Introduction

In this chapter, we will examine the underlying concepts of a network operating system (NOS). Network operating systems have existed in one form or another for several decades. An NOS is designed to provide centralized resource sharing that can be installed on a high-powered server, so that these resources can be accessed by multiple clients over a network connection. This provides a cost savings for organizations that deploy an NOS, because they can purchase high-powered equipment for only a few central servers running an NOS, and use lower-powered desktop hardware for client computers. Using an NOS also increases productivity for an organization by storing important data and resources centrally, rather than forcing users to keep multiple copies of documents on their local hard drives or to manually transmit files from one person to another using floppy disks. The first network operating system was the UNIX operating system used by many universities and research organizations. This was followed by Novell NetWare in the mid-1980 s as one of the first NOSs that gained popularity for commercial use. Microsoft came onto the NOS scene much later, first with Windows for Workgroups and later with Windows NT, and then Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.

We will then look at what is required for a client computer to be able to connect to a network server to access shared resources, both for local area network (LAN) connections as well as remote access connections. In addition, we will examine several hardware tools...