ZENworks did not burn up our test track for bitmap and file transfer and got no rave reviews on the memory requirements for the Novell Client software. But it did receive our top score in the network-management category and got high marks for security in its 128-bit NICI cryptographic modules.
After installing the NetWare server and ZENworks, we installed ConsoleOne 1.3.2, the software required to administer ZENworks. ZENworks uses policies grouped into packages to manage desktops. By default, there are a number of packages designed to manage users and workstations. Any these packages can contain the Remote Management Policy that enables remote control. This policy decides on the availability of remote-control features, such as chat, diagnostics, file transfer and viewing. We enabled the Remote Management Policy in the WinNT-2000 Workstation Package and associated it with our NetWare 5.1 server.
Unlike the previous versions of ZENworks, 3.2 provides an easy method to import workstations into the NDS tree for management. We activated a workstation import policy within a server policy package, associated it with our server then set a DNS alias for the server as ZENWSIMPORT. Once a user logs into the NDS tree with the Novell Client 32 and Remote Management service, his or her workstation is added to NDS for management and is ready to be controlled from the ConsoleOne screen.
The Event viewer provides detailed logs of all remote-control activities, and each host can view its remote-control history by clicking on the remote management icon in the taskbar. Also present is a "ping the remote managed machine" option, which we feel is superfluous and should have been replaced by a more useful feature, like the scanning option found in NetSupport Manager.
ZENworks provides some impressive inventory information. Specifically in regard to remote control, there is a diagnostic feature for the remote workstation. The information is separated into two parts, OS and network information. The OS diagnostics report on the memory, environment, device drivers and services running on the event log. The network diagnostics give information on the NetWare connections, network drives, print capture information and protocol information.
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