What is NWLINK
In the "Internet Packet Transfer" (IPX), "Sequential Packet Switch" (SPX) (SPX), and NetBIOS protocols used in the Novell network.
NWLINK Introduction
NWLINK is Microsoft implementation of Novell IPX / SPX Transfer Protocol. NWLINK transmits the IPX through a compatible layer called NBIPX to the NWLINK command block. NWLINK is a routed protocol that is suitable for large networks, especially those using the NetWare server. The network address of the NWLINK environment consists of two parts: indicating the network ID of the physical network segment and the node ID indicating the special device.
The NWLINK client does not need to configure any configuration: they get the network ID from the server or router from the network segment, and the MAC address of the NIC is their node ID. The NWLINK server needs to configure the network segment ID and give them a unique "internal IPX address".
When a client needs to connect another device, NWLINK decomposes the NetBIOS name into the IPX address of the destination system, and the target device can be found by the MAC address information. Like NetBeui, NWLINK gets the information-address translation through the broadcast package. However, NWLINK stores its previous query, avoiding redundant broadcasting, reduces network bandwidth waste, which is better than NetBeui.
NWLINK supports IPXSAP (Service Broadcast Protocol), which allows the client to find the server, and the server can find each other. The NetWare server broadcasts a SAP package every 60 seconds to present their existence, which will cause the network to block and reduce the WAN connection speed of the multi-server network. Novell provides a variety of tools to segment and reduce SAP blockage. The NWLINK protocol stack does not use SAP broadcasts, so the NT server does not add such network clogs.
If your business is turned from the Novell environment, NWLINK is the best choice for the two platforms.