IBM LAN Server started as a close cousin of Microsoft LAN Manager and first shipped in early 1988. It was originally designed to run on top of Operating System/2 Extended Edition. The network client was called IBM LAN Requester and was included with OS/2 EE 1.1 by default. (Eventually IBM shipped other clients and supported yet more. Examples include the IBM OS/2 File/Print Client, IBM OS/2 Peer, and client software for Windows.) Here the short term LAN Server refers to the IBM OS/2 LAN Server product. There were also LAN Server products for other operating systems, notably AIX (now called Fast Connect) and OS/400. The LAN Manager was an advanced Network Operating System (NOS) from Microsoft developed in cooperation with 3COM. It is based on the Operating System/2 (OS/2) and NetBEUI protocol similar to its predecessors MS-NET for MS-DOS and Xenix-NET for MS-Xenix. ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Version 2. ... AIX or Aix may be: Aix, a genus of two species of dabbling ducks, the Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) and the Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) AIX operating system Athens Internet Exchange, (AIX) a European IXP a place name: Aix-la-Chapelle, or Aachen, a city in Germany in France: Aix... OS/400 is an operating system used on IBMs line of AS/400 (now called iSeries) minicomputers. ...

Version history

1.0 - 1988 - for OS/2 EE 1.0

1.2 - 1990 - for OS/2 EE 1.2

1.3 - 1991 - for OS/2 EE 1.3

2.0 - 1992 - related to LAN Manager 2.0

3.0 - 1993 - Entry / Advanced (no LAN Manager "cousin" from here on)

4.0 - 1994 - Entry / Advanced - new OO user interface

5.0 - 1996 - included in OS/2 Warp Server

5.1 - 1999 - included in OS/2 Warp Server for e-business

Predecessors included IBM PC LAN Program (PCLP). Variants included LAN Server Ultimedia (optimized for network delivery of multimedia files) and Workplace On-Demand. Add-ons included Directory and Security Server, Print Services Facility/2 (later known as Advanced Printing), Novell NetWare for OS/2, and LAN Server for Macintosh. Multimedia is the use of several different media to convey information (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and interactivity). ... NetWare is a network operating system and the set of network protocols it uses to talk to client machines on the network. ... The iMac G5, Apples flagship consumer desktop. ...

Innovations

LAN Server pioneered certain file/print sharing concepts such as domains (and domain controllers), networked COM ports, domain aliases, and automatic printer driver selection and installation.

See also

• Server message block

[1] Server Message Block (SMB) is a network protocol mainly applied to share files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network, by providing an authenticated Inter-Process Communication mechanism. ...