Apr. 07, 2000 (InternetWeek - CMP via COMTEX) -- Even as I was dinging Novell a
few weeks ago for not being loud enough in its marketing efforts, the company
was cooking up a marketing splash somewhere deep in Mormon country. EDirectory
for Windows 2000 arrived with a bang at this year's BrainShare.
Overall, Novell actually looks to be in good shape for once. Microsoft may have
a marketing advantage, but in light of its losing battle with the DoJ, I doubt
the company can afford to tie Active Directory as tightly to the Windows 2000
platform as it would like.
That leaves a neat gap for a quick competitor to exploit, and Novell is right
there with bells on...and a promise. True, NDS is here and working as well as
ever, but eDirectory for Windows 2000 didn't live up to its implied promise of
neatly joining AD and NDS into a single, easily managed system.
After quizzing some unsuspecting Novellites at BrainShare, one of our Reviews
staff spies reported back with the surprise finding that eDirectory not only
can't sync with AD, it can't even sync with NDS. You can import directory
information by the truckload, but you can't keep it automatically synched
between directories-and every instance of eDirectory effectively winds up acting
as an independent directory, not a consolidated whole.
This is where that promise comes in. In this instance, that promise is Novell's
DirXML, which, as its name implies, will be an XML network directory capable of
managing a single directory resource over any platform-Windows, NetWare, Solaris
and even Linux.
The idea is that departments standardized on one platform (like Windows NT, for
instance) will use the corresponding version of the eDirectory product to
install directory services. Later when all your NT, Win2000 and Linux users have
directories, you'll be able to use DirXML to tie all these disparate services
into a cohesive whole. What a pain. Why manage all these separate directories
when what you really want is only one?
That's bound to be an initial reaction, but there's no single directory service
available right now. Microsoft certainly isn't promising such a tool at any time
in the near future. Active Directory is strictly a Windows 2000 creature, and
Microsoft has released no tangible information that this will change.
Installing eDirectory really doesn't seem like such a bad idea. And there's no
requirement that you need to install everything right away. A test conversion
with eDirectory is a great idea, and if it works, maybe just your largest
departments can be migrated.
It's not a perfect world. But with nothing easier on the horizon, this may just
be the best directory bet around.
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