Stories by Dave Kearns

The 2 billion entry directory tree

It's deja vu. I got a note from Oracle's Technology media marvel (and soon to be media mother) Rebecca Hahn touting a new study, commissioned by Oracle, from the Performance Engineering Group at Persistent Systems. It's titled "2 Billion Entry Directory Benchmark." I thought I was back in the 90's!

Microsoft WGA says: 'Prove your innocence'

This year Microsoft introduced a new incarnation of Windows Genuine Advantage which would gradually disable Windows Vista installations as long as Microsoft thought the copies were not "genuine." As expected, there was a bit of an outcry especially as the WGA used with Windows XP had been such a disaster that Microsoft was actually the target of class-action lawsuits seeking relief from the draconian desktop shutdowns it imposed on wrongly accused counterfeit versions of the operating system.

Ray Noorda: A friend to network managers

A friend of mine died the other day. A friend of mine, and a friend of yours, too. You may never have met Ray Noorda, never have seen him speak or read anything he wrote. Heck, you may never have been in the same state as him at any time. But if you've used NetWare, then Ray Noorda was your friend.

Novell Open Enterprise Server roadmap confirms plans for NetWare

Last December we shared with you news that NetWare would become a virtual service running on top of the Linux engine in Open Enterprise Server. I've now been able to track down, with the help of Network World Senior Editor Deni Connor, the slideshow outlining the OES roadmap confirming these plans for NetWare.

Novell offering free NetWare to OES training

Novell has taken the initial steps to help you gain familiarity with Linux. A few months ago, in an announcement that was almost overlooked by the press, Novell announced at BrainShare Europe a free online course called "Bridging NetWare skills to Novell Open Enterprise Server for Linux."

Why did SuSE Linux's founder resign from Novell?

When SuSE Linux founder Hubert Mantel announced his resignation from Novell ast week, he became the third former SuSE executive to leave in the past six months. There was much speculation as to why Mantel left, which was sparked, in part, by the manner of his leaving. He announced his resignation via a Linux e-mail discussion list, claiming that SuSE had changed so much it was no longer the company he had founded 13 years before.

Is Novell sale for real this time?

Over 10 years as an IT columnist, I've written, more than once, about rumours that Novell was about to be acquired. For the most part, I offered reasons that the rumour wouldn't become true. This time I'm not ready to quash the rumours.

The story behind the Novell hack story

There were a number of news stories recently about Novell's internal servers, including one posted at Computerworld under the headline "Novell server hacked".

Network access question

When it comes to access, authentication and logon - are you still using simple passwords? You know, minimum six characters (or even four), case insensitive, no requirement for mixed alphanumerics or special characters.

Compliance: a horse is a horse

One of the hottest topics over the past year is "compliance auditing". Regulations from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act require that computer access to data not only be tightly controlled but also heavily monitored, logged and audited. Some regulations require auditing all users and resources.

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