More than six years ago I wrote a lament for what I thought was a wonderful new product from Novell. In 1999, Novell acquired Ukiah Software and incorporated Ukiah's policy-based management software into what would be called “ZENworks for Networks.” Network World’s sister publication, InfoWorld, reviewed the offering and said that "ZENworks for Networks 1.0 offers a great deal to organizations that can't afford an ever-increasing Internet pipe and want to make better use of their existing bandwidth. It's a very good first step on the road to managing networks more efficiently, using familiar tools and well-understood foundation technology."
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The product was announced at a trade show in January 2000 with a demo by Novell and 3Com. As I reported at the time, 3Com demonstrated its Transcend policy management system interoperating with NDS eDirectory for user-based management applications. In addition to the user-based policy management capabilities enabled by NDS eDirectory, 3Com said its access control services would help enhance network security. Future Transcend releases would authenticate users before they are allowed access to their corporate network. The policy management system would examine each user profile stored in the directory and allow access to network resources based on predefined policies.
It was expected that ZENworks for Networks would also be able to control policies and access for any hardware (hubs, routers, switches, etc.) that follow the Directory Enabled Network specification, including products from Cisco, Nortel and Lucent.
But by the fall of 2000 it looked like Novell’s product was on its way out (see “ZENworks for Networks on the ropes”). Novell decided not to invest the resources needed and the product was dropped, rarely to be heard of again - until this month, when ZENworks guru Martin Buckley posted a “history of ZENworks” blog entry at the Novell site. One person asked about ZENworks for Networks and Buckley replied “Are you asking for a ZENworks for Networks post too? It’s still available for download…”
Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be found at Virtual Quill.
Kearns is the author of two Network World Newsletters: Windows Networking Strategies, and Identity Management. Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these respective addresses: windows@vquill.com, identity@vquill.com .
Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail.
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