Novell Corp used the PC Expo show in New York last week to make a series of announcements including the forthcoming release of its Zenworks desktop and workstation management software. Version 2.0 includes enhancements to the applications management feature including new criteria-based distribution technology which enables network administrators to distribute applications to PCs according to, for example, the size of their memory or hard drive, or to those computers only running a certain operating system. The latest version also enables overnight distribution of software. Rather than having to have the desktops switched on, as was the case in the past, Zenworks logs in itself, as a service and automatically performs the download function. And new prompted macros let users come in the next day and decide where they want the application saved.
On the workstation management side, Novell has added a software inventory and reporting tool which enables the administrator to see exactly what workstations are running what software and to print out a report to show the aggregations. There’s also a new hardware inventory feature, which covers all DMI-compliant hardware. The earlier version only allowed an administrator to see the type of workstation and its basic specifications. Now, he or she can drill down and get information on the BIOS, the system bus and so on. It also generates reports. In addition, release 2.0 features improvements to the remote management capabilities to include workstation diagnostics to enable administrators to log into a workstation and diagnose and/or fix any problems remotely. Rather than initiate a full remote control session, the software also lets administrators take over just certain functions of the system, a problem file for example, so the user isn’t disrupted – a feature Novell says administrators have been calling for.
The Provo, Utah based networking giant also announced that two more hardware vendors, Pionex Technologies Inc and Quantex Microsystems Inc, will license and ship Novell’s new Internet Caching System (ICS), announced at its Brainshare conference in April. Already, both Compaq Computer Corp and Dell Computer Corp have announced plans to bundle the software with versions of their servers optimally tuned for caching. Dell will add the product to its line of low-end 1300 servers, and its mid and high end 4330 and 6350 rack-mountable boxes. Compaq will bundle ICS with its 1850R server line. Novell isn’t planning to sell ICS itself, rather it says it will license the product to any hardware manufacturer including infrastructure (routers, switches, hubs) vendors. It does also intend to release another version of the software, sometime down the road, according to Michael Wilkinson, product marketing manager, which will feature additional technology to enable, for example, media streaming. Instead of every employee downloading a sequence of video from the internet and experiencing slow speeds, ICS will enable the clip to be stored locally in cache and distributed once, across the network. Wilkinson said Novell also plans to integrate NDS with the caching software so that ISPs and service providers will be able to monitor traffic usage patterns and use that information to sell advertising space. For example, if the ISP knows how many people visit the ESPN sports site every Saturday morning, and their demographic information is stored in NDS, it can use that data to offer ad space to potential customers.
