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Novell Software Linux Business Upgrades Linux

Novell Upgrades ZENworks Linux Management Software 119

Posted by Hemos from the major-upgrade dept.
cfelde writes "eWeek reports that Novell launched a major new release of its ZENworks Linux Management software at CeBIT on Friday, with the aim of bringing management of Linux desktops and servers on par with that of Windows desktops and servers. ZENworks 7 Linux Management adds remote control, imaging, hardware and software inventory, a Web console, and ZENworks' automated policy management to make it a full life-cycle management suite."
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Novell Upgrades ZENworks Linux Management Software More

Novell Upgrades ZENworks Linux Management Software

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  • Bring it on par with Windows? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You mean, they lied to us all those years, when they told us Linux was already better in any way?

    • yes (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, the "active directory" thing actually is much better in the microsoft side

      (of course I'd say that plan9 beats both in this regard, in plan9 unlike happens in windows and linux apps don't really need to be "LDAP aware", you just exports and imports filesystem namespaces)
      • >>Yes, the "active directory" thing actually is much better in the microsoft side

        Twaddle... AD is a poor response to Edir, too late and a few slices short.
        It's single platform, and brings all the 'inSecurity' features of Win32 to what is meant to be an identity management solution.

  • Addresses Critics Wells (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:44AM (#11925828)
    New features listed in ZENWorks 7 will really help to shutter the FUD [microsoft.com] in regard to Linux's TCO.

    Now CIOs will have an even more robust product to be able to tell their MS reps to stop chanting "TCO" as a reason to stick with/switch to Windows.

    • Screenshots.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by leonmergen ( 807379 ) * <lmergen@gmaEEEil.com minus threevowels> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:06AM (#11925927) Homepage

      ... here [novell.com], here [novell.com], here [novell.com], here [novell.com], here [novell.com], and here [novell.com].

  • wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:44AM (#11925829) Homepage Journal
    with the aim of bringing management of Linux desktops and servers on par with that of Windows desktops and servers

    Um, how about a tool that does the reverse? Something that turns the windows registry and software configurations into a bunch of sensible and human readable text files all in a single directory with sane permissions.

    Although the imaging is nice. I know way too many imaging programs which do not correctly support certain bootloaders in the mbr.

    • Cygwin does this (Score:2, Informative)

      by grouse ( 89280 )

      Michael@MINIMOO /
      $ ls /proc/registry/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microso ft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
      @ BMMMONWND IBMPRC OptionalComponents/ TPKBDLED TrackPointSrv gcasServ
      AGRSMMSG CoolSwitch IgfxTray SunJavaUpdateSched TPKMAPHELPER UpdateManager
      BMMLREF HotKeysCmds IntelliPoint TPHOTKEY TPKMAPMN dla

      Michael@MINIMOO /
      $ cat /proc/registry/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microso ft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run/CoolSwitch C:\WINDOWS\System32\taskswitch.exe

    • Re:wtf? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rikkards ( 98006 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @01:02PM (#11926446) Journal
      No offence but the registry is not that hard to figure out, hell it is easier to figure out than setting up Modelines for a wierd monitor in Xorg.
      HKLM = Machine specific Settings
      HKCU = Link to HK_Users\ = User specific settings
      HK_Classes_Root = Link to HKLM\Classes\Software Classes

      In both HKCU and HKLM there are Software subkeys which is where apps are supposed to write and user or machine specific settings

      Machine specific System Settings (i.e Services, etc) are located in HKLM\System.
      In there are CurrentControlSet (curren System Settings) as well as ControlSetx which (I think) are previous settings as well as LastKnownGoodRecovery

      Probably the most convoluted section is the Classes but rarely does anyone need to go in there.

      It's a little of a different mindset but not that big. The nice thing about Linux is that since they are human readable files there is no singular point of failure (i.e if registry corrupts) but the Registry is still not that daunting and it can be backed up easily by backing up the System state.

      • Damn the HKCU entry got screwed up Essentially HKCU points to a subkey within the HKEY_USERS that corresponds to the SID of the user.

        For example if you go into Regedit as the local administrator and look in HKU you will see two subkeys called -500 and -500_Classes. The local Administrator account SID always ends in 500

        This is why renaming the admin account is not always a foolproof method of stopping people to hack in as all they need to figure out is what name corresponds to the *500 SID.

      • Re:wtf? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by asdfghjklqwertyuiop ( 649296 )

        It's a little of a different mindset but not that big. The nice thing about Linux is that since they are human readable files there is no singular point of failure (i.e if registry corrupts) but the Registry is still not that daunting and it can be backed up easily by backing up the System state.


        Well the other nice thing about config files is the ability to have in-line comments and manage the files via CVS or something similar.

        • Well the other nice thing about config files is the ability to have in-line comments and manage the files via CVS or something similar.

          The comment thing would be nice however Active Directories gives a lot of power to applying specified configurations to specific computers or groups of computers. Rather than managing the files you just create Group Policies and apply to specific OUs that are necessary. You can also limit which members of the OU (machine or User) that gets it applied by setting specific pe

  • About time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Vidar Leathershod ( 41663 )
    There are plenty of small businesses who will stick with MS just for the MMC stuff. I am hoping this is pretty decent, so I can get someone to switch already.

    Vidar

  • to late, to little (Score:3, Informative)

    by MadMirko ( 231667 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:52AM (#11925865)
    The product is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2005

    Companies with large numbers of clients already have that funtionality. From Microsoft's own SMS [microsoft.com] in combination with Vintela's fantastic extensions for Linux / Unix / Mac management.

    The catch is, most companies are MS centric, so they use SMS to manage their clients. With Linux replacing the Unix (if any) machines in those companies it makes sense to extend the existing management product, to use ONE solution to manage ALL clients.

    Check out Vintela [vintela.com] if you haven't. They offer client management, authentication and single sign on for integration of non-MS clients into MS-centric networks.
    • The unfortunate side effect of this is that you wind up with a network that has a rotten core for some time to come.

    • Re:to late, to little (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ezs ( 444264 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @01:48PM (#11926683) Homepage
      Sure - if the customer is tying all of their management into Microsoft SMS 2003. The SMS/Vintela story is good if you have Windows guys looking to have some simple Linux management. Contrast this to the ZENworks story that says - "We don't mind what you have". ZENworks will run in a pure NetWare, pure Windows or a pure Linux environment. Most often it runs in a broadly heterogeneous world. You choose who manages what and what to install on and where to administer from.

    • Re:to late, to little (Score:4, Informative)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @02:06PM (#11926767)
      I have friends who are MS admins, they hate SMS. Maybe their experience is not typical but they really really hate it.

      Also vintella is a canopy company. If you can avoid it you should boycott canopy companies.
    • Are you talking about SMS or Zenworks?

      Novell was rolling out its directory service and Zen back when Microsoft was trying to get SMS 1.0 working. Back then it required the netware client. It has come a long, long way since then.

      At one time, most of the world was using Netware clients. So if most of the world is using Windows file servers now, it can change just like it did before.

      Lastly, most Windows admins that I know don't really care for SMS all that much--never have.

      DFossmeister

  • Oh, *great* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by buss_error ( 142273 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:57AM (#11925880) Homepage Journal
    with the aim of bringing management of Linux desktops and servers on par with that of Windows desktops and servers.

    And why would we want to subject ourselves to that kind of difficulty, pain, and anguish? The tools that are already part and parcel of Unix/Linux are complete and useful for that. All it takes is someone that knows what the hell they are doing.

    • Re:Oh, *great* (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Clover_Kicker ( 20761 )
      > And why would we want to subject ourselves to that kind of difficulty,
      > pain, and anguish? The tools that are already part and parcel of
      > Unix/Linux are complete and useful for that.

      Ever used Zen on Windows? There's a lot to like.

      > All it takes is someone that knows what the hell they are doing.

      Heh. In case you haven't noticed, there's a severe shortage of people who know what the hell they're doing.
      • Ever used Zen on Windows?
        Yes.

        There's a lot to like.
        Not in my experience with multi-thousands of desktops. About all I can say is that it's better than nothing.

        Heh. In case you haven't noticed, there's a severe shortage of people who know what the hell they're doing.
        I noticed that at work, actually. Starting with the management and all the way down. Most of the people that actaully DO the work are pretty bright, or at minimum CAN do the work... This isn't the usual PHB gripe either. I mean, managemen

    • You have obviously never used zenworks. It is a fantastic package for workstation managment. As far as i know there is nothing better than it.
    • Please see my other post on this article here. [slashdot.org]

  • What? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 )
    Novell launched a major new release of its ZENworks Linux Management software at CeBIT on Friday, with the aim of bringing management of Linux desktops and servers on par with that of Windows desktops and servers.

    Am I the only one who has been trying for years to finally bring management of Windows desktops and servers on par with that of Linux desktops and servers? I'm sure that "full life-cycle management suite" may be very interesting to anyone who employ cutting edge proactive paradigm shifts, but in

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @12:44PM (#11926368)
      The most important question is: what does it really mean for Linux users, administrators and developers?

      They are not referring to making Linux like Windows. They are referring to making the management of Linux, through ZenWorks, like the management of Windows, through ZenWorks. This is an important feature for ZenWorks and its users and is a feature that Novell has been missing for some time, despite their previous claims of ZenWorks Linux support.

      ZenWorks is a fantastic tool and is extremely powerful. It performs functions such as hardware and software inventory, application installation and removal, remote control, system policy management and more. But, ZenWorks primary area of support has been Windows systems. Novell claimed that it supported Linux and PDA's but, this support was very limited. Now, with ZenWorks 7, the supported features for Linux approach the level of the Windows features that have always been there.

      First off, you need to understand what ZenWorks can do. ZenWorks is a system for controlling and managing workstations and servers network-wide from a single location, using policies that are stored in eDirectory, Novell's directory service. With ZenWorks, an administrator can control settings like Windows Policies and KDE kiosk configuration. With ZenWorks an administrator can install and remove applications, patches and configurations remotely from a single location. With ZenWorks, an administrator can install new operating systems or reinstall broken operating systems remotely, from a single location.

      Some of these things you can do with Linux already and some of them you can't. Or at least, you can't do them easily. This new ZenWorks is supposed to make it brain dead easy to do these things for 10 systems or 10,000 systems. The key concepts are ease and volume/automation. Sure, you could write a script to ssh into your systems and install some software or what-have-you but, it will be different every time and too often requires some form of manual intervetion. Most importantly, nothing about the script will be useable on Windows workstations. You'll have to use different scripts and scripting languages for those systems so, the overhead is relatively high.

      Here are a couple of scenarios. Suppose your working the helpdesk and a user calls to say that their PC isn't working. You open up the management console and quickly locate the PC in question from amongst the thousands in your firm. With two clicks you are connected to the PC and remotely controlling it. Regardless of whether the PC is Windows or Linux, the procedure is the same.

      Now you see that the PC isn't actually broken, as the user reported but, it is simply missing an application because the user had moved in from another department and had not yet been configured to use that application. A couple of clicks associates the user with the application and the application is automatically installed and made available to the user. Again, Windows or Linux, the procedure is the same in ZenWorks.

      Now, let's suppose that during the install of the application, the user unplugged the PC. I don't know why they did it, they just did it. They're a user, OK? Anyway, for what ever reason the disk is corrupted and the OS is hosed. You instruct the user to restart the machine and choose the appropriate option from the boot menu. The PC is reimaged with a fresh copy of the OS and the appropriate applications are reinstalled. In ten minutes the user is up and running with no user or admninistrator intervention. Again, Windows or Linux, the procedure is the same from within ZenWorks.

      Now, let's assume a different scenario. This time, let's assume that your boss has decided that the company will now use the latest Windows 200X on all workstations. This is a massive upgrade that requires not only the installation of a new OS but also the installation or upgrade of numerous applications that were being used before but no longer work under the new Windows version. Even if you use RIS or Ghost
      • Now I'm not a system administrator, but this sure sounds like Windows-centric thinking. Especially where you said "run an ssh script on the remote machine". You seem to think the only way to fix a machine is to run specialized programs *on* it.

        Have you heard of rsync? rcp? ssh logins? How about nfs? How about centralized home directories? How about running an application that is stored on the network? 20 years ago a sysadmin could "remote administrate" a user without their machine even being turned on! And

        • Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)

          by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @02:01PM (#11926744)
          Now I'm not a system administrator

          From your post, obviously not.

          Have you heard of rsync? rcp? ssh logins? How about nfs? How about centralized home directories? How about running an application that is stored on the network?

          Rsyc - Synchronizes files doesn't really help with specifics like settings in Gconf or updates to Postfix alias databases or RPM installations.

          Rcp - insecure. Better to use scp or sftp.

          Ssh logins - that's what I said in the original post.

          Nfs - File sharing isn't systems management.

          Centralized Home directories - the only way to go for network connected uses.

          Running apps from the network - excellent when possible. But, doesn't work with some apps, with large apps when bandwidth is an issue, or with people disconnected from the network such as laptops.

          Also, many of the above services are not available on Windows, only Linux/Unix. This limits your options for network management as even your environment seems to have Windows as well as Linux.

          I'm not trying to flame you but, rather point out that it isn't a case of Windows-centric thinking. It is a case of network-wide management thinking. Thinking in terms of doing as much as possible from a central point with the greatest of ease. Volume and automation.

          The imaging that you describe in your environment is likely the same one the ZenWorks uses, PXE booting. While it can be setup on almost any network it is fiddly to say the least. ZenWorks makes its setup much easier and it is only a small part of what ZenWorks does. For instance, can they take a backup image of your workstation remotely because, your hard drives S.M.A.R.T. is predicting a failure or they want to have a backup for some other reason? PXE doesn't do this but, with ZenWorks they can, and now it doesn't matter if your running Windows or Linux.

          • Sorry I didn't mean to sound hostile. It is just from a Linux point of view, I am still very confused as to what this offers. It must offer something, but too much of the description is how to work around bad ideas in Windows. I would like to know how it really is superior to hav

            In Unix it is assummed that a program is quite able to look in arbitrary places for it's configuration. The user has to set an environment variable that says "look here", but *that* can be set by another script. Even totally broken
            • In Unix it is assummed that a program is quite able to look in arbitrary places for it's configuration. The user has to set an environment variable that says "look here", but *that* can be set by another script. Even totally broken programs are fooled into running by symbolic links or by making a script to run it do the necessary rsync

              OK, you take these script/envvar/symlink tricks, mulitply by hundreds of applicaitons, multiply by thousands of workstations and the whole thing ends up looking like one big
      • "With ZenWorks setup in your environment, you can have your Windows helpdesk people install or repair applications on Linux systems without any real Linux knowledge."

        I am not a sysadmin or even a real networking dude; my network-grok is at best crude. However... when I went to Novell's seminar and watched the ZenWorks live demo, my immediate thought was, "That is SO simple, even *I* could do that". How to accomplish desired tasks was flamingly evident, and did not assume any serious knowledge of networks b
    • When you get into the thousands of desktops to manage, the tools that microsoft puts out saves your butt.

      Could they be better? Sure they could. Do they work? Yep.

      Until tools such as Zen, that many unix boxes to manage would be a nightmare.
  • Now let me wait...to see whether there is any slashdotter who will say this is not positive. I hope there will be none. On the other hand, it would be better if Novell gives a hand to the Firefox folks so that they can deliver management tools for the up-coming browser. This is what it lacks now. In case they are already assisting in some way, my apologies. I understand IE has had this feature for ages.

  • Critical need (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Second Horseman ( 121958 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:00AM (#11925903)
    Actually, deploying and managing hundreds or thousands of workstations in a policy-driven fashion is critical in a large buisiness network. It's the policy-driven part that's important -- it can really cut down on the number of people you have running around changing workstation configs. The non-corporate elements around here tend to discount these sort of things, but if you're short-staffed and faced with 1,500 workstations, managment and deployment are huge issues. And up until recently, those tools for Linux werent there. They're not really there for MacOS. If you want to beat Windows, you have to not only match what the OS does for managment, you have to have 3rd-party tools as good as the ones available for Windows. And a lot of those 3rd party tools are quite good.

    • Re:Critical need (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:23AM (#11926007) Homepage
      On Unix-like systems most of the policy is determined by config files in a user's home directory, which will be the same across all systems. Then there is a small amount of per-system configuration like X server configuration and who is allowed to log in, which can be done by distributing out config files to each host with an overnight cron job. What remains is configuring which software is installed, which is fairly easy to do by setting up a custom repository with yum/apt/smart/whatever.

      I must be missing the point here - what is involved in managing desktops in a 'policy-driven fashion'? Perhaps it is more difficult if you can't assume that 99% of the desktop machines have almost identical settings.

      To put things another way: hundreds of universities have big networks of Linux desktops, with a varied range of applications and hardware configurations. I don't think many of them shell out for expensive 'policy-driven' tools, yet they manage to enforce sensible policies in the face of fairly hostile and ingenious users (students). I understand the need for extra tools when administering Windows because Windows configuration is otherwise so fiddly and obscure. But I don't see what extra these tools bring to Unix.
      • [...]hundreds of universities have big networks of Linux desktops,[...]

        Care to give some examples? This would help...or are you bound by some non-disclosure agreement?

        • Take the one that I studied at for a start: Nantes, France, the undergrad section alone in CS had a good 300-400 boxes, all either dualboot or Linux only

        • Re:Critical need (Score:2, Informative)

          by Ed Avis ( 5917 )
          I used to work (occasionally) in the Systems group at the department of Computing at Imperial College London. There were about five hundred desktops altogether of which most were dual-boot Linux/Windows with a few Linux-only. I don't doubt that many other universities have a similar setup. Certainly in CS departments but probably in others where Unix is common.
      • In this context, "configuration management" means managing OS versions, patches, software installation, upgrading and removal and, at least with Zenworks, remote control and hardware inventory management.

        As you have assumed, those tasks get more difficult when you mix user types, tasks and profiles; at work, we have developers (a small minority of users), which get different software and permissions on their PC's than the rest of people. Zenworks manages that and separate shared directories for each unit

        • In this context, "configuration management" means managing OS versions, patches, software installation, upgrading and removal

          I'd say apt or yum or smart or Red Carpet or (insert favourite package management tool here) handle these tasks pretty well. Perhaps Zenworks or other payware also do a good job but I don't see what real advantage it could have over the existing tools. On Windows, where every application has its own executable installer program, of course you need some kind of fancy tool to make

      • You're limiting what you think of as policies, and you may be ignoring the staffing issue. How about policy-driven application distribution? Triggered by the end user on demand instead of a push technology so you're not dumping unneeded garbage on every workstation? And distributed securely using elevated system access so that the user doesn't have to be logged in as Administrator/root/whatever to trigger that installation? Same with distributing printers, software patches, etc.

        Look at it this way -- the

        • How about policy-driven application distribution? Triggered by the end user on demand instead of a push technology so you're not dumping unneeded garbage on every workstation?

          I'd never considered 'unneeded garbage' to be a problem, certainly it appears less of a problem than the extra complexity involved in carefully measuring out the amount of garbage each machine gets. I'm referring to Linux systems here; on Windows it's not a good idea to install too many applications since they may do unpleasant thin

      • Re:Critical need (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It continues to amaze me how Windows and Linux admins present their problems from eachothers' perspectives, neither fully realizing what the other is capable of. Being a system administrator that deals with both (and soon MacOS X as well), I see the value of knowing as much as possible about everything I can about both.

        The Second Horseman (121958):
        Actually, deploying and managing hundreds or thousands of workstations in a policy-driven fashion is critical in a large buisiness network. It's the policy-d

    • They're not really there for MacOS.

      Actually there are a couple of commercial ones. I can't remember the names but go through the radmind [umich.edu] mailing list archives and they're probably mentioned a bunch of times. Speaking of radmind, are you aware of the fact that several university administrators are using it to manage networks consisting of hundreds of Mac OS X machines? radmind can work on UNIX, BSD and Linux machines as well.

    • There are very workable free tools to manage large UNIX/linux installs - for instance cfengine. I use that extensively to manage 100's of workstations, servers and clusters with policies, sub-policies, logical grouping of policies etc etc

  • A brief history lesson (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Posting AC because I used to work for one of these (now hated) companies. :)

    Long ago, Novell entertained the idea of replacing NetWare with Linux. This was way before the big Linux boom so management obviously just laughed off the idea. So Ransome Love took a bunch of engineers away from Novell and started Caldera.

    Novell at the time was developing Zenworks and many in the group felt that there ought to be a Zen for Linux. Again, Novell management flatly rejected that idea as well, so they left novell and
    • Long ago, Novell entertained the idea of replacing NetWare with Linux.

      Novell actually announced they were replacing NetWare with UNIXWare. The product map whoed this UNIX-based thing called "SuperNOS" would appear after NetWare 4.

      Turned out to be a terrible decision because the technical limitations of NetWare killed Novell's dominant standing in the market.

  • Re: Linux Management Software (Score:3, Informative)

    by legirons ( 809082 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:28AM (#11926032)
    In other news, one of IBM's new sourceforge projects [sourceforge.net] is SBLIM [sourceforge.net] (Standards Based Linux Instrumentation for Manageability)

    "The goal of this project is to provide a complete Open Source implementation of a WBEM-based management solution for Linux. "
  • If you go into the different demos on the page you will notice that it installs a activeX component and the WebEx player. Why when writing a system designed to promote interopability and OS indipendence would you have your marketing demos in a proprietary application that noone has and (im fairly certain - cant test my linux box doesnt even have a gui) will not work from linux. Macromedia Flash (I know still proprietary) is common and installs relatively easily on linux systems (especially with version 7)
  • Not faulting Novell at all, but are there any free alternatives for us small business people that really dont need ( or can afford ) Zen?
    • Yeah, they're called Yast and/or Bash
      • Sorry, but a bunch of hacked up bash/perl/python/whatever scripts dont count.

        I admit i dont mess with YAST as im not a SUSE fan, but does it allow remote admin of machines as well as local?

        Im sure YAST wont support windows machines, which wont help.
        • Ignore Donny Smith's reply... it's the standard geek, condescending reply. I don't understand why people like him feel the need to use up bandwidth and time to post useless comments when they have nothing constructive to add to a conversation.

          I don't know about Windows machines but for maintaining *nix ones you can use projects like radmind [umich.edu] or Cfengine [cfengine.org]. Someone else in this discussion mentioned sblim [sourceforge.net] but it doesn't look that project is ready to be used in production environments. Hopefully someone else wi

    • Have a look at Webmin [webmin.com]. It is really remote administration and not as powerfull as Zenworks. However for a small business you may find that it does what you need.

      I personally don't use Webmin or any similar product. But I have never had to manage more then a dozen machines. I know of Webmin as it has been around forever and it is still being developed.

      Note: like all remote administration tools, includeing Zenworks, Webmin does add a security risk. However the risk is easy to manage if you read the docs and
      • I use webmin now, but you have to hit each machine independently which makes it rough when you have 100+ machines..

        Yes, it does help..

        I just hate to have to go out and start writing my own scripts, and we dont have the size to warrant the cost of the 'enterprise' packages.
        • Look at cfengine as another poster suggested. The initial install of Cfengine is complicated, but it is easy to use once configured.
    • Of course there are free (beer, speech) management for Linux from Novell:

      Look at Open Carpet [opencarpet.com] as well as the Open Source ZLM (formerly Red Carpet)client [ximian.com]

      For small shops it should be enough. For hackers and developers - it's free (see above)

  • Removes last excuse for Linux on Desktop (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For Novell shops this removes the (second to) last major excuse that they had to not run Linux on the desktop: desktop management. This is a very big deal and a very big day for Linux on the corporate desktop (although many Slashdotters may not recognize it).

    The ground under Microsoft's castle is shifting.

    The final problem is the agreements that MS has with the large PC OEMs (Does anyone _not_ buy Dell for corporate desktops?). MS will continue to (ab)use their monopoly power in this regard. Try to buy

  • Hey - my* product is on Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)

    by ezs ( 444264 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @01:33PM (#11926598) Homepage
    Probably worth giving some background to this project.

    ZENworks 7 Linux Management can trace its roots back to Ximian [ximian.com] Red Carpet Enterprise.

    What we* have done with this project is extended the really strong RPM delivery and dependancy resolution (messaged as software and patch management for Linux) and added much of the traditional ZENworks functionality.

    What ZENworks 7 Linux Management aims to do is really change the story for managing Linux in the Enterprise; we're not targetting the hacker community here really (take a look at projects like OpenCarpet [opencarpet.org]).

    Novell will be including OS deployment via imaging as well policy-enabled AutoYaST and Kickstart (yes - it's cross distro!)

    There will also be inventory and asset management, remote control and support, strong auditing and logging and the ZENworks [novell.com] one-to-many policy management.

    Novell BrainShare [novell.com]is next week - we will be showcasing this and have live demo systems. There is also a 'Sneak Peek' [novell.com] online [registration required].

    Personally I'm really excited that this will change the perceptions of Linux in the Enterprise - it certainly helps with customer migrations from Windows to Linux.

    It's taken a large, distributed, cross discipline team to get this far - I'll ruin my Karma by thanking them all publicly.

    * the Novell ZENworks business unit - which includes the Ximian Red Carpet Enterprise engineering and QA team.

    Go on - mod me down for not being objective ;)

    • Yes, you seem to be right.
      Actually, i've played a lot with Novell products in the last 2-3 years. From Netware 5.x to 6.x, edirectory, ichain, extend, dirxml, groupwise, zen of course, and all sub derived products like ifolder and iprint.
      I'm really a novell fan, but i'm bit afraid of what novell is doing now.

      I've also played with suse9, and recently OES, all this is fine, but novell is preaching oneNet, but the problem is that there's so many flavor of products, and the devel seems to be done all over the
      • Similar story here - We've been Novell shop since NetWare 2 days and kept using most of the product line until recently. The fragmentation of the product lines and management tools is becoming painfully obvious - NWAdmin, ConsoleOne, iManager, snapins flying all over the place and most of them don't work as advertised.

        iManager (web admin) looked interesting during its early beta stages (cca. NetWare 6 release), then inevitable question was asked - "How are we going to do administration if the web server (
        • I can't tell you how many big shops I've seen this happen to.

          What is really fucked up is that people overlook the other question - What happens when the entire network is taken down by some new exploit/bug? What do we do with the MS network then?

          (Yes, your firewall might prevent this. It will also prevent it in the Novell case. Better marketing, I guess).

          ConsoleOne was a really, really bad idea anyway.

          In some parallel universe, Novell ported everything to Linux or BSD ten years ago, and just worried
          • "What happens when the entire network is taken down by some new exploit/bug?"

            Tell me about it. So far we've been either dumb lucky or we have a really disciplined, smart users (my vote is for the former) - we had only one major outbreak in the last 3 years.

            In the same parallel universe, OS/2 took off and Microsoft remained a bit player in office software business.....;)

      • Upgrading a mixed lot of 4.11 & 5.1 servers to 6.5.

        Oops. Problems with the overlay CD and iManager just wouldn't work. (iManager relies upon LDAP, Apache2, Tomcat and their software all working together. Maybe it uses perl, too. Give me a single utility you idiots.)

        Anyway, the iManager problem gets solved when Novell finally released a TID on how to MANUALLY install their iManager stuff. It seems that uninstalling and re-installing their stuff does NOT actually re-install their stuff. Novell, this is
    • This sort of "bigger thinking" (ZenWorks for everyone, not just Platform N) is why I always find Novell's seminars so interesting, and mind you I'm not even a networking dude :)

    • The piece that has been missing for Linux to really take off on the desktop, is the piece between the server and desktop. It's nice to have all these secure devices, rock-solid, with no viruses... but if you have no way of managing them... and I mean MANAGING them (remote management, inventory/asset, application distribution, policy management, imaging, etc.), then you can forget about ever making a dent in Microsoft's desktop empire. OK... I'm a little biased... but I believe the story here... and I'll rem
  • They're catching up to where Tivoli was five years ago.

  • on par? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @02:40PM (#11926985) Homepage Journal
    bringing management of Linux desktops and servers on par with that of Windows desktops and servers.

    Please don't. The nightmare of windos administration on Linux? There's a reason real professionals prefer Unix systems, and administration is a huge part of it.

    This isn't a joke. At my 400 people company, there's half a dozen people employed just to keep the windos network running, plus another half dozen students and other cheap labor forces for simple stuff such as exchanging machines, etc. And I'm not saying it's running especially well.

    On the other hand, four Unix admins keep several entire networks of production servers running.

    • Re:on par? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by yukonc ( 671644 )
      I agree, Engineers and Admins that know what they are doing can keep any OS running well. We have 5 Windows engineers working on >200 Servers. Half of them Mission Critical apps to our business. We are very good at meeting our SLAs. So are the Linux, Unix and Novell Groups.

      The Desktop support people have a much tougher time. They deal with Users. Users have the right to install their own apps, because they need it (political). Management won't purchase new machines (and OSes) for users because it is jus

      • Re:on par? (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )
        Sorry, but I also have a real-life example to the contrary here.

        I have managed a (small) Unix (mostly Solaris, one or two Linux machines) desktop network. It was painless and took up a tiny fraction of my time.

        The most difficult part was convincing the users that no, they do not need root access and if they need an application installed anywhere but their home directories, I will gladly install the package for them.

        Users without system access == users who cause you no trouble.

        And that's where windos fai
        • Look this, isn't flamebait and i am not trying to start battle. You can give windows users a machine they can use and like without Admin or root access too, I and many others have done it and it works very well. My initial point is that politics makes most of these deicision on security and not the security folks. We have a Customer service group (300 users) where everyone uses the same Username and password for their login, everyone knows it, and it hasn't changed in years. We have a strict password pol
  • We have been using Zenworks for everything it "can" manage at our company. It sounds great, can deal with our Linux, Novell and Windows Systems together. In practice, its crap. Roll out a new application to the desktops. Do you get an error code if it doesn't install properly? No. Do you get a report of the machines that had problems installing? No. This is especially bad when you are working with hundreds of machines that must have the latest verision to work with the new DB Server. Zenworks is garbage.
    • I beg to differ. I've never met anyone who worked with ZEN and SMS who preferred SMS. Usually they tell me SMS is "crap". ZENworks is quite capable of reporting application push success and failure. Perhaps you ought to read the manual. Or perhaps you've been assimilated?

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