Using High-Performance NetWare 6

Using "High-Performance" NetWare 6

Test Objective Covered:

4. Explain how NetWare 6 uses multitasking, multithreading, and multiple processors.

Our final stop on this whirlwind tour down NetWare 6's information superhighway is the server and it all starts with the engine. Novell has made some dramatic improvements to the CORE OS in NetWare 6. Most of these efforts focus on increasing the server's processing performance and reliability.

Like previous versions, NetWare 6 supports multiple parallel processors in the server. Unlike previous versions, however, NetWare 6's "high-performance" capability is storage-to-wire. This means that all NetWare 6 services are multiprocessor enabled from disk to protocol. This contrasts with NetWare 5 in which only the CORE OS was tuned for high performance leaving out the TCP/IP stack, NSS, NCP, Web Server, and the eDirectory.

To tune your NetWare 6 high-performance engine, you must become a pro in these three server disciplines:

• Multitasking Each processor in the NetWare 6 server can run two or more programs at the same time.

• Multithreading Enables the multiple execution of software threads to take place concurrently within the same program.

• Multiprocessing Enables you to distribute processor load across multiple server processors simultaneously.