Does anyone know if SMP for Netware 4.11 is handled the same way for Netware 5.1 or Higher? I've been able to find documentation on 4.11 that states that the only use for Multiple processors is with Multiprocessor programs.. All File scanning, and Directory I/O is done through Processor 0 only .... is this changed in higher versions or is this the common way most SMP os's handle these processes?

NW 4.11 was Novell's first attempt @ using symmetric multiprocessing. And they have come a long ways since then. NW versions 5.x and later employ a totally different concept when it comes to multi-processing/multi-threading technology. NLM's as well as software applications can take advantage of SMP, IF they are developed with multithreading capabilities in mind. TCP/IP is an example of an NLM that can take advantage of the SMP architecture. But I don't beleive that this can be acheived until you get to NW 6.x, and you run TCP/IP version 6.x. If I remember correctly Novell had in mind their NOS when they first started developing what we know today as SMP. But when something like SMP comes along it doesn't take long for the softeware developers to see the power of it and to start implementing it into their applications. I myself am just getting more and more into SMP because of the simple fact of the software applications that I am responsible for on the network have this feature built into them. It seems like if it was not in the current version it will be in the next upgrade And I ahave also found out that developing your own NLM's is not all that hard to do. With NW 6.x giving you the ability to have a pure IP enviornment, and the NW OS using SMP more and more for itself. I see a good majority of the major software developers having a SMP version out before long if they don't already. I think Oracle has used the SMP technology for sometime now. There is to much information on SMP (the history, where it's going, how it's changing) to go into here. A quick Google or like search will turn up tons of information on this subject. I have gained what very little I know from just having to research SMP because of the impact it has on the apps. & procedures I manage @ work. ********************************************** SIDE NOTE ********************************************** As a side note to everyone that is using GroupWise 6.x and has SMP turned on in their NW Servers. If you are experiencing any GW servers that are “hanging” on you that have the GW Agents (MTA, POA, GWIA) running on them. The grapevine has it that the GW GWIA agent is hanging some Server's when SMP is enabled for the GWIA agent. Which I beleive is the default setting OOTB. It seems that it will run the utilization way high and hold it there. Then you can not do a ”Graceful” shutdown on the server and have to take the server down hard (turning the power off). It doesn't seem to ABEND the server, just hangs it up. Turning SMP off or employing the “/no SMP” switch for the GW agents should not have any effect on the performance of GW. Since GW is more I/O intensive rather than processor intensive. Like I said, it is just what I have been hearing and reading about. Running a server with SMP enabled doesn't seem to have any ill affects on any GW WebAccess servers that I have heard of yet. V-Peace-V

I setup SMP on Netware 5.1 a while ago, and did not notice any remarkable improvement in performance. Processor 1 was still doing all the work while the Second processor hardly contributed to sharing the work load.