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Before upgrading to IntranetWare, you must decide on the migration method to use. The two basic choices in migration are the "in-place" upgrade and the across-the-wire upgrade. Each has its advantages and problems. If your NetWare 3.1x server is running on a 386- or 486-based processor, it might be time to upgrade your hardware. If you choose a hardware upgrade, the across-the-wire migration method probably is the best way to go. However, if your server is a new Pentium- or Pentium Pro-based server, then the in-place upgrade is probably for you.

The in-place upgrade has one major advantage over the across-the-wire migration: The only way to preserve user passwords is to use the in-place upgrade. If you are upgrading a five-user server, this may not be a big deal. But if you are upgrading a site with a 3.1x server and more than 250 accounts, you'll be in for quite a headache with the across-the-wire migration. The password set for each user can be set to a single known value or blank, but that presents a security risk.

On the other hand, the advantage of across-the-wire migration is if something goes wrong during the process, you have the original server completely intact. But, it is also more time-consuming to move the file system from one server to another. Still, across-the-wire migration al so provides a good opportunity to perform some housecleaning on the server--not to mention the Bindery. For instance, an in-place upgrade would leave all 3.x utilities that don't have a direct 4.x replacement on your disk.

Novell ha s put a lot of effort into the across-the-wire migration process by including a stripped-down version of DS Standard from PSI Technologies Corp., called DS Migrate. DS Migrate can take 3.1x server Bindery information and merge it into an existing Novell Directory Service (NDS) tree. The full version of DS Standard will let you manipulate NDS information as well as migrate Bindery information.

With IntranetWare, Novell has introduced a tool, NetWare File Migration (MIGWIN3X.EXE), to migrate the file system. NetWare File Migration uses a wizard-like approach, taking the information gathered by DS Migrate along with Novell's Storage Management System (SMS) to move files from a source server to a destination server. And in the process, it preserves all the name spaces, trustee rights, file ownership and file dates.

Migrating to a New Server Our first upgrade was an across-the-wire scenario. Novell has made great strides in the ease in which NetWare is installed. Because of this, we assume that you'll have no trouble bringing up a destination IntranetWare server and attaching it to your network. We concentrated on the tools to move your information on your source NetWare 3.1x server to its IntranetWare destination server.

We first turned our attention to the Bindery. To upgrade our server's Bindery, we used the DS Migrate program and created a Bindery view. We were prompted to choose the NetWare 3 server that we wanted to retrieve the information from, as well as what information DS Migrate should discover. DS Migrate can discover Volume information, User and Group information, Printer information and NetWare Name Service (NNS) information.

We chose to have DS Migrate gather all available information. Before initiating the discover function, be sure to set the options to their desired values. One important item to set is the Default User Password that will be used when migrated into the NDS tree.

It took about 15 minutes to retrieve the information from our NetWare 3 server, which contained appr oximately 200 objects. By default, DS Migrate creates a flat NDS tree design with an organization of "Organization" (you can set up the name in DS Migrate's options) and one subordinate Organizational Unit (OU) with the name of the server that was migrated.