The expected release, Novell DirectoryService v8, code-named Scaleable Directory Services (SCADS), is a key underlying service of the Provo, Utah-based firm's NetWare operating system. NDS v8 is a heavy-duty offering designed for Novell's high-end service provider (ISP) and carrier customers, as well as internal corporate enterprises.
Novell is marketing NDS to customers who want to build a scaleable Internet commerce strategy. Novell's new ISP niche represents a departure from the company's traditional corporate customer, and its latest NDS release has been altered accordingly to store a huge number of entries from customers and business partners.
The company said 88 percent of its revenue for its last fiscal quarter was related to products that include or take advantage of NDS. Still, NDS faces stiff competition from Microsoft's Active Directory and from Netscape's directory server, which has wide support and is used with the company's Web and e-commerce systems.
Novell's Scalable Directory Services will likely be packaged as a separate version of the software.
Sources say Novell also plans to offer a high-end messaging system, code-named Liberty, on top of this ISP-focused version of NDS, another example of the company's strategy to draw interest in NDS through application development.
At its annual BrainShare '99 conference later this month, the Provo-based firm is expected to demonstrate that NDS v8 can handle 1 billion entries. The existing version of NDS can handle 500 million entries.
Novell has already been busy building momentum for NDS. The company has completed a version of NDS that can reside on top of a Windows NT-based system as well as another for the Solaris version of Unix from Sun Microsystems. It also has plans to integrate with OS/390 mainframe software from IBM, a Unix version built by Hewlett-Packard, and a Linux offering from Caldera.
Novell has also signed on networking equipment providers Lucent Technologies, Cisco Systems, and Nortel Networks to support NDS. And it has added IBM subsidiary Tivoli Systems and PeopleSoft to the list of third parties that plan to integrate with NDS.
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