Blog Entry

Quite a few weeks ago Ron van Herk asked about ZENworks project code names.

Here is my 'inside view' of ZENworks - from ZENworks for Desktops 3 to present day!

I've tried to include dates of product release, the final product name and the code name.

Written on: United 906 between Chicago and Munich

So here is the recent list:

Summer 2001 - ZENworks for Desktops 3.2 - Firestarter
Summer 2002 - ZENworks for Desktops 4 - Prometheus

Summer 2001 - ZENworks for Servers 2 Management & Monitoring Services - Palomar
ZENworks for Servers 3 - Indianapolis

Summer 2003 - ZENworks 6 Suite - Hercules
Summer 2004 - ZENworks 6.5 Suite - Midas
Summer 2005 - ZENworks 7 Suite - Shade

Summer 2005 - ZENworks 7 Linux Management - Birdman

Next Generation ZENworks Architecture - Brimstone

Going back through my archive of roadmap planning is fascinating.

I distinctly remember naming Prometheus. The aim of the product was to run 'anywhere' - Windows or NetWare centric environments, with or without the Novell Client32. I jokingly referred to this one day as 'bringing light to the Microsoft world'. Greek mythology tells that Prometheus brought fire to the world, stealing it from the Gods. Little did I think that the deep thinkers and researchers would look beyond that message and see that Prometheus was punished for his exploits. I'd like to think that ZENworks for Desktops 4 - and subsequent releases - were succesful for customers and didn't incur such drastic punishment.

The fire theme for Prometheus also led me to the codename for ZENworks for Desktops 3.2. I saw this as a minor point release; so 'Firestarter' became the name.

You can still see some of the remnents of the naming. If you look at the documentation site for both ZfD3.2 and ZfD4 they carry the codenames. http://www.novell.com/documentation/zdfs and http://www.novell.com/documentation/zdpr - with zdfs and zdpr being the shorthand for the projects. We've made our documentation urls nicer since then.

The final codename I want to mention is ZENworks 7 Linux Management. Birdman. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for this - except that the newly acquired Ximian engineering team selected it. Obviously all big Adult Swim fans.

Written at: United 906 between Chicago and Munich