Novell finally betas new NetWare, AKA 'Moab'

With a final release scheduled for mid-1998, Moab represents Novell's first attempt to provide a native IP-based operating system. While this is the first public beta testing of Moab, Novell officials said the product has undergone limited testing with developers and users for a couple of months. Novell is planning on releasing two more betas early next year as well.

Moab was originally slated to ship in late 1996.

Novell officials said the company is not planning to provide IP-to-IPX migration tools and support in the first public beta. However, they said users can expect to see a set of tools in a subsequent beta that will let them run a mixed IP and IPX network natively on Moab.

Features due to be part of the Moab beta include new application server capabilities such as memory protection, virtual memory and support for applications based on Java, CORBA/IIOP and ActiveX.

The new NOS also has a multiprocessing kernel with pre-emption and memory protection. In addition, Novell is embedding into NDS (Novell Directory Services) Moab support for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Domain Name Service.

According to Novell officials in Orem, Utah, the new beta also includes a number of tools designed to help network administrators better manage an IP-based environment.

Novell released the software development kit for Moab and the Java SDK as well.