The version that ran for six years was 4.x (installed in 1994) not 3.12 Surprising, I know. Also, my point was that MSFT servers are not secure out of the box. You have to go out of your way and configure them to be secure and especially if you want C2. That is not an easy task for the many MSCEs out there and I cannot count the number of times I've been called in to 'secure' a windows NT network because the MCSE left it wide open so everybody could work (and the rest of the world). MSFT servers were designed to 'work out of the box' which is ideal for small businesses that cannot afford an MSCE or experienced administrator not certified. Not so with Novell. Novell is secure out of the box and definitely reliable. I've been working with Novell since 1985 all along until recently. I've been working with MSFT servers for the past 3 years. Been through all of the MSFT training including the IASO and C2 certification on both systems and setup the governments systems-they use Solaris, Novell, and Win2000 mostly. No comparison in my opinion. Everyone has their favorite, the one they know best too. However, when it comes to security, Novell is the ONLY network component to be C2 certified. MSFT NT4.0 (not 2000) is C2 certified, but strictly as an OS, not as a NOS to this day. The only security domain certified is Wang.

http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/epl-by-class.html


Tracy

>And I'll say the same thing I tell everyone who says this - get those NT servers installed PROPERLY. I've got three in my basement running on what could be generously described as obsolete workstations that, would it not be for our occasional extended power outages, would have uptimes now approaching 2 years with no reboots. I have clients like that, too. Netware stopped being that reliable after they dropped 3.12. That was the last version you could really shove a server in a dark closet and forget about it for 10 years. I'll give you that you have to stay on top of patches, but by doing so I was able to laugh as I composed cease and desist emails to the site admins of the three users who attempted to Code Red my IIS server - at the time of the Code Red worm, the patch that could defeat it had been out for nearly a year.
>
>>Hey I was sold a couple years ago when we switched to NT and 2000 on a lot of the systems and all of a sudden I was managing the servers all day and night. I had Novell servers that ran with no downtime for 6 years straight! No hacks, no security holes, and now with NT and 2000 it is a daily panic... There is something inherently wrong with a network OS that is 'open' by default out of the box instead of the reverse like Novell. Oh well, no one wants to hear that though... :o)
>>Tracy
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