News
Novell to Provide Directory Services for W2K
- By Scott Bekker
- March 09, 2000
Novell Inc. (
www.novell.com) fired
another shot in the directory services war this week by introducing its NDS
eDirectory for Windows 2000.
Novell, which lost much of its NetWare network operating system market share
to Microsoft’s Windows NT, currently has the more robust directory services
business with Novell Directory Services (NDS). Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) very much wants to
encroach upon Novell’s directory business with its Active Directory technology
in Windows 2000. Microsoft and Novell have engaged in a war of news releases
and white papers over the last several months as Microsoft readied Windows 2000
and the Active Directory for release.
According to Novell, NDS eDirectory for Windows 2000 enables users to
consolidate the use, management, and control of resources both inside and
outside the firewall, while Microsoft’s Active Directory provides directory
support for managing Windows users and groups specific to Windows 2000 only.
Novell says its NDS eDirectory simplifies e-business by providing a
cross-platform infrastructure able to scale for high-volume Internet services
and that links all existing directories and underlying platforms in a network
and manages them from one central location. NDS eDirectory is a full-service
directory that will allow users to integrate their existing mix of Unix,
NetWare, Windows 2000 and Windows NT servers and clients under a single
directory structure.
A caveat is that Microsoft currently has NDS blocked from interoperating with the Active Directory. It's a relatively minor issue at this point, with so few enterprises having the Active Directory deployed.
Novell is beta testing a bi-directional replication tool dubbed "DirXML" that will allow NDS to play with Active Directory. Microsoft is also working on two similar tools that will probably ship with its Services for NetWare product.
NDS eDirectory is currently available. - Isaac Slepner
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.