure 3.)

Using ACLs, you can specify which users can read, write, search, execute, or delete documents on Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. Users can also use ACLs to control other users' access to the documents they publish on Netscape Enterprise Server.

You can grant users different types of access to documents and directories. For example, you could allow one user to read certain documents, and you could allow another user to read, modify, or delete certain documents.

In addition, you can use ACLs to define which documents a server-based agent can monitor, and you can restrict which documents users can find using the search engine. You can even modify ACLs without restarting Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare.

Hypertext Link Management

You can configure Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare to manage hypertext links in a document. (See Figure 4.) Netscape Web Publisher then automatically checks a document's hypertext links and updates the document information in a link status database. If users copy, move, or rename files or folders, Netscape Web Publisher updates hypertext links between documents so these links still point to the correct documents.

MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare includes management tools that make it easy to manage your company's intranet or Internet site, reducing management costs. For example, Netscape Enterprise Server provides the following management features:

Management Interfaces

With Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare, you can use a web browser, the NetWare Administrator (NWADMIN) utility, and a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) console to manage your company's web server. You use the web-based Administration Server utility, which has a simple and intuitive interface, to perform tasks such as enabling and disabling the server, configuring access controls, and setting server parameters. Because this utility uses HTTP, you can manage Netscape Enterprise Server from any web browser.

In addition, Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare includes an industry-standard SNMP agent. Because this agent can communicate with remote management consoles via SNMP, you can monitor Netscape Enterprise Server through an SNMP console, such as Novell's ManageWise and Hewlett-Packard's OpenView.

Common Directory Database

Most companies can save money and enjoy other benefits by maintaining only one directory for all network resources. Using LDAP (and LDAP Services for NDS), Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare can store and access information in the NDS database. You do not have to maintain a separate database for Netscape Enterprise Server. Through LDAP integration with NDS, Netscape Enterprise Server supports Internet protocols while fully integrating with NDS.

If you do not want to use LDAP, you can use the NDS application program interfaces (APIs) to access NDS directly. This option allows you to perform management tasks through NDS even if you do not have LDAP Services for NDS or LDAP client software.

Cluster Management

If your company has multiple Netscape Enterprise Servers, you can create a group, or cluster, of web servers. You then designate one Netscape Enterprise Server as an administration server and manage the cluster from this server.

Although the Netscape Enterprise Servers in a cluster can be located anywhere on your company's network or intranet, the administration server must be able to access each of these servers. Using clusters, you can start or stop remote Netscape Enterprise Servers or update remote configuration files simultaneously. As a result, clusters can save management overhead.

Distributed Management

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare allows you to delegate management tasks to other users. For example, you could grant a night-shift operator the rights to view a Netscape Enterprise Server's log files for errors or to run scripts that delete outdated temporary files. At the same time, you could choose not to grant the night-shift operator rights to restart Netscape Enterprise Server or to modify configuration information.

If your company's network or intranet has a large number of Netscape Enterprise Servers, delegating management tasks to workgroup administrators could help keep the network or intranet running smoothly. Although workgroup administrators have limited rights, they are usually closer to the actual web servers they manage and can often deal with routine maintenance problems more quickly than you can.

DYNAMIC DOCUMENTS AND ON-DEMAND APPLICATIONS

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare has a flexible development environment. You can create dynamic documents and program Netscape Enterprise Server in a variety of ways:

Dynamic Documents

To create dynamic documents, web developers have traditionally written Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts, such as Perl and NetBasic scripts. These scripts tend to execute slowly and do not remain persistent, or active, on the server, from one web browser's request to the next. Although Netscape Enterprise Server supports CGI scripts, you can also use JavaScript to create dynamic documents.

You can easily incorporate dynamic elements in a document by inserting JavaScript scripts where you want these elements to appear. You can designate whether the user's web browser or Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare will execute a JavaScript script by using the Script and Server HTML tags. These tags assign particular JavaScript segments as client-side or server-side scripts. Because JavaScript scripts execute the same on both the client and the server, you can easily change where these scripts are executed. (For more information about creating dynamic documents, see "Dynamic Web Pages With IntranetWare," NetWare Connection, May 1997, pp. 6­20. See also "More Dynamic Web Pages With IntranetWare," NetWare Connection, June 1997, pp. 16­25.)

Web Applications

The Web Application Interface (WAI) enables you to write web applications that expand the functionality of Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. (This feature will not be included in the initial release of Netscape Enterprise Server. Novonyx plans to include WAI in the next release.) Users can then invoke these applications directly from their web browser.

Web applications offer the same advantages provided by both CGI scripts and Netscape server API (NSAPI) plug-ins. Like CGI scripts, web applications can be written in many programming languages, such as C, C++, and Java.

Web applications can also communicate with Internet Service Broker, which is the object request broker (ORB) that comes with Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. (Internet Service Broker is integrated with Netscape Communicator as well.) A second-generation ORB licensed from Visigenic Software, Internet Service Broker has native support for Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP). ORB technology allows you to create and use distributed applications that scale across WANs.

With Internet Service Broker, you can create and use Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) applications. These network applications can have a multitier architecture with functions distributed across web browsers, application servers, and database servers. By using IIOP to communicate, Internet Service Broker can interoperate with third-party products. (Because Internet Service Broker is not yet complete, some ORB services may change in the initial release of Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare.)

Web applications are as reliable as CGI applications but provide better performance since web applications are persistent and remain resident on the web server and do not have to be restarted with each request. Because you write web applications for a specific platform, these applications are tightly integrated with the platform. Similar to NSAPI plug-ins that are tightly integrated with the web server, web applications are powerful and execute quickly.

Netscape Open Network Environment Services

With Netscape Open Network Environment (ONE) Services, such as the Internet Foundation Classes (IFC) Java class libraries, you can create reusable services that provide building blocks for distributed network applications. For example, you could create a stock-ticker service. Other network applications, such as a web browser, could access this service to request a company's stock price object and then extract the day's high and low values from the object.

Netscape ONE Services are built on top of the IIOP that is integrated with Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. Netscape ONE Services are CORBA-based and can be distributed across the network or intranet. For example, a web browser could access the stock-ticker service on the web server via IIOP.

You use an Interface Description Language (IDL) specification to define Netscape ONE Services. IDL compilers for C++ and Java are included with Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. Netscape ONE Services that are defined in Java can run on the client or the server, allowing easy partitioning of network applications.

By using ORB technology, Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare has the unique ability to enable web applications and Netscape ONE Services to operate outside the server process. Because code is executing outside the server's memory spaces, the server process is more protected and reliable. (As mentioned earlier, some ORB services may change.)

SHOULD NETSCAPE ENTERPRISE SERVER FOR NETWARE BE YOUR NEXT WEB SERVER?

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare provides many new web services for the IntranetWare/NetWare platform. However, if your company already has a web server, such as Novell Web Server, should you use Netscape Enterprise Server instead?

If your company needs the following features, you might want to consider Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare:

Smaller companies may not need these features and can stick with Novell Web Server. However, if your company requires advanced features, you should take a close look at Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare. (For information about how Netscape Enterprise Server's performance compares with the performance of other enterprise web servers, visit Novonyx's web site at http://www.novonyx.com.)

CONCLUSION

Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare is a full-featured web server that makes the IntranetWare/NetWare platform an even more powerful networking solution, providing you with new options for publishing documents on and communicating across the Internet or your company's intranet. Netscape Enterprise Server is easy to use and manage and enables you to write custom web applications.

Terry L. Jeffress works for Niche Associates, an agency based in Salt Lake City, Utah that specializes in writing and editing technical documents.

NetWare Connection, December 1997/January 1998, pp. 14-21