This is the place where I roll up my sleeves and get down to business. Please feel free to ask me any questions that you may have about your current or planned business network. Whether it is a basic question or an advanced topic, I'll do my best to answer it in a way that makes sense to the average reader.

Marvin Huffaker MCNE

Q: I work in an engineering department using Autocad and printing to a networked Xerox plotter. I was under the impression that once we upgraded to NetWare 5.0, we would be able to set up our printer to be able to print directly to it, without the Xerox submission Tool. But now I was just told that we would have to purchase a print server to do this! Do you know of anyway to setup this printer in Novell 5.0 to print directly to it using TCP/IP without purchasing a separate print server? A: Yes! With Novell NDPS (Novell Distributed Printing System), you can configure the printer to print via TCP/IP. You don't need an additional print server, and you shouldn't have to use the Xerox submission tool anymore. Setting up NDPS on NetWare 5.0 is kind of tricky because you have numerous things to update before you can make it work. For example, NetWare 5.0 didn't ship with Xerox gateways that supported TCP/IP, so you've got to download and install the newest one. In short, there are several service packs that need applied, and NDS objects must be created in NDS to manage the printers. You also need to ensure that the clients have the NDPS component installed, and make sure you update the NDPS broker with the latest printer driver. Overall it may seem complicated, but once you've set it up it will make your printing headaches virtually disappear. You can find out more about the features of NDPS in my July 2003 Product Review column. I recommend getting a professional to install NDPS, since it is somewhat complex and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches in the end.		Q: I have a few NetWare 4.11 servers at separate locations that need to communicate without using IPX on the router. How can I make the servers talk to each other without upgrading to NetWare 5 or 6? A: In order to work with NetWare 4.11 in an IP only WAN, you'll need to configure NetWare IP, sometimes referred to as NWIP. This will allow the servers to encapsulate IPX packets inside of IP packets which can then be transported across an IP only router. Keep in mind that you may have problems finding support for NWIP. You may also find anomalies that require you to use older client version, etc. The specifics of NWIP are beyond the scope of this document, and should only be completed by an experienced Novell engineer.