With ZENworks for Desktops' application distribution, you can install applications on your workstations automatically rather than manually. And you can assign applications both to users and to specific workstations. The applications are self-healing, so if a workstation fails to run one, ZENworks re-installs it automatically.
You can also take inventory of your desktop hardware and software resources and run inventory-related reports. The product's imaging feature, meanwhile, lets you capture an image of a workstation and deploy that profile to other workstations.
We run ZENworks for Desktops at the University of WisconsinÐMadison's Computer-Aided Engineering Center to help manage more than 300 Windows 2000 workstations scattered around various computer labs. ZENworks for Desktops handles the university's Windows policies, applications and workstation user accounts. We're running version 3.2 of the product and plan to upgrade to version 4 this summer--after months of tests. Novell also now sells a single suite--ZENworks 6--that rolls ZENworks for Desktops 4 and all other ZENworks products into one.
Meditation and Installation
So how do you deploy ZENworks for Desktops? First, map out a plan. That means deciding whether to use the product's inventory tool, and if so, which databases you'll deploy, and whether to use Novell's server-management product, ZENworks for Servers. You also must decide whether to support client machines that don't run NetWare Client32. If so, you'll need ZENworks for Desktops' middle-tier server component.
If your workstations don't support the Preboot Execution Environment, you'll need a small Linux-based boot partition on each workstation so you can use ZENworks for Desktops' workstation imaging feature. PXE lets a workstation boot off the network before the OS initializes.
One big advantage of version 4 is that you can use it for managing Windows workstations even if you don't have NetWare. You will, however, need Novell's eDirectory, which comes with version 4, as well as DirXML to keep eDirectory in sync with your Active Directory installation. ZENworks for Desktops 4 comes with the same number of eDirectory licenses as its own licenses.
The inventory component is one of the product's more complex pieces because it offers several options for inventory storage. In large or distributed environments, you can capture inventory data on a local copy of the inventory database and then replicate it on a central database. A smaller site instead could configure ZENworks for Desktops' inventory tool for a single database server. You can store your inventory data on the Sybase database that comes with all versions of ZENworks for Desktops--on NetWare or Windows NT/2000 platforms--or on Oracle 8i server on NetWare, NT, Linux or Solaris servers. ZENworks for Desktops also supports SQL 2000.
The product's middle-tier component lets desktops without a NetWare client get access to eDirectory information, such as the application objects and ZENworks for Desktops policies. If you don't need NetWare Client32, remove it and use the ZENworks management agent.
The middle-tier server can run on NetWare 5.1, NetWare 6 and Windows 2000 with Microsoft Internet Information Server. Beware, however, that running the middle-tier server on NetWare might entail additional configuration because NetWare 5.1 and above require an Apache Web server. If you don't have Apache running, you'll need to install it. If you run both Apache and Netscape's Web server, Netscape by default will use Port 80 and you can put Apache on any other port.
This dual-Web server mode can cause end users trouble if they're installing their own workstation-management agents: The management agent uses Port 80 as a default. Check which port Apache is using by looking at the SYS:Apache\conf\adminserv.conf file. You'll see Port 80, Port 51080 or the port you specified when installing NetWare. Port 51080 is the default value when both Netscape and Apache are installed. If you're not using the Netscape server, move the Apache server configuration to Port 80 for the middle-tier server. That will simplify installing the client component because Port 80 is its default, too. If you leave the Apache server running on Port 51080, meanwhile, specify that same port for the management agent.
With or without the much-reviled NetWare client on your workstations, you still will need ZENworks' management agent for the client machines. You can place it on a Web page so users can install it themselves, or if you have ActiveDirectory, you can "push" it out to desktops from the directory.
The management agent lets a workstation authenticate to the middle-tier server to get all ZENworks for Desktops' features. If you use the NetWare client on your workstations, make sure you install the NetWare client first, then the ZENworks for Desktops management agent. We still have NetWare-based applications at the university, so we don't plan to remove NetWare Client32 from our workstations.
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