Novell News

With the recent release of Window’s 7 and the flurry of operating system activity over the last few months, it’s clear that choice is coming in a big way regarding pc and mobile device operating system selection.  I wrote about this in a recently posted article on forbes.com which you can find here.

While the winner on the vendor side is far from clear, it seems obvious that the consumer will win no matter what the outcome.  Let me know what you think.

John

This week the Los Angeles city council voted to move forward with a proposal to replace the City’s existing e-mail and productivity solutions with cloud-based e-mail, calendaring and document services from Google.

Like the LA Police department and others, we continue to doubt the economics and security of the City’s decision to move to a Google system. The City Council was presented with clear evidence that Google posed a very significant risk to the security of City and citizen data, much of it highly confidential. In addition, independent financial data showed that the new system will actually cost more, not less.

With the City facing a massive budget deficit, the speculated budget benefits of switching to this untested application are enticing, but as a recent independent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report has stated, the proposed system under consideration will actually cost taxpayers an additional $1.5 million in the first year. There are significant costs to migrating, training and securing Google Apps.

To set the record straight, Novell GroupWise is a world-class product with more than 30 million users in 120 countries around the globe. Over 1,200 US agencies use the product, including 47 of the 50 US states. It is a secure, trusted and proven e-mail and collaboration solution. The latest version of GroupWise 8 includes interactive Web 2.0 dashboards, rich e-mail functionality and robust calendar management capabilities all delivered securely.

The City of Los Angeles should have opted for this proven product to ensure the security of its data and to save taxpayer money. They have taken a risk with no reward. However, as a valued customer, Novell will continue to offer our world-class support to the City of Los Angeles during the transition.

By far, the major obsession of Novell’s engineering team is to deliver products with the enterprise level quality that customers demand and deserve for mission-critical usage.

It is useful to review our comprehensive approach to quality. Quality is not a single process. It is baked into everything we do: before and during development; after products are shipped in the field; with maintenance provided to customers well after products have been shipped. Due to this breadth I will “fishbone” our activities and address this topic over several postings.

In this posting we define quality, provide key tenets, and outline future posts.

Quality Defined

There are numerous definitions of quality—the most general being “the degree to which the product meets customer expectations”. This can be interpreted as—choosing the right features to meet market needs—and in the past I have described our Integrated Product Development (IPD) process that has that goal. By the way, we are broadening IPD to include a new Requirements Management System which allows customers and partners to directly input their needs to Novell’s product management. But, that is a story for a different day.

Colloquially, when people talk about product quality however, they refer to product defects or bugs. We address bugs throughout the lifecycle of a product by preventing defects in the first place, testing and debugging to remove them, and patching and fixing problems in customer installations. This definition is akin to a classical Six Sigma focus on defects and this is the aspect of product quality that I will discuss.

Philosophy

Herein are basic tenets or beliefs about product quality. Many of these are common in the industry; some are unique to Novell.

1. We are in business to provide mission critical software. Accordingly, we hold ourselves to high standards for initial product quality and strive to correct defects found by our customers.
2. Quality must be built in prior to customer shipment. The cost for Novell and our customers alike grows exponentially the later in the deployment process one finds a bug.
3. The practice of software development has not been perfected. There is no such thing as bug free software. We strive for excellence, but recognize that defects will occur.
4. The response to these defects is modulated by severity. Critical defects found in a customer’s production environment get the most immediate attention.
5. We make mistakes. And we fix them. If a defect occurs, we patch it. If a product has too many bugs, we redouble our efforts to restore quality to that product as soon as possible.
6. Consequence of 5—we try really hard not to make the same mistake twice!
7. Our employees respond to management’s attention. Hence we carefully measure our quality, review it on a regular basis, and won’t ship products that do not hit quality criteria. This ensures that we will build quality in.
8. There are different methodologies for developing software including agile, waterfall, and open source (community). Our customers expect and deserve equal quality regardless of the methodology.
9. Consequence of 8—although there might be different methods to develop software; the software quality metrics and release criteria must be the same.
10. Quality is a continuous learning process. Time is set aside for our engineers to continue to grow and learn to improve their skills.

The Fishbone

This is a broad topic and it is already running a bit long. Let me summarize my intentions by listing the key aspects that I will discuss in future blog entries:

• Building in quality from the ground up: In the development of a product, how do we build with as few defects as possible. For agile, waterfall, and open source.
• Metrics: What are the common metrics we track to ensure that we release with quality.
• Testing tools: Methodologies, laboratories, cross-product testing, defect management process.
• Product introduction: How do we manage that very challenging time when a new product is first introduced into the field. Readiness criteria.
• Continuous improvement: Engineering Excellence Steering Committee. Learning Initiative.
• Cadence between product development and Novell services: How we work together and hold each other accountable within Novell to take care of our customers.

In this latest OpenMic podcast, Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier talks with Mono founder, Miguel de Icaza, about what’s new with the Mono Project and what’s coming soon. The two also discuss the many iPhone apps brought to you by Mono, what’s next for Moonlight (the Linux implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight), and why Windows developers should really check out Mono. Listen here (20:20)

Go here to get more information on Mono.

Guest blog from Grant Ho, senior solutions manager, Novell Endpoint Management Solutions

Today, Microsoft unveils Windows 7, which promises to be one of the industry’s biggest product launches. Analysts forecast that Windows 7 will show significant adoption over the next few years. For example, a recent IDC White Paper forecasts that more than 170 million units of Windows 7 will ship by the end of 2010(1). When we talk to our customers, we hear a similar message – Windows 7 is on the minds of many companies. Given that this new OS is getting its fair share of attention, the question we keep hearing is how do I prepare for Windows 7? And – What should I migrate? How do I do it? How do I ensure my users continue to be productive?

At the end of the day, we all know that a major OS upgrade can be disruptive — it takes time, it takes planning, and it can sap IT time and drain employee productivity if not done correctly. That’s where Novell Endpoint Management Solutions (featuring ZENworks) come into the picture.

• ZENworks Asset Management gives you a clear picture of exactly what hardware and software assets you have with discovery and software inventory capabilities. That means you can easily find out which of your devices are due for a hardware refresh, or if you prefer to upgrade, which devices will actually support Windows 7 and whether or not your applications will run on Windows 7.

• ZENworks Configuration Management can drastically reduces the time it takes to migrate your devices to Windows 7. With official support for Windows 7 coming later this year, you can create Windows 7 desktop images (which can dynamically install hardware drivers and applications specific to the devices they’re deployed), and then automatically deploy those images to your devices. In addition, you can use ZENworks Configuration Management to manage your Windows 7 machines – from delivery of personality settings, to deployment of updates and patches, to performing remote management, and much more.

• ZENworks Application Virtualization lets you easily virtualize your applications and run them on your OS of choice, including Windows 7. This lets you keep your workers highly productive by ensuring that day-to-day applications (even your line-of-business ones) will work on Windows 7, while reducing the time and burden of testing hundreds of applications when you make the switch. And best of all, you can easily deploy these virtual applications to your new Windows 7 machines with ZENworks Configuration Management.

Windows 7 is going to be a key driver in the industry, but to migrate successfully, businesses need to have the right solutions and parts in place. As Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” With the ZENwork trifecta — ZENworks Asset Management, ZENworks Configuration Management, and ZENworks Application Virtualization – we put the chances of success squarely on your side.

Learn more about how ZENworks can help you make the move to Windows 7 here.

(1) IDC White Paper Sponsored by Microsoft, The Economic Impact of Microsoft’s Windows 7, Worldwide, Doc # W7WW709, July 2009

In this second endpoint management podcast, Grant Ho, senior solutions manager at Novell, talks with Paul Beaudry, assistant vice president of Technical Services, MIS at Richardson International.

Richardson International is Canada’s largest privately-owned agribusiness employing more than 1,400 people in 97 locations and generating revenues in excess of $4.0 billion annually. With a large and dispersed enterprise, Richardson needed a solution to help them centrally manage their endpoints, support their end users, automate the distribution of applications and patches, and save time imaging machines. They found the solution with Novell ZENwork Configuration Management — ultimately reducing the complexity and costs of managing of their IT infrastructure.

Learn more about Richardson’s use of Novell ZENworks Configuration Management here.Learn more about Novell ZENworks Configuration Management here.

 

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We’ve been talking about security and access control management—most recently as part of “securing the cloud“. Securing the cloud is based on technology that Novell has developed for securing the enterprise. As we design for the future of securing the cloud—today’s enterprises also require continued enhancement to secure their enterprise.

Some recent notes.

SAP Partnership for IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Programs

For enterprise needs our recent focus has been on the creation of a compliance platform. Compliance has emerged as a key customer issue. IT systems are the window into how businesses are governed. Much of our attention is on integrating with partners; such as our April announcement to certify to SAP’s NetWeaver platform.

We took this to the next level with today’s tight announcement with SAP. SAP’s Business Objects GRC solutions are outstanding, and by integrating with Novell’s compliance and identity management capabilities we add to the value proposition for customers. Specifically, the integration improves performance, automation of controls, simplification, and risk reduction. Overall, it makes it easy for customers to manage security and compliance policies.

Novell Secure Login

Customers require Enterprise Single-Sign On for enterprise applications. Earlier this year, we intensified our focus in this critical area, so we acquired some technology from ActiveIdentity.

Last month, we strengthened what customers can achieve with Novell SecureLogin. Two major focus areas: Interoperability and Scripting. The interoperability enhancements ensure that customers can use our solution irrespective of their compute platforms. The automated Scripting is more critical than ever. As access control, security, and compliance play a deeper role in enterprises, Single-Sign On needs to be integrated across a broader set of applications. The Scripting enhancements automate a customers’ ability to use Novell SecureLogin.

Recognition

It is not only Novell that touts the importance of this product. Novell SecureLogin was recognized in Gartner Inc.’s 2008 ESSO Magic Quadrant report. Last month, Gartner released their MarketScope for Enterprise Single Sign-On and gave our product a Strong Positive rating.

NYC

On a personal note, I was born and bred in New York. While I now live in Massachusetts—once a New Yorker; always a New Yorker.

So I was delighted to see that New York City has recently announced adoption of Novell’s Compliance Management Platform. I enjoyed seeing that my hometown was leveraging Novell’s technology depth, automation, ease-of-use, and interoperability in the Security and Compliance area—to simplify access to city services and better integrate across city departments.

I have the wonderful opportunity in my roles to talk to senior people at customers, partners and prospects, and a really hot topic is the one around virtualization at the desktop level.  As you would expect the definition of what that “is”, the business case justifications, the timeline and the target base varies enormously.

No matter what route is being addressed or considered there are some very consistent outcomes that can in fact be addressed today through Application Virtualization, specifically ZENworks Application Virtualization.  And, no this is not coincidental timing because as I write this we’ve just released V7.1 of this fabulous tool.

We still see challenges every day related to software version incompatibility, “DLL hell”, time consumed with cross testing and application rollouts, and calls to the Help Desk on application issues.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could really do lockdown at an application level so the app didn’t create conflicts, or modify the registry or be able to run alongside a different version of itself or run on an OS version that won’t natively run the application?

Well it is great because you can.  What we all have to do is make sure that folks know about this capability, that it exists and that it is extremely cost effective.

A virtualized application is isolated from the underlying operating system where it runs.  It makes no changes to the registry or to the hosting OS.  The virtual apps is not actually installed on the host, it’s installed in a secured runtime environment.  Building a virtualized application is simple and can result in an executable file that can be distributed to the workstations, run from a central repository or even deployed on a USB stick.  Gartner says that the cost of application deployment, packaging and support can be reduced by 60% and that TCO savings of up to 7% are easily achievable.

The really cool parts of the solution means that the builder decides how much integration with local resources on the workstation takes place.  Maybe it’s just screens and keyboards, maybe it includes ports or disk storage.  The packaged application delivers what is necessary without what is not.  Best of all, the end user doesn’t see a difference between a virtualized application and one that is locally installed.  Performance looks the same, no admin rights are needed on the local OS, so the user gets on with his or her work and doesn’t need to learn and adopt new processes.

With ZENworks Application Virtualization there are some new functions added that we have already heard are in demand, including support for Windows 7, improvements in the support of IE6 and coexistence with local installs of IE7 or IE8 and the ability to make the virtualized application “expire”.  Other new functions are improvements to leveraging .Net 3.5 and the addition of the ability to support SQL  Server  2005 Express.  We’ve also made the process to publish the virtualized application to a USB drive even simpler.

Customers can expect higher productivity for users and simplified rollouts, coupled with lower operational costs and improved security.  There’s also promotional pricing through October 31, 2009 with user or instance licensing available.

So please, while we think about desktop virtualization in depth, let’s not forget that many problems can be solved right now.

Product Information is at : http://www.novell.com/products/zenworks/applicationvirtualization/

Licensing Information is at : http://www.novell.com/licensing

Last December we took the difficult but correct decision to cancel Novell’s premier user and technical training conference – BrainShare.  While most of our customers, partners and employees understood and supported the decision, there was a clear demand and passion for the event to return in 2010.

It’s with great excitement that we are announcing the return of BrainShare in 2010.  Not only will BrainShare return to Salt Lake City, Utah where it’s been for more than 20 years but after a five year hiatus, we will be holding a BrainShare EMEA event as well.  Our customers told us loud and clear that they viewed BrainShare as a critical component of their overall education and training on all things Novell.  They also told us what they liked and didn’t like about the event.  Accordingly, as we bring BrainShare back, we’ll make sure it remains the best forum for technical training and education.  We’ll also assure that we and our partners offer the hands on experiences and real life case studies that help our customers get the most out of their Novell investments.

Our Salt Lake City BrainShare will take place from Sunday, March 21 through Thursday, March 25, 2010.  Our BrainShare EMEA event will take place in May, 2010 with the exact dates and location to be finalized in the coming weeks.

BrainShare is a Novell institution and an event that every Novell employee contributes to and takes pride in.  We are truly excited about the return of this marquee conference to Salt Lake City and Europe and look forward to seeing many of you next year.

John

Today we launched our revamped and renamed Novell News blog.

Our old Open PR blog was originally conceived as a way to give voice to Novell’s views on open source software, Linux, and our mixed-source business model. Over time, the blog has become a much stronger information source for all of Novell, and increasingly a primary vehicle for breaking news. Hence, we’ve rechristened the blog to reflect its news agenda, and we’ve also given it greater prominence on our corporate website.

We’ve also made it much easier for more people inside Novell to contribute. In addition to PR posts, the Novell News blog will repost from the blogs of our CTO Jeff Jaffe and our CMO John Dragoon, as well as other company blogs. We’re very fortunate to have many world-renowned industry experts and thought-leaders on staff. Expect to hear many more voices on this blog.