### NUI News

#### Novell User Group Summit:Volunteering Has Its Rewards

Cecily Spencer

On February 5-7, nearly 150 NetWare user group presidents and delegates from around the world gathered in Provo, Utah to attend the third annual Novell User Group Summit. This event is designed to recognize NetWare user group presidents and delegates for the time they spend educating users about Novell products. At the Novell User Group Summit, attendees have the opportunity to meet with top Novell executives and receive in-depth technical training.

#### EXECUTIVES SPEAK

Attendees always look forward to hearing about Novell's corporate strategy straight from the mouths of Novell executives. This year, three Novell executives spoke to attendees:

- Ron Heinz, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales. Ron outlined Novell's sales objectives for 1998, explaining that Novell intends to deliver new products to the marketplace and offer more training to teach users how to implement these products. Ron also reviewed Novell's strong position in the networking industry, pointing out that intraNetWare, Novell Directory Services (NDS), GroupWise, and ManageWise consistently receive top honors as networking solutions.
- John Slitz, senior vice president of Corporate Marketing. John outlined Novell's marketing objectives for 1998 and answered attendees' marketing questions. For example, John addressed issues such as advertising, targeting upper management, and facing Microsoft's marketing machine.
- Drew Major, chief scientist and vice president of Advanced Development. Drew outlined the benefits of BorderManager, focusing on BorderManager FastCache (the proxy cache component of BorderManager). Drew explained that the Internet, as it exists today, is "dumb": The Internet is simply a vast network of routers that forwards data, much of which is redundant, from one server to another. According to Drew, BorderManager FastCache is the first step in making the Internet intelligent by caching data, which improves performance and reduces unnecessary traffic.

Drew also discussed some of the projects that Novell's Advanced Development team is currently working on. For example, Drew mentioned that the team is optimizing NetWare to run on Merced, the 64-bit processor that Intel plans to release next year. Instead of simply porting NetWare to Merced, Drew wants to make some extensive changes that will enable NetWare to take full advantage of Merced's functionality. NetWare will still be NetWare--only better.

#### ATTENDEES LEARN

After meeting with Novell executives, attendees toured Novell's SuperLab, in which third-party hardware and software solutions are tested and approved for use with Novell products such as intraNetWare. Attendees also toured Novell's Global Network Operations Center (GNOC), the central point of command for Novell's worldwide network.

In addition, attendees participated in the following technical training sessions:

- Understanding New Technologies in NetWare 5. In this session, attendees learned that NetWare 5 is both evolutionary and revolutionary. For example, NetWare 5 extends intraNetWare's connectivity and management features to support industry standards, such as IP. The architecture of NetWare 5 is significantly different from that of intraNetWare, however. As a result, NetWare 5 offers virtual memory and preemptive multitasking capabilities.
- Internet Connectivity Solutions. In this session, attendees learned how they can use BorderManager to speed up their company's Internet access and to protect their company's network or intranet from the insecure Internet. Attendees also learned how they can use NDS to limit Internet access for their company's users.
- Total Windows Assimilation. In this session, attendees learned how to use NDS to manage a network that includes Windows NT Server and all types of Windows workstations. In addition, attendees saw demonstrations of both new and upcoming Novell products that make managing a mixed network environment easier. For example, attendees saw a demonstration of NDS for NT, a new Novell product that allows you to create NDS objects for Windows NT domains and manage these objects through NDS. Attendees also saw a demonstration of Z.E.N.works, an upcoming Novell product that allows you to perform a variety of management tasks for workstations and applications.

#### EVERYONE'S HAPPY

Novell and NetWare Users International (NUI) want to thank the NetWare user group presidents and delegates who attended the Novell User Group Summit, as well as the Novell and NUI employees who helped make this event a success. Novell executives left with a better understanding of the networking issues users face, and attendees left with a better appreciation of Novell's corporate strategy and its products.

NetWare Connection, March 1998, p. 49