1.3 The Solution: ZENworks Configuration Management

ZENworks Configuration Management is based on a web-services architecture designed to provide a secure, highly usable, open environment for managing all your Windows devices. ZENworks Configuration Management provides you with a single, modular architecture that maximizes flexibility and scalability, simplifies and speeds management throughout the device life cycle, minimizes processing demands on managed clients, reduces bandwidth consumption for management processes, and uses standards-based protocols to seamlessly integrate with your choice of user directories and object databases.

ZENworks Configuration Management lets you manage systems based on user identities, roles, groups, and locations, so IT can work seamlessly with the company’s business organization and policies. ZENworks Configuration Management gives you a secure, Web-based console for unified control over all management tasks, from virtually anywhere.

ZENworks 11 is the only Endpoint Management tool in the market that provides management based on three key criteria:

Combining these three criteria, ZENworks can automatically invoke different security and configuration postures as the user changes devices, locations, and roles within the enterprise. For example, when a user travels to a remote office, ZENworks can automatically and transparently enforce different printer policies, provide group policies to configure the device, offer an alternative method to access an application (such as thin version) and define security details such as the applications that can run, the firewall settings, and what removable storage can be used by the device. No other Endpoint Management tool can come close to offering this level of flexibility. Refer to Locations for more information on Locations.

If your organization is undertaking an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) initiative, ZENworks Configuration Management is the right choice for you. It has been built as a modular set of components that uses industry standards to build a product and set of solutions that completely align with ITIL best practices and disciplines.

To find out more about our vision, visit the Novell ZENworks Configuration Management product page and download the white paper entitled A Blueprint for Better Management from the Desktop to the Data Center.