Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

Novell Demo Systems adds Twitter to communication channels

cneal-novell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:32:21 -0700

The Demo Systems team has added to its social media participation by getting a Twitter account. If you're a Twitter user please follow @novelldemo to get the latest demo news and views faster.

If you don't yet have a Twitter account setting one up is really easy. You can find our profile at http://www.novell.com/novelldemo .

While we're on the subject now is probably a good time to summarise the various communication channels we use, so that you know how to receive our news updates, ask us questions, and give us feedback on how we're doing.

Primary support channel is via the Novell Support Forums
http://forums.novell.com/novell-product-support-fo...

General questions and comments can be sent to us direct via email: demosystems@novell.com

Our Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/novelldemosystems . Become a fan!

Finally -- and for Novell employees only -- our internal mailing list: utopia@lists.novell.com

We get lonely when you don't talk to us. Get in touch!

Chris

Cool Solutions

Gradenko, ActiveSync, GroupWise, Teaming and a Webinar!

dlythgoe — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:03:24 -0700

The engineering team is working on several product releases over the next several months. It is important that we keep you informed about our progress and what is coming. It also allows you to participate in the many activities surrounding a product release. Those activities include product requirements, design reviews, BETAs, Lighthouse programs and final shipments. So here goes:

Gradenko (DataSync):

Gradenko is currently in authorized BETA. We have had several beta calls including beta calls for the SDK. Gradenko includes the following components:

- Sync Engine
- GroupWise Connector
- SDK
- Salesforce.com Connector
- SugarCRM Connector
- Sharepoint Connector

BETA2 is scheduled for later this month. Engineering is focused on installation, configuration and scalability. We are listening to our beta sites and gathering input from our internal testing and superlab experiences. Gradenko is the foundation for ActiveSync and for all of our 3rd-party integrations. Continue to watch this space for updates on our progress, schedule and final release.

ActiveSync

First of all, I refer you to Alex Evans' blog. This was posted back in September and provides some excellent background on the feature set, architecture and what will be available in this first release. http://www.novell.com/communities/node/9006/active...

ActiveSync BETA is scheduled for this month as well. Great progress has been made within the team over the last several weeks. The ActiveSync project is being head up by Jay Parker and they have implemented several aspects of the agile development model. As part of this methodology, the team demonstrates to interested team members the progress made during each 'sprint'. On Thursday, October 22nd, the team provided a demo of their Sprint 5 work. Several iPhones and iTouches were handed out to the audience and we were given several tasks to complete. Scheduling an appointments, sending an email, accepting an appointments, creating a contact, etc. There were a few delays and a few hiccups as several in the audience were all using the same account, but overall, things went very well. Engineering is now focused on performance, scalability, install, troubleshooting and documentation. We are anxious to begin the beta process and work out the final details.

GroupWise 7 and GroupWise 8

GroupWise 7.0.3 HP4 was released in September. Feedback so far on this release has been very positive. We do plan to release GroupWise 7.0.4 and that will be our final release of the GroupWise 7.0.x product line. We expect to release that final version of 7.0.x in roughly 6 months or so. GroupWise 8.0.1 was released in August. We are currently evaluating and planning a Hot Patch for 8.0.1. Our next support pack for GroupWise 8 will be 8.0.2. This is currently scheduled about mid-year 2010.

The vast majority of the feedback on 8.0.1 has been very positive. We continue to listen and evaluate the progress as our customers adopt and roll out this significant version of the product. Support has brought 6-10 issues to our attention, which we have addressed and provided specific customers relief. We plan to make these and other fixes available in a Hot Patch currently scheduled for December/January.

Cortez (Teaming 2.1)

Cortez is the next major release of our award winning product Teaming. As you may know, Teaming is a product that we are pushing as a 'rapid release' product. We plan to have new versions of this product available every 6-9 months. Teaming 2.0 was released in July and Teaming 2.1 was currently scheduled for January. It has a very specific and finite set of features and will be entering BETA also in the month of November. To see the design documents, participate in the user interaction mock ups and provide your input, please visit the project on kablink.org. A full list of the changes, features and roadmaps are all available as we engage our customers and partners in this project. Cortez includes:

- Import and Export capability
- Undelete
- Data quotas
- Mobility access
- Landing Page Editor
- Extension Administration
- Task/Calendar Improvements
- maybe a couple more :)

So watch for the BETA, check out kablink.org and download the 20 user Starter Pack.

Last note: There is a Webinar this Thursday, November 5th, "GW8 & M+Archive: Your email collaboration solution" I will be presenting with Messaging Architects. They will be presenting their stubbing solutions and I will be talking about GroupWise, Teaming, DataSync, etc. Tune in!

Here are the details:

GW8 & M+Archive: Your email collaboration solution - November 5, 2009 - 3:00PM EST

Both leading IT publications and end users alike agree GroupWise 8 brings collaboration to the next level with next-generation web technology and the latest productivity-enhancing tools featuring a highly customizable email client, as well as improved calendaring, contact and task management. Besides the enriched email client, one of the most important improvements in the GroupWise 8 release is a new Stubbing API that enables tight integration of GroupWise with email retention solutions and gives end users transparent access to their archives.

During this Webinar, Dean Lythgoe, Director, GroupWise Engineering, will discuss GroupWise 8 features, roadmap futures, mobility direction and the new DataSync technology. He will give a sneak peak at what is available today and what exciting new things are on the horizon in 2010.

Ranjit Sarai, Product Manager for M+Archive will then demonstrate the stubbing feature of M+Archive, currently the only product that offers this feature for GroupWise. After attending this Webinar, you will know how GroupWise with M+Archive will help you achieve an enterprise-class secure and compliant collaboration environment while helping you reduce overall cost, increase system performance and ensure a superior end-user experience.

BONUS: Registrants will receive a complimentary white paper written by Novell and Messaging Architects, which will give you more in depth information about how GroupWise works with stubbing.

Date: Thursday, November 05, 2009
Time: 3:00PM EST / 12:00 PM PST
Speaker(s): Dean Lythgoe, Director, GroupWise and Teaming + Conferencing Engineering at Novell & Ranjit Sarai, Product Manager for M+Archive at Messaging Architects

Register Now: https://messagingarchitects.webex.com/messagingarc...

Dean

Workgroup Cool Solutions

City of LA Decision to move to Google Apps

aevans — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:58:54 -0600

I realize that many who read my blog are our own GroupWise customers. You may have heard about the City of L.A.'s close-vote decision to make a change.

Through years of neglect of the system, ignoring best practices and not making the best uses of the inherent scalability of GroupWise the City justified a move to a system that is still more expensive to their tax payers, offers less functionality, and increases risk and downtime.

We are laser focused on continuing to provide a world-class e-mail and calendaring platform with the Web 2.0 innovations, end-user requested features and enterprise-class readiness you demand. Thank you to all who speak up for the value of GroupWise.

You can read our take on that here.

GroupWise Cool Solutions

Open Horizons and GWAVACon Berlin

dlythgoe — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Alex Evans and I are currently in Oxford, England attending the Open Horizons Tour - UK. We will be here until Friday, October 16th. We will then travel to Berlin, Germany to participate with several more partners and Novell employees in the annual GWAVACon European Event.

These events and conferences are unique in that we get to spend a lot of one on one time with many customers and partners. We are always energized by the enthusiasm and positive vibe we get from all of the attendees. We also always seem to meet new people or partners that we were not as familiar with. Of course we usually see a lot of ISV partners at these events, but many times we meet some of our long standing reseller partners. Today we spoke with Julie from Blueloop (www.blueloop.net). They are a Silver Reseller Partner out of the UK and have been selling Novell software for years.

We have also had the opportunity to meet again with SkyCom, Messaging Architects, Redback Systems, GWAVA, Omni-TSand Salford Software. All members of our active and growing partner ecosystem.

Today we spoke about our Collaboration strategy that includes GroupWise, Teaming, Conferencing and DataSync and then Alex spent quite a while talking about mobility and ActiveSync. Alex had to disappear for a little while this afternoon while he called into the very first DataSync (Gradenko) Authorized BETA call. Of course, now that we are back in Alex's home turf - he pronounces it BEETA. I thought I understood English????

Some of the topics being covered today at the conference include: Virtualization with XEN on SLES11 by Mark Robinson, ZENworks Configuration Management by Ian Stimpson and Unified Communications for GroupWise with SkyPro by Horst Fuhrmann. Sessions are being presented by Novell employees as well as partners like Altman Technologies, ENGL Ltd. and NDS8 Ltds.

Alex and I will participate in Question and Answer hour with all of the attendees and then tomorrow will begin the Open Horizons Summit with more sessions, hands-on labs and more opportunities to speak one on one with attendees.

If you have a chance to participate in an Open Horizons or GWAVACon event - I highly recommend it. Not only will you get the technical information you may need, but you will also become a member of a community that is pushing for Novell and its products to succeed!

Dean

Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

Choice is good ...

mge1512 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:11:03 -0600

Choice is good ...

Visiting Portland, Oregon, for LinuxCon, you certainly don't
want to miss Henry's Tavern, well known for its 100 beers on tap.
Wait - 100 beers on tap!? That's too much for the one evening,
you're there, whatever your capacity is, ...

You can preselect from a travel guide, but you finally end up
asking the friendly staff for advice which beer is something
special, famous, and fits best to the food you just ordered.

... too much a challenge!

And you are reminded of your daily job as a product manager.

Among the approximately 12000 packages in the openSUSE
Buildservice and and Novell's internal build system, there are a
lot of tools and applications which do the same, or nearly the
same, thing. And it is your task as a product manager, together
with your team mates in engineering and marketing, to provide
customers with the "right" choice according to three questions:

Business and/or Technical need
Quality of the solution (including security analysis
Sustainability, Supportability and Maintainability

You often take historical aspects and competitive analysis into
account as well.

Don't get me wrong:: I do not want to talk here about the "usual
suspects" -- applications or environments which have been subject
of religious war. Let's keep vi and emacs - Gnome and KDE - perl,
python, ruby, and even REXX: they are more an expression of
lifestyle than they should be subject of choice.

Choice is necessary!

But let's start with a topic where choice is necessary, and
where I think all people involved should open their eyes (and
ears!) even more for the view and arguments of the other side.

In SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Novell had included AppArmor in
favor of SELinux, because we thought that AppArmor's ease of use
would be enough, and it would quickly bring additional security to
people's servers and desktops, in a way that was easy to manage and
maintain.

While the argument was correct and remains correct, we did
ignore though, that there are security needs which go beyond the
capabilities of AppArmor, and need labeling support instead. In
return the groups (non-labeled security mechanism here, labeled
security there) started to solely look at the negative sides of
each other's solution, the deficiencies here and the lack of
usability there.

To increase the security capabilities of Linux as a general
purpose operating system, targeting everything from an embedded
box, a mobile device, a standard desktop or server, up to hosts in
the world's largest banks and industry, we need both.

In SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, selectable at boot time, we
reintroduced SELinux as "basic enablement": all infrastructure is
patched and compiled to work with SELinux; we do not deliver a
policy though, nor do we support it beyond special agreements with
partners and customers.

Feel free to ask.

A la carte

Enough on security. Let's talk about more common questions, where
we will have to choose in the near or far future when it comes to
the Enterprise Linux products:

Is CUPS enough - or is there still a need for LPRng,
specifically for those who come to enterprise Linux from classical
UNIX(R) operating systems?
What about sendmail? Isn't Postfix much easier to configure,
more secure, while providing the same powerful capabilities? Do
people coming from any other UNIX expect sendmail to be there? Or
is sendmail part of a lifestyle and thus sacrosanct?
Local Filesystems: we are proud to have certified all supported
filesystems in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (ext3, xfs, reiserfs) with
major storage systems, and provide the best scaling choice for
storage from desktop to datacenter
(http://www.novell.com/products/server/techspecs.ht...). Is it
- despite the fact SUSE Linux Enterprise has been the first
enterprise Linux shipping a journaling filesystem (reiserfs) -
acceptable or even necessary to reduce investment in reiserfs in
favour of btrfs, the new "star" on Linux' filesystem heaven?

And there are more choices, aren't there?

I had Portland's local "Hair of the Dog Blue Dot Imperial IPA",
and it goes very well with the salmon.

Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

GroupWise 8 Marketing Video

dlythgoe — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:53:25 -0600

Some great work by our marketing team to put this together.

Russ Dastrup, Matt Bowman and Travis Grandpre!!

Watch it!

Rate it!

Comment about it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXREGskW3E0

Dean

Workgroup Cool Solutions

Novell Info: GroupWise Security Alert

dlythgoe — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:19:07 -0600

A new Hot Patch for 7.0.3 was released today that contains fixes for security related issues. That Hot Patch is 7.0.3 HP4. The same fixes for 8.0 were provided on August 31st with the 8.0.1 release. We recommend that you deploy the 7.0.3 HP4, if you are running 7.0.x code and we recommend you deploy the 8.0.1 code if you are running 8.0. This will ensure your system has all currently available fixes.

You can download these patches from here:

Here are the details surrounding these latest changes.

There are roughly 35 total fixes/changes available in this Hot Patch. There is just one security related issue to call out. This is a WebAccess security issue that is very similar to the issues that were reported and resolved with in 7.0.3 HP3. We refer to them as cross-scripting vulnerabilities.

See this TID for more details: 7004410

There are a couple other fixes to highlight.

- Merging text from two outbound messages or Mixing pieces of the log file into message files and then marking them as bad - this has been fixed.

- Notify can connect to the wrong mailbox in rare circumstances bypassing authentication, this can only occur in situations where identical userid's exist in different PO's AND NGWNAMESERVER is deployed - this has been fixed.

For details on all of the changes, please see the 'changelog' that is available with the download image.

Novell communicated Hot Patch availability for both GroupWise 7 and GroupWise 8 via NGWList, NOVTTP, PSE-DSE lists, blog entries, FaceBook Pages and Twitter.

We have sent communications to every PSE/DSE explaining the details associated with this security issue. NTS, Marketing, Technical Sales specialists and Product Management have all been notified and are available to assist and answer questions.

As stated in previous blog posts:

“Novell and GroupWise take every security report very seriously. We want our community to be well informed and well protected. GroupWise is very reliable and we know that our customers expect it to be the very best.

We do not disclose the exact details of any security defect so that ample time is provided to administrators to update their systems without malicious individuals having all of the knowledge to exploit any affected areas. Even after a patch is provided and sufficient time has been given to update, not every administrator will be able to act immediately. Some may decide not to act at all and simply follow their own update/deployment schedules.

We do stress - All security issues should be taken seriously and patches applied.

Please follow Best Practices guidelines for updating your system when applying this patch.”

GroupWise 6.x customers should upgrade to GroupWise 8.0.1.

Dean

Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

ActiveSync Update

aevans — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:30:47 -0600

I can finally share a lot more information about our support for ActiveSync in our replacement for GroupWise Mobile Server. To get you up to date with a lot of the direction I urge you to first read my prior blogs on the subject:

GroupWise and Nokia Intellisync

GroupWise Mobility Update

Replacement for GroupWise Mobile Server, and more

To summarize, we are creating a new technology, separate from GroupWise and Teaming, which will synchronize data between any of the connected applications. Once of the connectors will be an ActiveSync connector, to support ActiveSync enabled devices. Another connector will be for GroupWise.

These blogs set the scene for where we are today, so let me now tell you about release plans, feature set and supported devices. Let’s start with feature set – ActiveSync is a protocol and data access method and, as such, we are limited to things that we can support to whatever ActiveSync supports. At a high level that is synchronization of Email, Calendar items and Contacts. ActiveSync does not support tasks, so GroupWise tasks will not sync to devices out of the box – though there is a way that you can make them, which we will cover at a later date.

Synchronization Features

2-way email sync

Delete items

Forward

Smart forward

Attachment support

Mark (un)read

Sync content of all folders

Sync calendars

Accept and decline appointments

Send appointments

Contact sync

Support all contact fields

Sync contact photos

Search system address book

Kill pill

This list is not exhaustive, and there are even more features coming in subsequent releases around some of the additional things that ActiveSync supports.

The technology works by syncing data from the device to the central cache server, which in turn syncs it to the other connected applications. These applications then do whatever needs to be done with that data – and vice versa.

Schedule

Our first milestone is to roll this out internally. We are working on defining the schedule for that with our IS&T department. I get lots of mail from people internally who volunteer themselves to be beta testers, so I know that it is as well anticipated internally as it is in our customer base.

We will then release the product to a closed beta group. We anticipate doing this in October, which is right around the corner. If you have not already applied to be a beta site do so at www.novell.com/beta. We normally take about 50 sites into a closed beta group and I can tell you that we have far more applicants than that already – so don’t be too upset if you don’t get in.

Whilst the closed beta program is running we also plan to release a feature limited technical preview publically. It will likely synchronize contacts and the contents of calendars only. The reason it is limited is that we need more bake time on some of the other features – we do not want to release unstable code to the broader public, but feel very confident that contacts and calendar sync will be robust. The goal is to release the technical preview in November

We will then refresh the closed beta program with the final features, around administration and bug fixes, though schedule will be determined by the amount and types of issues that get reported.

Finally, we expect to release the connector in late January and then move our engineers onto the next revision, as well as GroupWise 8 SP2 and GroupWise “Windermere”

Entitlements

We do not plan to change the entitlement for mobility support much from what it is today – in fact we will make it a little more broad. The goal is that anyone on GroupWise and/or Teaming maintenance will be entitled to four products – the sync engine from “Gradenko”, the Teaming connector when it ships, the GroupWise connector and the ActiveSync connector. This is similar to the entitlement today, where anyone on GroupWise maintenance gets GMS.

Supported devices

I am getting questions on what devices are supported, and the short answer is “any device that supports ActiveSync”. Our solution means that we are not installing a client on the device, we will leverage what is on there already, as long as the communications protocol is ActiveSync. To spell out a couple of the devices and/or manufacturers that ship, or have shipped native ActiveSync devices or platforms:

iPhone/iTouch

Windows Mobile devices (which many vendors ship on their devices) – Like HTC, Samsung etc. Microsoft have a site for WMS devices

Palm Pre and Palm Treo

Nokia E and N series devices

There is also an ActiveSync licensee site

In addition to this list there are ActiveSync client downloads available for many other devices, though Novell will not provide those clients. These include Android, UIQ and Blackberry. If your phone is not listed it likely resides somewhere under one of the categories above, so check your docs for specific mention of either ActiveSync or Exchange support.

GroupWise Mobile Server

Once the ActiveSync solution ships what happens with the current GMS? We have support from Nokia for GMS until the end of 2010, though that support is limited to critical bug fixes and security updates only – it does not include new device support. The time between the ActiveSync connector shipping and GMS support ending is about a year, and we expect that most of our customers are going to be able to move over in that year. We do not plan on a migration tool at this point, as the master data repository is the GroupWise store – we do no need to migrate the data at all. It is likely going to be necessary to touch some of the devices, to remove the old Intellisync software and replace it with the factory ActiveSync software – application management is not part of the ActiveSync protocol, so this will either need to be done manually, or with some form of Mobile Device Management software.

That’s it for now, though we will continue to keep you up to date as things progress

Workgroup Cool Solutions

Announcing New Demos

cneal-novell — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:00:32 -0600

Busy month!

The following new updates have been posted recently on download.novell.com/directed:

ZENworks Patch Management 6.4 SP2 and Agent Management Center running on Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition
ZENworks Endpoint Security Management v4 on Windows 2003 Server
ZENworks Partner Tools (used by partners to build the Windows XP vm's for ZCM, ZPM and ZESM demos)
PlateSpin Demo VM: containing Migrate 8.1, Protect 8.1, and Recon 3.6 complete with demo database. Watch out for PlateSpin Forge demo -- coming soon!

There are also some new Identity Management demos imminent. Watch this space for further announcements.

Visit our portal at http://www.novell.com/demosystems and start playing!

Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

Adding to your bag of tricks during a recession

melaniefeeney — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:25:46 -0600

The current economic climate has clearly demonstrated that we can’t continue to do things the way we’ve always done, otherwise, we’ll get the same results. Just as we close the door on one set of regulations, another set appears. Governments and business leaders closely monitor the situation at hand, always looking for ways to improve process, reduce costs, and make money. Novell consistently works to create new solutions for a growing set of business problems.

But how does that relate to the Technical Subscriptions products? More than you might think. We work with all the product groups to get the latest and greatest software as soon as it releases so that you have it in your hands quickly. Subscribers have white papers, cool solutions, TIDS, On-Demand training and access to self-study manuals so that they can become certified in Novell technology. All of these resources are to help our partners become more successful at what they do – implementing Novell technology across small, medium and large environments around the world.

Succeeding in business has become more competitive, and you have to be more knowledgeable, more agile, more responsive and more customer-oriented than your competitor. Many partners look at Technical Subscriptions as a way to get all Novell software in handy ISOs so they don’t have to spend a few hours burning downloads, or as something they can reference if they ever have some spare time (and who has that these days?).

But here’s a different approach: why not look at Technical Subscriptions as a very handy business library – your tool bag of tips and tricks that will help you maintain and then grow your customer base?

Take any one of your customers and jot down the current state of their IT environment. What versions of Novell products are they running? What industry are they in? Could they benefit from other products to make the most of their existing IT systems? Do they need to upgrade to newer versions to improve business efficiency?

Maybe your customer has all the latest and greatest technology and has no IT needs other than making sure the system keeps ticking over. That would be great for the customer, but I seriously doubt that such a utopian scenario exists. Most customers have to balance budget and needs, and no more so than these days. As a partner, you can help them meet their business needs and overcome their IT challenges. You have access to a powerhouse of information right at your fingertips.