Policy and Distribution Services

Novell^® ZENworks^® for Servers (ZfS) Policy and Distribution Services is a software, configuration, and behavioral management system for servers. Through Policy and Distribution Services, you can:

• Control the versions of software installed on servers throughout the network
• Define and enforce a standard configuration on any given set of servers
• Control the behavior of servers in given situations, such as downing a server, backing up volumes, managing thresholds exceeded, and so on

Policy and Distribution Services has three components:

• Tiered Electronic Distribution (TED): Simplifies data delivery and server policy implementation

• Server Policies: Simplifies configuration and management of your servers

• Server Software Packages: Simplifies the installation of software

These components are supported on servers for the following server platforms:

   NetWare^® 5.1 and NetWare 6

   Windows* NT* 4.0 and Windows 2000

   Linux* kernel 2.4. x (as tested on Red Hat* 7.1 and 7.2)

   Solaris* 8

You can administer Policy and Distribution Services using the following:

• ConsoleOne^® 1.3.3, where you can create and configure ZfS objects and perform management tasks for Policy and Distribution Services.

• ZfS Management Role in Novell iManager, where you can perform management tasks for Policy and Distribution Services using iManager from any workstation where Internet Explorer 5.5 or above is available.

The Policy and Distribution Services documentation contains the following sections:

• Configuring Policy and Distribution Services

  After installing ZfS 3 for the first time, use this section to complete a full configuration of your distribution system.

• Novell iManager
• Tiered Electronic Distribution
• Server Policies
• Server Software Packages
• Desktop Application Distribution
• Security in Policy and Distribution Services
• Scheduling
• Variables
• ZENworks Database
• Reporting
• Documentation Updates