Novell: ZENworks Client Doesn't Support Vista SP1

Novell's ZENworks 10 Configuration Management client (ZCM 10) doesn't currently support Vista SP1, but Novell will address that in an update slated for release in late March or early April, a company spokesperson said an email to ChannelWeb.

However, Novell didn't respond to repeated requests for information on specific functionality that's lost after Vista SP1 is installed. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company has no additional information to share on the ZENworks-Vista SP1 compatibility issue.

The incompatibility is ironic in light of the interoperability pact that Microsoft and Novell signed in 2006, in which the vendors pledged to build better ties between Linux and Windows. That deal has been something of a punching bag in the open source community, a significant portion of which believes it goes against the intentions of the Linux general public license.

Novell unveiled ZENworks Configuration Manager 10, formerly known as Pulsar, at last year's CeBIT conference in Hannover, Germany. The product, which supports both Novell eDirectory and Microsoft Active Directory, helps speed Vista migrations and minimize downtime by keeping users' personal desktop and application settings intact during the migration process.

Robert Brentson, CEO of InTech Solutions, a Novell VAR in Penfield, N.Y., says there has been a noticeable increase in adoption of ZCM 10 in recent months, due in part to its flexibility. "ZCM 10 is directory agnostic, and that has allowed us to reach native Microsoft customers that we normally haven't done business with in previous versions of the product," said Brentson.

Of course, many businesses are still waiting for Microsoft to fix the well publicized technical issues in Vista before they even begin to think about migrating. Oddly enough, that reticence is part of the reason why Brentson isn't overly concerned about the fact that ZCM 10 doesn't yet support Vista.

"To be frank, most of my customers still aren't looking to adopt Vista, so the immediate impact is probably going to be minimal," Brentson said.

Microsoft, which announced the release to manufacturing of Vista SP1 earlier this month, plans to offer it to the public sometime around the middle of March.

Novell To Launch Zenworks Software Asset-Management Platform

software platform Tally Systems acquisition

Novell Zenworks Asset Management is designed to give customers a robust tool for tracking software assets and meeting federal mandates and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The platform somewhat overlaps with current inventory features in Zenworks, but Tally's inventory discovery as well as identification and reporting components are more advanced and will be Novell's standard offering going forward, Novell executives said.

The platform represents a big upselling opportunity for partners, many of which sell Zenworks, said David Litwack, senior vice president and general manager for identity-driven products at Novell. "It's a massive add-on opportunity for the channel," Litwack said during a meeting with CRN at Novell's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. The software vendor has 38 million Zenworks seats and 30,000 customers, he said.

The asset management software is slated to be available May 2 as an add-on to Zenworks for $33 per seat. It also will be integrated into Zenworks 7, a major upgrade that's due out in June. ZenWorks 7 is Novell's first major integrated management platform for Linux that includes Red Carpet management as well as the software asset-management services acquired from Tally Systems.

Mark Hardardt, vice president and general manager of partners and channels at Novell, said the asset management platform will be an easy sell for Zenworks partners. "Many of our channel partners are strong in resource management, so they'll run with this quickly," he said.

Novell is currently working to move Tally Systems solution providers to the Novell partner program, Hardardt added. The number of Tally partners is small, but those solution providers are highly skilled in software asset-management services, he said.

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Simple recall questions are usually worth one mark. They often have command words like 'give...', 'state...', 'name..' or 'identify...'. Some questions may ask you to state two things, rather than just one, and will be worth two marks.

Structured questions, with command words such as 'Describe...' or 'Explain...', will be worth two or more marks:

More complex structured questions will be worth three or four marks. They include questions with complex descriptions and explanations, questions in which you need to compare and contrast two different things, or calculations with several stages.

The mark schemes given here may show answers as bullet points. This is to show clearly how a mark can be obtained. However, it is important that your answer is written in a logical manner, the points are linked to each other, and are relevant to the question.