IPX/SPX Configuration and Management Manual

Introduction to NonStop™ IPX/SPX

IPX/SPX Configuration and Management Manual—425731-001

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Overview of the NetWare LAN

This section describes some of the basic features of the NetWare LAN environment.

Local area networks (LANs) link individual workstations to allow them to share

resources. A resource can be local to the workstation, such as a printer or disk drive; or a

resource can be remote, such as a directory or a file on a server. The network operating

system (NOS) manages users’ access to resources on the LAN. Novell NetWare is one

of the most widely used NOSs, providing connectivity for many popular workstation

operating systems.

Each workstation on a NetWare LAN is a personal computer (PC) that runs its own

operating system. NetWare workstations can be IBM PCs or other compatible systems,

Apple Macintosh computers, or UNIX systems. Applications that use resources

managed by the NOS are called clients. Because the client software usually runs on the

workstations, the term client sometimes refers to the workstation itself. Servers are the

applications that provide services to clients.

The NetWare software supports several LAN communications protocols for the types of

workstations that can be connected to the LAN. For example, TCP/IP is supported for

UNIX workstations and Appletalk is supported for Macintosh computers. For

workstations that run MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows, NonStop™ IPX/SPX is

supported.

A main component of the NetWare LAN is the file server, which is a computer that runs

the NetWare NOS software, facilitates communications between workstations on the

LAN, and manages the shared network resources. The file server can be a dedicated

system that functions only as a server, or it can be a nondedicated system that functions

both as a server and as a workstation. To access the NetWare LAN, a workstation user

must first supply a username and password in order to log onto the NetWare file server.

An extension to the NetWare NOS, called a network shell or, more commonly, a

requestor, allows the workstation to communicate with the NetWare file server and

access resources on the NetWare LAN. The requestor is the interface between

applications on the workstation and the NOS.