Toy, I don't have the link for this news item, but would appreciate your comments on the snags developing between Tivoli and NDS integration -- and if in fact this is all true. TIA, QuadK
Tivoli Hit by Strategy Hitch
PCWeek UK
JD Mutland
January 12, 1999
Alliance with Novell backfires as systems are found to be incompatible.
A joint strategy by Tivoli and Novell to simplify network management has backfired, a top Tivoli boss admitted to PC Week.
The companies formed an alliance last year to integrate Tivoli Enterprise software with Novell Directory Services (NDS). Under the agreement, future versions of NetWare are to be made Tivoli-ready by providing a Tivoli Management Agent for NetWare.
However, Tivoli's technical evangelist told PC Week that the systems are fundamentally incompatible. This is a blow to users, many of whom would welcome integration between the management products.
Brian Alford, technical director for northern Europe at Tivoli, said: "The directory approach to managing a system is not necessarily the right way. Letting the network control your business conflicts with Tivoli's view, which is to allow the software to drive your business from the highest level, not from the ground up."
In a statement when the deal was struck in December, Novell and Tivoli claimed: "This product integration will reduce costs and greatly simplify network management for customers who bet their mission-critical business applications on Novell and Tivoli Enterprise investments."
The need for product integration was obvious. Hewitt Associates, a management consultancy with more than 70 offices worldwide, found difficulty in implementing NDS and Tivoli's Enterprise software.
"There is no automatic way for Tivoli to distribute software to an NDS workgroup, which has meant investigating and manually distributing software to each individual PC, and we have approximately 6,000 people at our headquarters in Illinois," said Karen Nicolson, IT projects manager at the firm's US headquarters.
Last year's deal was intended to solve such problems. But users will be left in the lurch if integrating the software proves too hard.
Derek Venter, product manager for NetWare and NDS at Novell, explained how different the systems are. "Tivoli monitors every device, element and process, every sub-system inside a server, it checks the temperature of the hard disk second by second," he said. "It does not work in the same way as NDS, which handles the day-to-day
running of the system."
Alford said: "This hybrid approach is not doing us any favours. Management from the network level is simpler and it could be that Tivoli's method is too advanced for what customers want."
Clive Longbottom, technical consultant at CSL Consultancy, commented: "Tivoli and Novell have formed this joint venture without fully testing how their products will integrate, and the ramifications of this for their customers could be sever." |
