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This is part 2 of the 5 parts I plan to post about Course 3113 over the next couple weeks. The course is called "Upgrading to and Exploring New Features in Novell ZENworks 11 Configuration Management." It's 3 days worth of content so I can't share it all here, but I can highlight some of the most interesting parts.

My hope is obviously to generate interest in the course, but also to impart some useful information to make this post worth your time to read. So, here are some highlights from Section 5: Using Change Management, which is a new feature in ZCM 11

Using Change Management

ZENworks 11 introduces a new change management capability for bundles and policies, allowing you to make changes to them with minimum disruption to IT services.

You can now create a bundle or a policy as a sandbox. Also, any change made to the published version of the bundle or policy creates a sandbox. The sandbox is available only to devices or users that have been flagged as test. This availability allows you to test the changes made to a bundle or a policy on a test device before rolling out the changes in the production environment. If the test results are satisfactory, then you can publish the sandbox, or you can discard the changes by reverting the sandbox. The published version is available to all the assigned devices and users that have been flagged as non-test. This availability ensures that all the devices in the network always receive the same version of a bundle or policy.

The highlight from this section that I'd like to go deeper into is from:

Objective 2: Manage Bundle Changes

ZENworks 11 introduces a change management capability for bundles allowing you to make changes to them with minimum disruption to IT services.

A sandbox contains changes made to a bundle and is available only to devices or users that have been flagged as test. This allows you to test the changes made to the bundle in a testing environment before rolling out the changes into the production environment. If the test results are satisfactory then you can publish the sandbox, else discard the changes by reverting the sandbox.

The published version is available to all the assigned devices and users that have been flagged as a non-test. This ensures that all the devices in the network always receive the same version of a bundle.

You can now create a bundle as a sandbox-only bundle or published version of the bundle. If you select the Create as Sandbox option on the Summary page of the bundle creation wizard, the bundle is created as a sandbox-only bundle, otherwise a published version of the bundle is created.

Hands on Lab: Make and Test Changes to the Filezilla Bundle

At this point in the course, you have already created a bundle for the Filezilla application. In the following task, you modify the Filezilla bundle, test the changes, publish the bundle, and delete the older version of the bundle.

You perform the following steps on the XP-Admin and Win7-Box virtual machines (which are provided for students in this class) to test the effects of the ZCM-HelpDesk Administrator Group. (These steps are written specifically for the virtual machines that have been configured to be used in the class, but they can be used to illustrate how the tasks are done, in general.)

1. Modify the Filezilla bundle:

a. Starting on the XP-Admin virtual machine, in the ZCC, in the upper-left pane, select Bundles.
b. In the right pane, select VirtualApps > Filezilla.
c. Select the Actions tab; then select the Install sub tab.
d. Select Add > Prompt User.
e Under the Define Prompt(s) heading, select Add.
f. In the Prompt field, enter Are you sure you want to use Filezilla? You may be low on disk space.; then select OK.
g. Select the Requirements tab; then select Add Filter.
h. In the Select drop-down list, select Disk Space Free | c:\ | <= | 100.
i. On the Add Action - Prompt User screen, select OK.
j. To the left of Prompt User, select the check box .
k. Select Move Up; then select Apply. (The Filezilla Sandbox dialog appears, showing that the Sandbox option is now available.)

2. Test the changes made to the Filezilla bundle:

a. Switch to the XP-WS virtual machine.
b. Right-click the ZENworks icon; then select Refresh.
c. Right-click the Filezilla icon on the desktop; then select Properties. (The Filezilla properties dialog is displayed. You can see that the version has been set back to Sandbox.)
d. Switch to the Win7-Box virtual machine.
e. Right-click the ZENworks icon; then select Refresh.
f. Right-click the Filezilla icon on the desktop; then select Properties. (Notice that the Version is still set to 0.)

3. Publish the changes to the Filezilla bundle:

a. Switch back to the XP-Admin virtual machine.
b. In the ZCC, in the upper-left pane, select Bundles.
c. In the right pane, select VirtualApps > Filezilla.
d. At the top of the screen, select Publish.
e. On the Step 1: Publish Option screen, select Finish.

4. Delete the old version of the Filezilla bundle:

a. From the Displayed Version drop-down list, select 0.
b. Select Delete Selected Version.
c. Select the Displayed Version drop-down box again. (Notice that option 0 is no longer available.)

If you like what you see here and would like to see more, Novell Training is offering this course online from July 26th - 28th for $1750 or 5 training credits. Click here to go to the registration link http://bit.ly/kVuyVv.

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Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.