Server Manager 4.0 Client/Server

Reviewed by: Jim Huddle CNE CNE5 CBS MCSE ES-RC, send e-mail
Published by: Adrem Software, go to the web site
Requires: NetWare 4.11 with SP 5 (or newer), 4.2, 5.x, 6.0 (beta), Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Novell NetWare client version 2.50 (Windows 9x), 4.60 (Windows NT) or newer.
MSRP: US$595.00 (single server), $525 each (2-4 servers), etc. Standard version available - check the web site

If you are a Netware administrator, Server Manager is one of those utilities you have always wished Novell would have bundled with the OS. It's clean, the interface is simple and easy to navigate and the wealth of information is gratifying.

The base product installs on a Windows client box. When you first access a server, the app will ask to install and load a couple of NLMs. The NLMs have a pretty small footprint and I've run them on both 5.1 and 6.0 without incident.

Note that the current version isn't certified for Netware 6. But I only found a couple of things that needed tweaking for Netware 6 compatibility, most notably the reported memory in use and available cache buffers. Server Manager over-reports memory used on my 6.0 server. Beyond that, everything else I've looked at has been right on the money.

Once the NLMs are loaded you are presented with the config screen. Note that Information/General is similar to what you'll find in Monitor, but also includes network addresses with ports, web servers, and the portal server's IP addresses and ports. From the config screen you can also drill down into your devices, memory, network stats and lan drivers. There's another section with detailed information on a number of stats and you can view and set server parameters and edit both server and dos startup files, as well as view log files. Server Manager also performs a particularly neat trick. Many of the items you can see, can be dragged to the Server Monitor window and turned into a real time graph. You can even change the graph's size and display properties.

There are five other menu bar selections. Active shows who and what is logged in. Clicking the plus sign next to the connection shows what files the connection has open. Double clicking on a user connection will also give you a graph in the lower portion of the Server Manager window showing the bytes read and written, requests, opened files, disk usage and more.

The Opened menu bar tab shows open files and who is using them. The NLM tab shows all running NLMs and tells you name, version and date description. It also shows you total memory used by the NLM and then breaks it down by code, static and dynamic data. You can sort on every field. The Disk tab gives you an Explorer-like window showing mounted volumes. At the bottom you get a pie graph showing volume stats. You can right click on folders and files and perform Explorer functions as well as view and set Netware attributes. You can even set the owner of a folder and have it change ownership status below that folder as well.

The Utilities tab is where you can install Adrem's virus software and what they call a console extender. What lit me up was the Events scheduler. It's like a cron without the fuss. Repeated actions are easy to add and very configurable.

Server Manager also includes a remote console feature. It's quick, but be warned it does not require input of another password, so it's not too secure. The console window is quick, easily resizes and once you see it, you'll have an idea where Novell's IP console got it's look.

This is a great product for quick information and in my mind essential for troubleshooting. It's what Novell's portal service could be and may be one day.

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