By: investor.calm
Reply To: None Friday, 25 Feb 2000 at 6:19 PM EST
Don't Get MAD, Get NDS
This might be a tad dated, but I wrote this in nwfusion forum about a year ago. In many ways it's even truer now...
Don?t Get MAD, Get NDS
In this techno-adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen?s The Emperor's New
Clothes, a gullible technology officer is wooed by a crafty vendor into waiting
years for an enterprise solution that?s woven out of nothing more than linked
domains and exquisite trust relationships?all without a single login or a shred of
eased administration.
Even though it was only mid-morning, Bob had already had a tough day. On his
way to work, he didn?t yield to traffic at an on ramp to the Interstate, and crashed
his car. Unhurt, he told coworkers he never saw the bright red Porsche Boxster
next to him (even though he was actually racing his ?94 Ford like a teenager).
An ambitious technology officer, Bob has been hotly pursuing a deluxe corner
office and his own washroom with custom wallpaper. He has been preparing for a
high-level meeting to recommend that his growing organization purchase a
mission-critical networking product for the enterprise: Microsoft 2000, with
Microsoft Active Directory (MAD). It still isn?t available yet, but today he?s well
armed with pain relievers and Microsoft?s vision of the enterprise directory space.
He has their recipe for making the product work when it eventually arrives.
There?s a developer interface. There?s a beta release. He?s read some things
about it in the trade magazines, and it looks pretty good on paper. What?s more,
besides waiting for MAD to arrive, he has been waiting for this particular
meeting?and the corner office?for several years. He also has a slight
headache.
Looking for any late-breaking information, he turned to the Internet for the latest
ZDNet article about Microsoft?s beta release of the Active Directory Services
Interface (ADSI). He wasn?t happy to read that one Microsoft solution provider,
who wouldn?t let himself be identified, said that Active Directory, as it exists in
Beta 2 [of NT 5.0] is still "way not cooked." His mood didn?t improve when he
read that the solution provider said his company was having trouble doing
advance NT 5.0 applications development because of the rudimentary stage of
much of the NT 5.0 code?especially the crucial Active Directory component.
"Just what we don?t need," he thought to himself as he closed his browser.
To support his recommendation without actual proof of the product?s performance
and reliability, he packed his briefcase with MAD road maps, bogus benchmark
data from Mindspring, MAD position papers and elaborate installation/migration
documentation. To demonstrate MAD?s broad industry support, he also included
a list of companies (some of whom are competitors) who have also gone MAD
waiting to implement it. He has key executives and employees in marketing
supporting him. They have pledged allegiance and are determined to make it
work when it finally ships. He?s heard there?s been grumbling in the IS
department. But, in his mind, their concerns didn?t concern him.
"At least I?ve been feeding my staff on the stuff," he sniffed as he snapped his
briefcase shut.
Buoyed by a couple of aspirin and Microsoft?s flowery promises of future
productivity gains and robust network manageability, Bob was confident and
whistling his alma mater?s football fight song as he stepped into the elevator on
his way down to the meeting room.
In preliminary meetings, Bob has been the most vocal advocate of MAD. Asked
when the product will ship, dates have continued coming and then passing?still
with nothing, except very thin, buggy betas, on the horizon. In fact, over the last
two-and-a-half years, it has become pretty obvious to Bob and nearly everyone
on the committee that basic structural development issues have put significant
hurdles in front of Microsoft Active Directory (MAD) and are key reasons the
product won?t be available for at least another year. But, plagued by expensive
security and domains management difficulties in Windows NT Server 4.0, he and
most of the committee have bet the network (and his corner office) on NT 5.0 and
MAD, nevertheless.
Bob doesn?t realize he?s taken up biting his fingernails lately, either. Even though
he realized a couple of weeks ago that integrating their NT domains into an X.500
hierarchical directory without dumping their Unix boxes and forcing costly NT
server upgrades will be extremely difficult. And that the new offering will be only
partially based on the hierarchical directory structure found in Microsoft
Exchange. And that it will only offer a rehash of NT 4.0?s domains structure,
which will still require the administration and maintenance of trust relationships.
He also doesn?t realize his headache is about to get even worse.
Stepping off the elevator and into the product review meeting, he handed out a
small mountain of Microsoft collateral, along with a handful of partnering vendor
quotes and sneak previews of MAD from trade magazines. With little third-party
evidence to support his recommendation, his presentation opened and closed
with Microsoft-powered logic. He demonstrated the beta version of Windows NT
5.0 and laughed when it got a little buggy. The demonstration was painful:
painfully slow in presentation, flaky in stability?and slow as molasses.
After the demo, Bob?s insistence that Microsoft is re-defining the directory
services arena and upping the ante was met with icy silence from committee
members. This was a Microsoft-spawned product pitch at its most miserable,
with Bob stating and then re-stating all of the well-known Microsoft platitudes as
though addressing an uncritical audience. (Which this one wasn?t.) When he
finished his presentation, he called on those present for questions?not his first
mistake of the day.
Before he had even taken his seat, the first question asked was when MAD
would be available.
"After the next beta release," said Bob casually.
"When?s that?" came a voice from the contingent of network administrators and
system operators who sat together near the back of the conference room.
"Well," said Bob, "It?s beginning to look a lot like 2000."
A request for a cost study went completely unanswered. "I?ll have to get back to
you on that," Bob said. Hardware upgrade questions yielded few concrete
answers, as well.
"How much will MAD reduce administration tasks on the network?" asked
another administrator.
"We have to wait and see," Bob said.
"Have you compared MAD with other established directory services?" questioned
another.
The atmosphere in the room was decidedly expectant. "Not exactly," said Bob.
Asked directly about competitive offerings such as Novell Directory Services, the
technology officer said to no one in particular that he "couldn?t understand the
value of NDS in a Microsoft-only environment."
Upon hearing this, his peers and some of his over-worked subordinates (who
actually run their company?s huge and growing network) were incredulous. They
began openly, and sarcastically, questioning his decision:
"What about S/390 and RS/6000 boxes? Unix? HP? NetWare? Whose
environment do you suppose they?re in?"
It was turning a little ugly, even. Discussion after heated discussion followed.
And after finally admitting that their network was indeed pervasively multi-vendor,
Bob, who had leapt more than once to his feet during the fracas, sat down angrily
in his seat, biting his fingernails and muttering things about ?nerds? and ?geeks? to
himself.
After making sure everyone in the room had seen six years of positive press,
glowing acknowledgments, industry shoot-outs, awards, and a stack of
third-party test results about NDS, Norman, a normally quiet, reserved network
administrator stood to address those present. He wasted no time condemning
the technology officer?s arrogance.
"Ignoring a proven, best-of-breed global directory from another vendor means we
are wasting human resources, boatloads of money, network bandwidth and huge
new hardware investments in the process. What?s more, we?re betting this
network?s operability on a product that is years behind schedule, over a year from
release and, even then, won?t be improving any enterprise network until the next
century."
When he paused, there was complete silence, except for a "Right on!" shouted
from the back of the room.
Norman, feeling even bolder, stepped up his diatribe against MAD.
"If MAD becomes a reality in this enterprise, there will be problems for thousands
of end users, and also for managers, help desks, system administrators, remote
users and customers. And they aren?t going to be happy with the results.
Because, even after installing and migrating users, burning budget to upgrade our
software and hardware, shattering old domains and building new ones?doing all
the things that are supposed to make the network more responsive and
competitive?we won?t be getting anywhere near the results you?ve been
maniacally promoting."
Bob looked narrowly at the administrator, and at others around the room, in
horror and disbelief. There were titters of laughter in the room. With this, Bob
turned a noticeable shade of crimson red. But before Bob could respond, Norman
pressed on, saying, "By ignoring a pile of convincing evidence that Novell?s
offering is the only intelligent enterprise-level directory, you are backing MAD for
the least justifiable of reasons."
"Oh really? Why is that?" said Bob, fearing the worst.
Pausing for greatest effect, Norman said, "It?s because Microsoft hires great
writers, and because what you?ve been reading about MAD is all written in the
present tense. Can?t you see that this is classic vaporware?"
Norman (who obviously mixed some classic literature into his diet of InfoWeek
and Windows Magazine) pointed to Bob and continued, saying, "Getting MAD on
this network will not be unlike the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes. Do you
really want to be that guy?"
Ending his presentation with this literary gem, Norman took his seat,
accompanied by murmurs of approval and outright applause from the back of the
room. Bob, who could see the writing on the wall, knew he was toast. By then it
was obvious to everyone that the reasons for MAD?s inability to deliver reliable
enterprise-level directory performance had long been known by Bob and shared
among other high-level decision makers in the company, but were being
consciously, or unconsciously, ignored. And that one autocratic decision about
MAD had nearly caused their network to stumble into the future of computing
looking and performing as a jumble of disparate, blue-tinged electronic villages
and huts. Even as tens of thousands of companies with mixed, distributed
networks and real global directory services around theirs were scaling?and
prospering.
Did the embarrassed Bob wind up in the corner office? Not in this company. His
pride and reputation?and car?severely dented, he wound up in the
basement?really far from where thoughtful, rational, executive-level IT decisions
are made. Our bookish network administrator, Norman? He got the office?and a
raise for all the dough he saved the company. Why? Because, in Norman?s own
far-sighted words, "?skyrocketing costs in networks dictate the need for an
intelligent, long-term directory solution."
End
For today and into the future, the logical decision is to choose directory and
network services whose ambitions are not to dominate, but rather to serve the
enterprise. Novell understands the limitations of NT Server and will provide the
same robust, fault-tolerant, scalable directory solution found on NetWare?a
proven solution that has already scaled beyond 50 million NDS users.
Regardless of whether their applications are NT- Unix- AIX, HP-UX or
NetWare-based, developers are increasingly opting to deploy NDS-enabled
applications because it is already proven in thousands of large networks for
providing robust security, ease of administration, manageability and
interoperability in heterogeneous environments, including the Internet.
But of course, if you?ve read this far, you probably already know that. Even if your name isn?t Norman.
Go NOVL!
~investor.calm
ragingbull.com |
