Chapter 1 The ZENworks Family
This book discusses features of the ZENworks 7 Suite. It is important to understand that the Suite is actually a bundle of several, independently available ZENworks products that include the following:
ZENworks Desktop Management (formerly ZENworks for Desktops)—A desktop management system that manages many workstation aspects. ZENworks Desktop Management also includes ZENworks Patch Management, ZENworks Data Management, Instant Messenger, ZENworks Personality Migration, and ZENworks Software Packaging.
ZENworks Server Management (formerly ZENworks for Servers)—A system that enables you to manage servers and to distribute files and applications across the network. ZENworks Server Management also includes ZENworks Patch Management.
ZENworks Handheld Management (formerly ZENworks for Handhelds)—A system that enables you to manage policies, applications, and inventory on PDA devices.
ZENworks Asset Management—A system that enables you to discover devices on your network and then perform inventory scans, track software usages, and reconcile licenses to those discovered applications.
All ZENworks products rely significantly on the directory—specifically Novell eDirectory—to provide a greater capability to securely share management responsiblities and a greater ease of management for each component in the network. All the ZENworks products are cross-platform and can run not only in NetWare environments but also in Windows, Linux, and Solaris environments (without the need for NetWare or the Novell Windows client).
With the release of ZENworks 7, all products in the ZENworks family include the full collection of software shipped in the ZENworks 7 Suite. The included software functions as a 90-day trial.
ZENworks Desktop Management is designed to minimize the cost of deploying and managing desktops in the enterprise. The ZEN in ZENworks Desktop Management stands for Zero Effort Networks and is named to reflect the zero effort required for end-users and the minimum effort necessary for administrators to manage the desktops in their systems.
ZENworks Desktop Management is segmented into three desktop management and maintenance areas, discussed in the following sections. These include Application Management, Workstation Management, and Remote Management.
The ZENworks Application Management area for Desktop Management is designed to easily deploy applications from the network to individual desktops. These applications can be automatically installed on the workstation, cached for later installation, or just have an icon applied to the desktop that references a software executable or installation bundle on a server. All the applications deployed to the desktop enable the administrator to control when they are deployed, how they are applied, and who or which desktops get certain applications.
ZENworks Desktop Management also enables you to customize the settings for each individual user by referencing values in Novell eDirectory and embedding them in the registry keys and files for the application. When that application is deployed to the desktop, these values are then customized for the particular user. In addition to customization, the ZENworks Desktop Management Application Management portion includes the capability to help you equalize usage through its load balancing features, and attempts to make the application always available with its fault-tolerance features.
ZENworks Desktop Management keeps applications working, providing self-healing capabilities to automatically fix applications that become broken. ZENworks provides all its features to laptop users who are even disconnected from the network.
With the integration of eDirectory, ZENworks Desktop Management Application Management makes sure that the applications follow the user to whichever desktop he uses in the network, keeping the user’s connection to the network always functioning in a familiar way. ZENworks Application Management has features that enable you to distribute and assign applications to users, thus making the management of applications for desktops and your users on the desktop simple and consistent.
Application Management features are currently provided for the Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP platforms.
Workstation Management refers to the administrator’s ability to make direct changes on the desktop and manage the registry, Novell clients, desktop images, printers, and Windows group policies. With the Novell eDirectory advantages, you can make changes to a configuration object that affect the configuration of a program or registry, for example, and then have that configuration applied to all or a portion of the workstations in your entire organization. Due to the inheritance rules of eDirectory, and the introduction of workstation objects into the tree, these configuration objects can be applied to many users and workstations in the tree by their associations with objects, groups, or containers.
To illustrate the usefulness of this, a customer was told by support that to fix the reported problem he needed to change only one registry key of each client. The customer was not happy because he had more than 10,000 clients of that type, and he determined that it would take years with the current staff to make that change. Now, with ZENworks Desktop Management, one administrator can make the change in one configuration object, and the change can be forwarded and made to all associated workstations. This one change can be done in minutes instead of years.
In addition, the ZENworks Desktop Management Workstation Management feature includes workstation hardware and software inventory. This inventory can be useful to the administrator in understanding the capabilities of each workstation as she manages and maintains the desktop. Reports are also included with ZENworks Desktop Management that provide useful, tabular information of what is stored in the scanned database. Now you can quickly find out who has a copy of Office installed anywhere in the enterprise.
Scheduled Actions in Workstation Management allow the administrator to schedule the launch of scripts and applications at any specified time or interval. This proves useful in performing regularly required tasks such as backups, scans, transmissions, and so on. All this is performed automatically, through policies that enable you to configure settings and then let the system take care of itself.
Workstation Management features are currently provided for the Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP platforms.
The ZENworks Desktop Management Remote Management feature includes the capability to discover information about the workstation and to do some remote diagnostics and repairs on that workstation. As mentioned earlier, ZENworks Desktop Management introduces into the tree a new object representing the workstation. This object is associated with the physical desktop and is a repository for information about the specific desktop. The administrator can use this information in determining how to most effectively maintain and repair that desktop.
In addition to the introduction of the workstation object, the Remote Management feature of ZENworks Desktop Management provides the administrator with the capability of eDirectory Authenticated Remote Control. The eDirectory Authenticated Remote Control feature keeps anyone who does not have rights to remotely control a particular workstation from being able to do so. This assures administrators and end-users that only authorized personnel can remotely control their desktops. Should this extra security not be needed, ZENworks Desktop Management provides the capability to enact password-based remote control, and you can choose to encrypt remote control communications.
To help in workstation diagnostics and repair, Remote Management of ZENworks includes remote diagnostics and file transfer capabilities. For security reasons, these also require proper rights in the eDirectory tree or passwords to perform the tasks.
To assist in your diagnostics, ZENworks includes Instant Messenging that allows you to communicate with your users to assist in determining the issues and problems. The instant messaging system allows messaging between any of your eDirectory users.
ZENworks Desktop Management Remote Management features are currently provided for the Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP platforms.
ZENworks Server Management provides easier management of your server environments. With ZENworks Server Management, you can install applications and configure and manage your Windows, Linux, Solaris, and NetWare servers. ZENworks Server Management is broken into two major components: Policy and Distribution Services and Management and Monitoring Services.
ZENworks Policy and Distribution Services provides a highly scalable, bandwidth-aware transmission capability that can send configuration and file data to all the servers in your enterprise, or even across the Internet into a completely different environment.
ZENworks Distribution Services can package any content and compress it—encrypted if you want—and send that content efficiently to any number of servers. With advanced features such as checkpoint restart, bandwidth throttling, and digital signatures, ZENworks Distribution Services provides the most effective way to keep your data moving throughout the network.
ZENworks Management and Monitoring Services provides traditional SNMP management and monitoring. With ZENworks Management and Monitoring Services you can have the system watch your network traffic and servers and alert you should any threshold be reached. This allows you to respond to network needs before they become a problem.
ZENworks Management and Monitoring also manages any SNMP-enabled devices by allowing you to compile into the system any needed MIBs to provide management and trending analysis.
ZENworks Asset Management provides the ability to automatically discover devices on the network. After devices are discovered you can deploy specialized agents that scan for software and hardware components using a special fingerprinting technology to accurately determine bundles and suites on the devices. ZENworks Asset Management also includes the ability to track use of all software on each device and to reconcile licenses to those installed systems. Additionally, ZENworks Asset Management includes the ability to keep track of all changes in your system and generate reports that show you how your systems are evolving.
With ZENworks Asset Management you can keep track of these valuable resources and accruately understand where software is being used.
ZENworks Handheld Management is a system that provides delivery of security and configuration policies along with data and software to the PDA systems in your environment. ZENworks Handheld Management supports Palm, Windows CE, PocketPC, and Rim BlackBerry devices.
With ZENworks Handheld Management you can be sure that the corporate data stored on those PDA devices is secure and up-to-date.
Additionally, with ZENworks you can synchronize users’ passwords, ensuring that the password on their PDA devices matches their eDirectory passwords. And to help you with troubleshooting those devices, ZENworks even provides the ability to remote control online PDA devices.
In general, the new features for the entire ZENworks 7 family line now include support for Windows XP tablet, Windows XP SP2, SLES servers, and NetWare OES servers. With this release of ZENworks you can now support your Windows servers and desktops from a Linux server back-end.
The following sections briefly mention the new features that have been added in each of the components of ZENworks.
ZENworks Desktop Management continues to improve and add new features to help make Desktop Management more efficient. Like its predecessor, ZENworks 7 does not require NetWare or the Novell client on the workstations. ZENworks 7 only requires that an agent be present on the device. This agent performs all the functions that ZENworks provides.
The ZENworks Application Management agents have been enhanced for Applications to be able to deliver entire directories and subdirectories from the server to the workstation.
ZENworks Desktop Management 7 imaging system has been updated to use the latest Linux kernel. Not only is the update Linux kernel used in the imaging system, but the initial SUSE boot sequence is now being used for the booting of Linux on workstations. This allows you to have maximum support for more drivers and whenever SUSE adds a driver to the system, ZENworks will be updated as well.
The following new features for workstation inventory have been added:
Additional enhancements to the software dictionary and interface have been included.
Inventory of additional antivirus products including Symantec, Network Associates, Central Command, Sophos, and Trend Micro products.
Quick reports have been added that can quickly query your database and provide tabular output that can then be viewed, saved, or printed.
ZENworks Server Management has added the following capabilities:
Replication of Association attributes in application distributions. This allows you to synchronize and maintain whether an application should be shown on the Desktop, Start menu, or window on all your copies of an application across the tree.
Notification of when the maximum number of revisions is being approached. When the maximum number of revisions is achieved, ZENworks Server Management resends an entire package rather than just deltas. This can have significant bandwidth impact. By notifying you before this happens you can delay the distribution and prepare for the work.
Tiered-distribution visual presenation of distributions in the browser may now drill down into the extraction results. From the browser you can directly communicate with the remote system and discover if your distribution was successful and, if not, why.
ZENworks Handheld Management has added the following enhancements:
The ability to remote control a handheld device.
Access Point failover by introducing multiple Access Points and, when one is not available, automatically forwarding all handhelds to another in the system.
Password synchronization between eDirectory and the PDA device. When your password changes in eDirectory, it can automatically be synchronized and placed on the device as the device password.
Application and file uninstallation from the device.
Several components that accompany the ZENworks product have been updated. They include new ZENworks Patch Management, ZENworks Data Management, ZENworks Personality Migration, and ZENworks Software Packaging. Additionally, ZENworks now includes an Instant Messenger component. These are discussed briefly in the following sections.
ZENworks Patch Management is powered by PatchLink and tracks all the systems in your network and identifies all the patches that the systems require. Then, when you specify, the Patch Management server automatically transmits and installs all the approved patches to the systems that require them. With ZENworks Patch Management you can keep up with the many patches for your systems and get them where they need to be.
ZENworks Data Management is a delivery of Novell iFolder and provides synchronization and encryption of data from the workstation to a back-end web server. This way, all the user’s data is safely tucked back on the server and can be updated and restored to your workstations.
ZENworks Personality Migration is powered by Miramar and provides the capability to capture the unique configurations that a user performs on his system, making it his own. Personality includes settings, fonts, background bitmaps, dictionaries, browser favorites, and data files. ZENworks Personality Migration can capture all these settings and apply them to a newly restored or updated workstation.
ZENworks Software Packaging is a special ZENworks delivery of InstallShield’s AdminStudio. InstallShield AdminStudio ZENworks edition provides three components: Repackager, Tuner, and Distribution Wizard. The additional features of AdminStudio can be activated with an additional purchase.
The Repackager tool allows you to capture installations, much like snAppShot, but with additional features. The Repackager generates an MSI installation package that can be delivered to systems via ZENworks.
The Tuner tool allows you to construct Microsoft transform (MST) files to configure the installation of MSI files on workstations. Unique MST files can be created and delivered with the MSI files, giving a unique experience for each associated user or device. The Tuner may also be used to drill into, analyze, and modify MSI files directly.
Finally, the Distribution Wizard has been enhanced to deliver the MSI files to the ZENworks system, automatically creating application or distribution objects. The wizard copies the files to the servers and creates the objects associated with them.
An Instant Messaging component is now being delivered as part of ZENworks. This Instant Messager component is a delivery of GroupWise Instant Messenger. This messenger discovers the users in the directory and allows secure communication between two users. Unlike other instant messaging solutions, the GroupWise Instant Messenger ensures that the person to whom you are talking is who she says she is and all communications are encrypted to eliminate eavesdropping.
ZENworks is a complete management system that can help you become more effective and efficient in managing all the desktops, laptops, servers, and handheld devices in your environment.
The next chapters walk you through the steps that you need to follow to properly install ZENworks into your environment.