A decade ago workstations were terminals connected to mainframe or mini-computers. The workstations communicated with these host systems at speeds of about 1,000 bytes per second. Workstations are now PC's that have tremendous power in themselves. Any time tools change that much in such a short time there will need to be big changes in the way they are used. Most of this book has been about how to manage this tremendous power in the workstation.

Local Area Networks connect these PC's together, to host computers, and now to the Internet. These networks run at speeds up to 100,000,000 bytes per second. A speed difference of this magnitude will also need to be reflected in changes in the way these tools are used. The entire scope of the changes necessary for LAN's will require another book. In this chapter I will try to hit the high spots for you.

If you have four or more PC's you could benefit from a LAN. With only two PC's you can benefit from a LAN if you are intensely using them. Three PC's is a tossup. A LAN will benefit you in many ways. If your business needs connection to the Internet then even two PCs can justify a LAN. The minimum layer of LAN hardware is now so cheap that there is almost no reason not to have one. In addition, the newer operating systems make LAN software setup so easy that that should not be a deterrence either.

Your users can more easily share data files. Without a LAN you could regularly copy your customer master file to each of the PC's that need it. If you put it on a file server then each user can use it at the same time and you don't run the risk of having the various copies get out of synch with one another.

Almost all LAN operating systems provide user ID and password mechanisms that can be used to limit access to data on the file servers or on other machines. Considering how easy it often is to obtain access to offices, limiting access to your data can thwart its destruction or theft.

File backup in a LAN can be centralized and will therefore be more reliable. Leaving backup of critical data files to individual users is risky. Even the most reliable user will occasionally forget, or be in a rush, or have unrecoverable hardware problems. In addition, having a single person take the backup will be considerably cheaper in terms of user time as well the savings that arise from not having to have backup devices on each user PC.

If each of your four users needs to use a spreadsheet for part of a day, you may save money by putting one copy on the file server and allowing them to access it one at a time. There are "metering" utilities available for most LAN's to help you do just that. If you have three licenses, you can set up the meter program so that the first three users to request access will get a copy and any additional users will have to wait until later.

On most networks the system manager can mark software as "Execute Only". This will prevent accidental damage of the software. It will also limit the ability of individual users to copy the software. Some software licenses allow users to keep a copy of the software on additional systems for use away from the office. Others do not. The network can assist in managing this problem.

When your users log on to a network, the central system can provide a batch file that can set the PC's up as nearly alike as possible. When the number of PC's in your enterprise passes 50 or so you can spend a lot of time messing around with problems caused by invalid setups, configurations, etc. Having a centralized point of control will simplify the situation enormously.

Your system programmer or LAN manager will be able to access the system from remote locations so they can diagnose problems from home or on the road. They can view any screen on the network to help isolate and fix problems. They can thus fix things that turn up at 2 o'clock in the morning without having to drive to the office.

One of the least understood but potentially most significant benefits of a LAN is that of workgroup facilitation. It turns out that one of the chief functions of middle management has been to facilitate communication and coordination within a working group. A LAN will allow you to enhance the ability of groups of workers to manage their own affairs through such mechanisms as electronic mail and conference scheduling. Some large companies have even been able to trim middle management significantly by installing LANs with work group productivity software.

Besides sharing data files it is also beneficial to share other expensive hardware devices:

Don't buy a cheap LAN. Since the LAN adds new elements to the computing environment, every PC problem you have now will be multiplied on a LAN. In addition, the LAN itself will effect everyone. Any problems there will impact most or all users.

The reason cheap LANs are cheap is that they either lack some important function, lack sufficient performance capability, have unproven reliability, or have no user support from the vendor. Software is really cheap to produce once it is created. Anybody can throw something together and sell it as a LAN. Remember TANSTAFL: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." This is one place where it applies well.

Lots of books are being written and quite a few consultants are available if you want help. You should not fear LAN's any more than PC's themselves. The same rules apply, however, the most important being to educate yourself before you commit and to not be afraid to admit you do not know everything.

If you will review the material on the reasons for having a LAN, you will see that sharing of files and printers are only two of the simpler reasons for having a LAN. A LAN that does not use a separate NIC will give you only part of the benefits of the LAN. ARCNET and Ethernet NIC's are available now for under $100 each. A parallel port LAN will give you 500,000 bytes per second at the most. ARCNET will give you 2,500,000 bytes per second, and Ethernet either 5,000,000 or 10,000,000. You can see that the difference is significant.

A non-dedicated file server is one that also allows you to use that PC as a workstation. Unfortunately, this means that the PC is being controlled by DOS. Even though the network operating system can run multiple tasks, DOS is not designed for it. Even when the PC is not being used as a workstation, having that capability configured in the server will cause it to have substantially poorer performance than the same PC running as a dedicated server. Unless you know you'll never grow over 4 workstations, sooner or later you will come to regret it.

Upgrading a server from non-dedicated to dedicated operation can be done, but is not trivial and involves shutting down the server, backing up the server (preferably twice), reformatting the drive, and reloading the backup files and the bindery.

Unless you have really big data files you will not normally notice the difference of a slower speed server over a higher speed one. Most file servers do not actually spend that much time computing. A typical medium speed 80286 (AT) machine serving 30 or so users will only be actually computing about ten percent of the time. They mostly wait on network or disk I/O. If a 286 file server is only spending 50% of its CPU time, then upgrading to a 386 or a 486 will only mean that it waits at a higher speed, and buys you almost nothing. Spend your money on faster disk drives or controllers or more or faster RAM.

If you are going to use Novell NetWare, NetWare 386 will support more users, bigger disk drives, and more files than NetWare 286. NetWare 386 does require a 386 CPU because the CPU operates differently from its smaller cousins. It will recognize and utilize a 486 CPU. It does not require blazing CPU speed, however.

While an RLL drive has more storage for the price, this extra storage is made available by making a slight sacrifice in the reliability of the drive-controller combination. The file server is a critical component of the LAN. It places unusual demands on a disk drive. This is not the place to sacrifice reliability. IDE drives have similar problems. For best performance use a SCSI or ESDI drive and interface. For high performance needs a disk coprocessor or caching disk controller will pay for itself.

NOVELL has about 70% market share as this is being written. While it is not the answer to every possible problem, it had to be fairly good to get that share. Other systems are also good. I recommend Novell NetWare. There are licenses for small groups that are quite reasonable.

There were formerly Entry Level versions known as ELS I and ELS II. These systems were versions of NetWare 286 for four or eight users, respectively. Although they lacked some of the more advanced features of the full blown version, you will not miss them with only a few users. These versions cannot be upgraded to the full package, but there may be a market for your used ELS packages by the time you are ready to upgrade. These packages are still available, and will probably be quite reasonable since they are not the "latest and greatest."

Use a "metering" utility to limit use to licensed software. These utilities, often a part of a menu system which you will want to have anyway, allow the manager to limit concurrent access to software to the number of workstations for which you have bought licenses.

If an unauthorized user finds your terminal logged in but unattended he can give himself access to your confidential data that he can use at any later time. Although it is possible to discover that such access has been granted, most users do not know how to do it.

An automatic logoff utility will automatically LOGOFF any user ID if no I/O activity takes place at the workstation for a predetermined time. If a user is in the habit of walking away from his workstation without saving his work and logging off, this will cure him of the habit quickly because it logs him off but does not save any work he might have been doing that is still in RAM. This strong negative feedback may appear to be a drastic measure, but it will work quickly. (The best software presently have "autosave" features anyway.

If you are using a metering facility to limit the number of concurrent users to software packages, and I certainly hope you are, an unattended workstation is burning money if it is allowed to remain logged on to a program without actually using it.

A number of shareware utilities exist that can make life simpler for a Novell NetWare network administrator. Among these are:

Older releases of NetWare allowed the Administrator to activate resource accounting. Unfortunately, this accounting takes resources of its own, primarily disk space, but also server memory and CPU time. If accounting was activated by accident or if you decided not to account for user activities, there was no way to deactivate the function. This utility will let you turn off the accounting.

User ID's should be 5 characters from the first name, a dash, and 2 characters from the last name.

Remember that by definition Supervisor rights allow your network supervisor to see every file on the network.

Passwords can be compromised, especially if an auto-logoff function is not implemented. Either your password or that of your clerical staff may not be secure. Some users actually keep their password written down near their terminal. I hope you wouldn't do that, but your staff might.

A floppy disk that is locked in your desk drawer is the most secure place on your network.

Some packages support storage of documents in an encrypted format that can only be decrypted with a "key" character sequence. There are also utility programs that will do the same thing. These will provide an extra level of security, even against users with supervisor rights. They can see the file, but without the key it will just appear as gibberish.

The number of things that will come up is staggering. Trust me. The users will peck away at the administrator's time. If you don't believe it, have them keep a log of the problems that come up and the time spent on each. This will also help you decide which problems to try and solve up front by enhanced user training or better software selection.

If the administrator's normal ID has the same rights as other users then he will more easily spot errors that are caused by having insufficient rights to key files. Since the Supervisor rights allow any operation on any file at any time, any ID with these rights will succeed in running some procedures that will not work with a normal ID because critical files will either not be found or will be found in the wrong place.

It is too easy to delete required facilities. Supervisor rights allow the user to delete any file on the system. It is very easy to delete some files that are critical to the operation of the system. Such activity should be limited to the supervisor. When supervisory work needs to be done, the administrator should login with the SUPERVISOR ID.

It is easier to propagate viruses into the system this way. Supervisor rights allow changes to files that are read only, for example. Again, have the supervisor login with the SUPERVISOR ID when needed.

This will be an uphill battle because this will make life more difficult for the administrator. Remind him how much he is being paid. It will make your LAN run more smoothly. You can also remind him how hard it will be if he deletes something he shouldn't.

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Do not map more than the minimum number of search drives at LOGIN time. Let the menu system map and unmap any needed search drives for each individual application. Use the command MAP INSERT S1:=. Mapping excessive search drives chews up dynamic RAM and may result in having VAP's halted or the entire file server halt.