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Groupwise 5.5 on W2K Network

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by Member 23177524 1 view

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My IT Admin is planning on carring our Groupwise colaberation setup to the new W2K environment. I think Groupwise is a bad product to start with but need some "experienced" advise to give him on why Groupwise should die when we go to W2K. Is anyone running Groupwise on W2K, how stable is it? Has anyone droped groupwise for Exchange or Notes under these sircumstances, Why?
I need to know that the HelpDesk is not going to get flooded with calls when we make the change.
Thanks
HD@RWDI

9 replies

by kevinalexander

We used Groupwise 5.5 until recently on a W2K/NT network, and had some problems. Nothing major, but enough to make me concerned for anyone else trying it.

In my view the downsides are:

1. Using IPX on the network - if you ditched Novell you would just need TCP/IP. This will cut down your network traffic greatly (unless you need IPX for something else, but I say kill Netware if you can!)

2. Groupwise is a non-integrated product and quite why anyone would go to the trouble of settingup a W2K network with AD running and not use Exchange I don't know. You will also see less support needed by having just one directory to support on the network (AD & Exchange work really well together).

Be careful though - a Groupwise to Exchange (or Notes) migration is not easy, and it's all to easy to mess things up on the Groupwise side.

Long term, you are best to migrate to Exchange 2000 in my view, using Outlook 2000 as the client (which is far superior to the Groupwise client, butthat's another question ...)

by pallan

What kind of dinosaur version of NetWare are you running?

As for the original author's question, I assume there's no point in arguing the quality of GroupWise with you. Let's leave it at this: GroupWise runs beautifully for me, including on my W2K machines.

by david.silva

I agree - GW is running great for me as well. We did have a problem at one time as most of the clients were not using client / server access. Once we converted all direct connects to client server we have had no significant problems, with a total of800 GW account objects.

by Member 23177524

I'm hoping to show reasons to kill GW now but the responses are "Everything will be better when we drop lantastic" and Everything will be fine when we get off the coax" (YES we have been using these dinosaurs up until recently)
The problem is, we droped the coax March 1 and nothing signifigent change other then our users are surfing more!
We are droping Lantastic the end of March and my suspicion is nothing will change other then the disappearing printers (those that have used Lantasic on a large network know what I mean)
So inorder to get the ball rolling on Exchange (which was eval-ed prior to upgrading to GW5.5) I need some proven experiences that I can simulate with R&D to show why GW should die.
Don't get me wrong GW has some neat features (though few) we are just running into too many problems with GW proprietary functionality. Our postoffice grows 50Meg/day because there is no easy way to export mail. Users hate the archives and backup and restores are time consuming and destructive when the post office is active.
Also recently I have more and more people tell me that their mail is "disappearing" one minute its there next its not, and from a HD point, these calls are always confrontational and "URGENT" attention is always asked for.
I'm not saying that Exchange is perfect either, just my experience has proven that Exchange is more reliable and user friendly, when the users are not techno-junkies. I want a simple to use and user friendly interface to put infrontof them that I can customize with Dashboards and other web based sollutions, not GW C3PO's or other expencive add-ons.

by newcomputeradmin

If you don't mind the limits placed on Outlook's functionality running on a 2000 server, then feel free to use it. MS seems to want everyone to use Exchange instead of Outlook's various sharing intranet type features. I have posted a question alsoto see if there is way around this, but I am in the situation of having a 2000 server that only allows internet email on Outlook and apparently does not support calendar sharing, task sharing etc. for the local mail. Good luck.

by jdrake

You will most certainly get flooded at the help desk changing from Groupwise to Exchange or other (as with any network change). The real question is, "Is it worth it?" Well, I can only give you the scenarios I have been involved with. I used to support an Exchange system running on a pure NT network. Since then, I have supported a mixed environment which is more the norm. Groupwise runs better on NetWare, that is what it was developed for initially. If you are doing a migration to NT fromNetWare then GET EXCHANGE. It integrates completely with the Win2K Active directory and Microsoft does supply a migration utility for Groupwise to Exchange. Keep in mind, however, that Exchange has been and will continue to be more suceptable to attacks. (Groupwise ran primarily on NetWare when it was IPX only and therefore has a much lower "attractiveness" to hackers)

Good luck

by jpackard

You state the obvious with little regard for quality of information. I'd like to address the "attractiveness" statement first. It has little to do with "attractiveness" or lack there of to the platform. Oh, maybe you're right. Because MS has no clue how to develop a secure platform, it becomes a bowl of honey to the hackerbees. In fact, I suspect you realize that and are working to foster the idea that GroupWise is not worth hacking, rather than stating the obvious, which is my 17 year oldson could hack most MS products. Ask me how to read your email without you ever knowing it happened.

Also CIO's love to double their hardware costs, and spend more for all the extra administrators, maintanence costs, and hidden license fees.

Now let me address your other comment about "pure NT network". The reason GroupWise runs on Netware is obvious, but it runs equally well on NT, Win2K (also NT in disguise), and Unix. Because no company of any size can survive on a single platform if it has a clue what 'best of breed' means, chances are there are multiple platforms scattered throughout the enterprize. Let me help you understand. Best of breed means you choose the best platform for the job. Sometimes it is MS, sometimes Sun, sometimes Netware..... MS Exchange runs best on MS NT because that is ALL it runs on. And I won't even get into the inActive Directory arguement but let me say this, if you are working in anything larger than a doctor's office, I wish you luck implementing a solid AD solution. By the way, what other platforms does AD run on?

Thanks for the opening. It's always fun to discuss GroupWise and Exchange. GET REAL instead.

by jdrake

I am not sure if your reply was intended more for myself or the subject at hand. At the same time, I am not even sure if you read my message as it was intended. I in no way meant that Groupwise does not run on NT nor do I want to attack Groupwise as an application. I am currently supporting a Groupwise mail system running on NetWare 5.1 with Win9x, NT, 2000 clients and it runs fine. I was simply trying to make a point about the "attractiveness" that hackers have with the NT platform becasueit is so easy to hack (as mentioned by your comment on your son). For ease in administration, however, I do still recommend running Exchange if they are moving to an NT only network.

Now for the reply... Coming from Novell, I must say I almost expected the type of responce I read. Not only did it not address the originial question or give any posible solutions to the question, it was also intended to slam MS. Quite typical from many responces I get on Novell's forum sites. I am very glad I have subscribed to TechProGuild!!!

by chodson

I have been an experienced GroupWise admin for several years and I think GroupWise is a great product! I would never recommend changing to Exchange or Outlook. We are running a mixture of Netware and NT servers.
GroupWise's "attractiveness" to me was proven when the ILOVEYOU virus struck. Our company was not affected. OH..not to say that some of our messages did not contain the virus. They did, but they did not propagate any further. Give me GroupWise any day!
If you have users complaining of losing mail...perhaps your system is needing some maintenance.

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