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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott C. Lemon who wrote (28544)	10/11/1999 5:11:00 PM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

LOL!! Scott, Thats all I have been working with is SOCKS. IBM's entire internal network hides behind SOCKS firewalls. In fact, all the workstations inside IBM use either SOCKS Client stacks (Aventail or Hummingbird - I personally use Hummingbird although Aventail's appears to be the better client), or they engage the SOCKS component of the Internet software (such as the Browsers, IRC, etc. etc.) in order to access the Internet. SOCKifying the entire client is much more effective a solution since the Internet software does not have to be SOCKSified - many are not. Novell's BorderManager is what I have been piloting behind IBM's production firewalls for the past 10 months. IT HAS BEEN PAINFUL! I can tell you this much - Novell's BM team has a lot to learn about SOCKS! I have the BM 3.5 Proxy Caching server setup for its caching, and therefore I have the BM server acting as a SOCKS client to the IBM SOCKS firewalls. For the most part it works but not after a lot of calls into Novell and helping the BM product staff identify ABENDS, SOCKS 4 vs 5 support, IP addressing exception tables, and load balancing. They are still working some of these issues, BUT, since very few in the industry use SOCKS, Novell has this section of BM low on their priority list to resolve. SOCKS is a very high-end solution but its also not too popular as a firewall solution. I have been told that it is extremely firewall resource intense and therefore needs a lot more horsepower of other firewll options. But yes, you are correct that SOCKS functions very similar to a NAT with added benefits. If only Novell could understand how the mature SOCKS vendors have developed SOCKS clients and servers and then implement many of these basic SOCKS features into their product. Maybe you still have a littl voice in Novell to encourage them to put more work into the SOCKS support. Hows that for a long-winded answer to your question. Toy