InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
June 1, 1998
Integrated Systems: Enterprise Harmony
continued...page 4 of 4
Z.E.N.works also provides remote viewing and troubleshooting. "We can control many of the functions of the workstation from Z.E.N.works," Tesenair says. "If an application is corrupted for some reason and a user calls in, we don't have to send a tech-support person out."
Tesenair estimates that the time to resolve help-desk problems has been cut by 60% since the test version of Z.E.N.works was rolled out. Also, because NDS provides a single point o f administration, he says, Health First has been able to keep its support staff fairly small--nine people, or one to every 388 users--without affecting the quality of end-user support.
Cross-Platform Control
More broadly, says Health First CIO Rogers, the directory is being used to manage platforms other than NetWare, helping to provide a unified view of the network. "We're starting to use NDS's LDAP capability to integrate other systems such as our intranet," Rogers says. "We're using Netscape Enterprise Server as our Web engine, and we'll be using LDAP to manage that."
While Health First is pleased with the performance of NDS for NT, which provides NT services, it does not have a way of managing Unix servers within NDS. Though Novell last year signed a spate of deals with Unix vendors for NDS support on their platforms, that push has lost momentum.
Sun and IBM have pursued their own LDAP directories and Hewlett-Packard has adopted Netscape's directory. Ultimately, cust omers will have to rely on LDAP and metadirectory products for interoperability, rather than pin their hopes on a universal directory from a single vendor.
New Frontiers
As the frontiers of E-commerce expand, so will the uses of directory technology. Current-generation directories provide excellent value just by fulfilling mundane tasks such as consolidating employee data.
Of course, the current technology has its limits: The LDAP standard, still evolving, provides the lowest common denominator for directory integration. Once metadirectories are more widely deployed, customers may discover a need for richer functionality than LDAP provides.
Moreover, the implementation of enterprisewide directories demand a considerable commitment of time and expertise--a commitment that may be beyond the grasp of smaller companies.
But LDAP products and metadirectories look like customers' best bet for now--at least until the next wave of technology brings new functionality at lower cost.
return to page 1 , 2 , 3
Read sidebar, " Directories And Digital Certificates ."
Read sidebar, " Directory Services For Network Management ."
Read sidebar, " A Brief History Of Directories ."
Illustration by David Chen
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