Blog Entry

Submitted by Henok Ephraim (not verified) on 28 September 2006 - 4:01pm.

Looking forward to this comprehensive post....

Henok

Submitted by Nick (not verified) on 28 September 2006 - 7:35pm.

I'm excited to see how the new admin interface will look and operate, looking forward to hear more about Zen next gen !

Submitted by Johnnie Odom (not verified) on 30 September 2006 - 2:05pm.

I eagerly await this series.

However, there is one platform that is left out in the cold with the otherwise comprehensive nature of Zenworks: Mac OS X. Only Asset Management supports OS X machines, and yet the standards that OS X uses for desktop management (LDAP and XML) are things that Novell uses quite a bit of. Rudimentary OS X support would not be a huge engineering task, as any examination of OS X servers user preferences will attest, and in fact many Novell customers simply extend the eDirectory schema to roll their own MCX support. This Cool Solutions article does a good job in providing an overview: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11740.... Incorporating the schema extensions and a simple web gui to support them would not be difficult for Novell to roll out, and I think it would improve the customer base and loyalty quite a bit. Then Next Generation would give me one web console to administer all three platforms that I support.

At the very least, I'd like to see Zenworks Imaging extended to support the HFS+ file system and the GUID partition scheme in EFI. Give me those two features and I'll be able to roll out BootCamp Intel Macs using the wonderful product that is ZMG.

A Zenworks add-in might be something to look at for incororation in Condrey Consulting's Kanaka product ...

Anyway, just a general request--remember Mac users in your Enterprise management products! Thanks.

Submitted by Jose Gerez (not verified) on 2 October 2006 - 12:17am.

I'm very interested in the evolution of Server Management. This part of Zenworks has been poorly evolved compared with the Desktop Managemente in previous version.

Submitted by Bryan Thoreson (not verified) on 5 October 2006 - 6:18pm.

I can't wait to see how this is all coming together. Obviously the new interface and usability is the big news, but I'd also like to hear what new features we can expect. I'd also be interested on your take about the recent companies, like Altiris, that have solutions that virtualize software. This was recently discussed in the 9/11 InfoWorld http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/09/11/37FEvirt.... Well just curious on your take about this new mentality for application deployments.

Bryan

Submitted by Grant (not verified) on 6 October 2006 - 8:47am.

I need some juicy details to justify our Maintenance plan w/ ZEN when we get SMS for free.

Also, is ZEN going to start virtualizing software like Altiris and Microsoft (soon). This is a killer app.

And basic Patch management needs to be free. SMS can patch Windows platforms (which, let's be honest, is the biggest issue).

BTW, I love ZEN, just want it to stay in the lead.

Submitted by NOVELL: Cool Blogs » Blog Archive » ZENworks Next Generation (not verified) on 10 October 2006 - 9:10pm.

[...] In an earlier Cool Blogs post I set out my plan to describe the Next Generation of ZENworks. This is the first in that series - the History of ZENworks. [...]