High-Performance NFS File and Printer
Sharing for Windows Desktops

Overview | Features

Features

With everyone claiming the best NFS performance, how do you evaluate true differences? Any NFS software worth considering supports advanced NFS v3 and delivers comparable performance statistics. Once you sort out the competing performance claims, the real differences come down to ViewNow NFS Client’s unmatched reliability, superior management and support features, and ease of use for both network administrators and users.

Unmatched Reliability

ViewNow NFS Client is based on NetManage’s award-winning InterDrive NFS technology, which has been recognized for its outstanding reliability and performance — especially in high-traffic networks. This technology was recently awarded "Editor’s Choice" by Network Computing magazine, citing "rock-solid stability and rich configuration options" under rigorous test conditions. ViewNow NFS Client will continue to perform where other NFS products fail. In fact, the client has been tested using over 5,000 simultaneous connections.

Tight Integration Boosts User Productivity

ViewNow NFS Client is completely integrated with Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT operating systems and user interfaces. Users and administrators can effortlessly configure NFS connections, passwords, global or individual connection properties, and tuning options all from Windows Explorer or Network Neighborhood. Right mouse button support linked to Properties menus makes it easy to set operational parameters.

Adapting to Changing Conditions

Dynamic autotuning capabilities optimize performance under constantly changing network conditions. For example, autotuning adjusts read and write sizes based on the number of packet retransmissions that might occur due to network collisions or hardware problems. The autotuning feature is optional and can be selected as required.

Caching Improves Application Performance

ViewNow NFS Client uses the Windows 95 and Windows 98 Cache Manager (VCache) and its own internal cache mechanism to locally store information about network files and folders. Caching improves the performance of any application using network files. VCache support provides unlimited dynamically allocated memory. ViewNow NFS Client also takes advantage of the many features of the NFS v3 protocol that enhance performance, including efficient directory lookups — now executed in a single transaction — plus both read and write caching and larger read and write data sizes. To ensure optimum network performance, this 32-bit, multi-threaded, kernel-space implementation works at the same level of priority as the operating system.

NFS Made Easy

Making NFS connections is easy. Users select network drives, directories, files, printers, and other devices in the same way they select them on the Windows desktop. A shorthand name or alias can be assigned to the long network path that was previously required to reach NFS resources. These resources now appear in the Network Neighborhood with common names for designated hosts. Aliases have their own settings for security, performance, and permissions — or can use system or host defaults.

ViewNow NFS Client includes Network Information System (NIS) Automap integration within Windows Explorer. This integration provides a centralized directory service that graphically displays remote NIS automount maps and the configured resources available to NFS clients. Users only need to know the appropriate NIS server to find listings of available resources.

Extensive right mouse button support allows changes to be made on-the-fly to network connections, including file permissions and performance settings, without disconnecting services. Users can also save time and effort by remapping exported file systems and subdirectories. Instead of navigating through a complex directory hierarchy, users can assign a drive letter for direct access to a folder. File locking and sharing maintains file integrity by preventing more than one user at any time from opening and changing a file.

Managed Access

ViewNow NFS Client provides user authentication for file and printer sharing with NIS or PCNFSD protocols. These security features help protect sensitive data residing on network servers. In addition, users can check disk quotas simply by clicking on "My Computer" and viewing the properties of a networked drive. The UNIX remote quota daemon andNFS Client are used to retrieve and to report on disk quotas. This unique feature allows users to plan and modify disk utilization before it becomes a problem. No other NFS product has this capability.

Create a Direct Path toNFS Servers

For faster NFS file connections, ViewNow NFS Client gives users the option to establish a direct path to NFS servers in Windows Explorer. This Direct NFS drive is used to avoid connection conflicts with other network clients in multi-protocol environments.

Ordinarily, when connecting to network resources in Network Neighborhood or Windows Explorer, Windows sends connections through its Multiple Provider Router (MPR) infrastructure. With Direct NFS, instead of time-consuming routing through multiple protocols, the mapped Direct NFS drive searches for or connects to only NFS servers. This unique ViewNow feature shortens connection time and improves reliability by avoiding operating system collisions and eliminating "failure to connect" messages caused by competing network protocols.

Direct NFS extends the Microsoft Universal Naming Convention (UNC) capability by recognizing the reserved Direct NFS path as a direct pointer to the NFS infrastructure, thus avoiding collisions and improving performance for both graphical and command-line applications. Direct NFS also expands the networking capabilities of 16-bit Windows and DOS applications running in 32-bit environments that do not support the Microsoft UNC to allow browsing of network file servers.