Novell's Zenworks is its suite of automated system management
tools for the end-user environment and datacentre.
Zenworks is really two main products. One is Configuration
Manager, which manages desktops or servers running Microsoft
Windows or Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise (SLE) platforms - a
throwback to Novell's local area network (Lan) management origins.
The other is
Zenworks Orchestrator, which manages datacentre server
technologies and the associated issues.
Andrew Eliopoulos, worldwide director of product marketing for
Novell's identity and security management solutions, says the tool
will appeal to companies troubled by increasing governance, risk
and compliance issues. "These are the critical issues to business,"
he says, arguing that these are services that can be catered for
through systems management.
Configuration Manager replaced Novell's Desktop Management
Suite, taking on a broader range of responsibilities. It now looks
after asset management, patch management and Linux management.
These were formerly separate products. The maturation of these
management products was complemented by features that offer
management of mobile devices. The PocketPC, handheld devices and
even RIM's Blackberry server have been brought into the endpoint
security fold.
Zenorks Orchestrator is a more recent addition to the Novell
portfolio. It can apply policy-based, automated management to
heterogeneous virtual and non-virtual servers. But its major
functions are resource discovery. Duties include workload
management, provisioning, dynamic scheduling, lifecycle management
of Virtual Machines (VMs), policy management, auditing and
accounting, and software-compliance assurance.
These virtues can be extended to more technologies through
management packs which Novell or partner independent software
vendors (ISV)s can write and market, just as Microsoft, which also
originated in Lan management, does. Currently, Novell offers
Zenworks VMM Pack, which allows Orchestrator to manage a range of
server virtualisation technologies, and Zenworks high performance
computing (HPC) management pack, which meets the need for managing
an HPC infrastructure.
Novell's initial promotion pricing encouraged existing Zenworks
for desktops, servers and handheld customers to migrate toward ZCM
(Zenworks configuration manager). But existing customers can use
ZCM within their existing environments and ZCM doesn't force
customers to replace what they already have. Novell has been
working for some time to release its configuration management
solutions from having to be tied to the requirement of installing
Novell's eDirectory as well for configuration management.
One of the weaknesses is that Zenworks does not manage
enterprise storage. Development is planned, but that is not much
good right now. Network management is lacking too. The two major
Zenworks product sets currently offer management facilities that
are separately accessed and not integrated. However, since
management of the areas of infrastructure relevant to each of these
products would normally be undertaken separately, this need not be
a big problem for customer organisations.
The two major product components have quite different technical
foundations, mainly because Orchestrator was separately developed.
Although Novell tries to dovetail them into a common architecture
for the overall suite, it is a possible weakness. Eventually,
integration will improve operational efficiency.
Zenworks has strong support for virtualisation, and can
rationalise virtualised environments with non-virtualised, which
gives the product set a major advantage. The lack of this facility
in systems management generally has led to annoying inefficiencies,
which only Zenworks can resolve.
Zenworks is especially appropriate for Linux environments, where
a lack of enterprise-strength management has been a serious barrier
to Linux adoption. But the provision of problem investigation and
resolution facilities is lacking. "I am surprised this is an area
that Novell has neglected," says Roy Illsley, Butler Group's senior
research analyst.
Zenworks is good at management of client devices and server
populations. The Configuration Manager is particularly mature and
fully-featured, supporting a wide variety of facilities, including
asset management, desktop configuration, patch management, and
endpoint security. Zenworks Orchestrator provides particular value
when Linux environments manage the datacentre, and in integrating
management of virtualised and non-virtualised environments.
Though this scope and approach fits well with the rest of the
Novell product portfolio, most organisations have an IT context
that is broader still. So Zenworks may fail to meet some customer
requirements - on a systems management level - by failing to manage
datacentre storage technologies.
Sadly this mismatch also means Zenworks has little in the way of
problem resolution support. "This is serious because most customers
would look for a systems management tool to have such facilities,"
says Illsley. "While we recognise that Zenworks could ably meet the
needs of many customers, I think it is unlikely to be seen in the
immediate future as a best of breed systems management tool with
which to take on the whole IT infrastructure," he says.
Novell's Zenworks' vital stats
Main products: Zenworks Configuration Manager, Zenworks
Orchestrator
Major customers: Westinghouse Electric, Western and Southern
Market share: 9%
Annual revenue: $900m
Number of staff: 5,000 world wide
Licence fee $70, $114, and $225, respectively, per user or per
instance
Butler/Datamonitor Financial rating: 4.82