Novell Inc yesterday announced Novell Directory Services for NT, enabling users to deploy and manage NT servers and applications, avoiding the use of NT domains. The company claims NT users converting to NDS will benefit from moving away from the restrictions of a full domain structure, resulting in a lower costs of ownership and a Unix flavor. NDS for NT provides the network management capabilities required to build and maintain full service networks and intranets, delivering a structure said to be more scalable and fault tolerant than native NT. A full domain structure need not be in place, but if one is present the NDS Administrator for NT can be used (CI No 3,106). Novell is placing a big emphasis on the simplicity of the product and says NDS enables the system to be cleaned up, reducing inter-domain traffic. It says Novell is delivering what Microsoft hopes to deliver with ActiveDirectory when and if it appears. Although the company has described the product as platform independent NDS for NT must be used in conjunction with Novell Netware or Intranetware, though platform independence is still a goal the company hopes to achieve in the future. Included with the NT release of NDS is Novell’s ManageWise 2.5, designed to offer improved desktop management, virus protection, software distribution and reporting capabilities. NDS for NT will be available across the world in November with prices starting at $345 for a five user license. Separate prices have not yet been established, but Novell says users who have purchased ManageWise since September will receive a free upgrade.
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