If your management is asking you to cut down on the number of servers supported, or if you're planning a server consolidation or upgrade project and have found that you aren't relishing the volume migration process, you may find Novell's NetWare Server Consolidation utility an extremely useful tool to add to your admin arsenal. Here's what you need to know to make full use of this valuable utility. A new utility
Released in August 2002, the consolidation utility is provided free of charge from Novell's Web site. You can use it to copy entire volumes or specific directories between NetWare 4, 5, and 6 servers without regard to the volume type -- NSS or traditional. You can also use it to copy Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS) printer agents to a different NDPS print manager. But the next feature of this utility is the kicker: When performing any of these functions, the volumes', directories', and printer agents' associated rights, trustees, ownership, and name space information is copied along with the files to the new location. This can save a significant amount of time at the end of the process, since you won't need to reset this information. The setup
To show you how well this utility works, I'll show you how to consolidate the data on two NetWare 6 servers and take the second server out of service. For my example, the older NetWare 6 server that I want to take out of commission is named NW6-OLD, and the newer server is named NW6-NEW. Both of these servers are in an eDirectory tree named nds-lab. My client machine is a Windows XP Professional machine with the latest version of the Novell client software installed. The current version of the consolidation utility requires that all servers be located in the same tree. A future version of the utility will remove this limitation and allow data to be copied between servers in different trees. Meeting the prerequisites
Before installing the consolidation utility, a few prerequisites must be met. First, the client workstation that will be responsible for running the utility must be running Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP Professional. If it's running Windows 98 or Windows XP Home, the utility will not run. The client must also be running a minimum of version 4.83 of the Novell client software. Second, the servers that are to be administered using the utility must be running NetWare 4.2, 5.x, or 6. NetWare 4.2 servers are only supported in a source server configuration, which means that you cannot use them as targets for copied directories or volumes. If you're working with a NetWare 4.2 server, make sure that Long Name space support is loaded and enabled on the volumes with which you'll be working. Don't forget to make sure that IPX is enabled on the client if you're working with a NetWare 4.2 server. Finally, you'll need Administrator privileges on both the source and destination servers. Once you've ensured that these conditions are satisfied, you can move ahead with installing the consolidation utility software. Installation
The utility is downloaded as a single file named NWSC1.exe. It's safe and recommended to simply accept all of the defaults. There isn't much in the way of configuration at this point, anyway. After installing the utility, check the version of TSA600.NLM on your NetWare 6 server and compare it to the copy installed in C:\Program Files\Novell\NetWare Server Consolidation Utility\Products\nw60 on the client. If the client version is newer, replace the server version with it. Then, reload TSA600.NLM. For other versions of NetWare, refer to the readme file included with the software for further instructions before continuing.