July 18, 2006 Novell ® ZENworks ® Design and Best Practices.

July 18, 2006

Novell® ZENworks®Design and Best Practices

© Novell, Inc.

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Speakers

• Sam TessierZENworks Category SpecialistNorth East, USANovell, Inc.

• Mark SchoulsZENworks Product ManagerProduct EvangelistNovell, Inc.

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The Plan for this Session

• Take a look at the Novell® methodologies for building your solution architecture and properly implementing it in your live product environment.

• Discuss best practices for developing your architecture focusing on things that Novell recommends and things that just work!!

• Open forum

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With Novell® ZENworks® you can...

● Quantifiable return on investment● Complete lifecycle management● Policy-Driven Automation● Focus on your #1 asset – your users● ZENworks scales like no other Systems

Management product out there

Manage Your Entire Workforce

1Reduce Management Costs

2Maximize All Your Assets

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ZENworks® Desktop ManagementNovell® Methodology

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Novell® Methodology

DeploymentBusiness Assessment

Technical Assessment

Design Development & Testing

ZENworks® Desktop ManagementBest Practice Design and Architecture

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Design and ArchitectureThe Primary Principle

• Approach everything as a formal project, and assign a project manager

– Upgrade

– New implementation

– Migration

• Use this rule-of-thumb and win!!

– Roughly 80% of your efforts should be spent on designing your solution, and documenting it carefully

– Roughly 20% of your efforts should be spent on deploying, tweaking, and updating your documentation

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Design and ArchitecturePrinciples and Rules

• Structure your directory around the business, locations – but make sure you keep it simple

• Use the ZENMaster Container Structure to manage your applications portfolio

• Keep content close to users

• Choose a naming convention, document it, and stick with it for the long run

• Be consistent where you place your service objects

• Work to associate most applications to containers, workstations, or users

• Avoid the use of “Group” association

• Know your policies, and configure them well

• Centralize what you can… but be realistic

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Design and ArchitecturePrinciples and Rules

• Use a staging environment whenever possible

• Use Tiered Electronic Distribution (TED) to synchronize critical application source data, and application objects across the enterprise

• Separate your testing environment from your production environment

• Script and test your production applications outside of the production space

• Create addon images for all core business applications (applications that everyone is licensed to use) – treat all other applications as functional business application

• Organize your corporate applications into either core business applications or line of business applications

Production (Branch Location) Production (Headquarters)

Staging Environment1

2

3

4

Document everything!!!

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Design and ArchitectureRoaming Users

• Use the Middle Tier Server to manage your mobile workforce

– Use a Middle Tier Server or farm of Middle Tier Servers both inside the corporate boundaries, and within the DMZ resolvable from anywhere in the world

– Front your Middle Tier Server farms with an L4 switch if at all possible

– Resolve the DNS name of your Middle Tier Server farm to the internal farm or external farm, based on where the user is currently located

– Remember you need to do very little to tweak the web server – a Middle Tier Server can handle around 2,000 connections

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Design and ArchitectureSingle Tree or Multiple Trees?

• Depends on a number of things...

– Size of your organization

– Complexity of the solution architecture

– Your specific requirements

• Benefits

– Production is completely separate from change and configuration management, testing, and QA reducing the potential for downtime

– Avoid rigorous change management rules often found in the production file and print environment

• Cons

– More complex

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Design and ArchitectureRelease and Change Management Framework

• The framework consists of...– Formal methodologies for managing...

> Application standardization

> Formal QA/QC processes

– Methodologies map over to specific ZENworks® technology sets

– If you are familiar with ITIL, then you will understand this approach well

• Benefits include...– Reduced administrative overhead required to manage the corporate application

library and the replication of application objects to downstream sites.

– A formal QA process.

– Objects are neatly organized at each site, and containers do not end up cluttered.

– Administrators can go from one site or divisional container to another and know where all the sites objects will be located.

– Better security control, and less issues.

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Application Synchronization Flow

Design and ArchitectureRelease and Change Management Framework

Identify your QA process, and carefully document the following:

– Scripting environment

– Scripting methodologies

– QA process and flow of applications throughout the environment(s)

– Test cases (L1, L2, etc.)

– Documentation repositories

– Application owners

ScriptingEnvironment

Integration LabEnvironment

ProductionEnvironment

Core DocumentLibrary

Script applicationroutine

Silver Applicationmoved to the

Integration LabTree

Golden Applicationmoved to the

Production Tree

Test applicationscripting routine

Test applicationscripting routine

Select targetlocations forapplications

Pass? Pass?

Does app needmajor revision?

Discard applicationand run full

procedure again

Select targetlocations forapplications

Pass?

Test applicationscripting routine

Document applicationscripting results

and requirements

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Does app needre-documenting?

No Filed in documentlibrary

Yes

No

© Novell, Inc.

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Design and ArchitectureRelease and Change Management Framework

• The Release and Change Management Container structure contains the following characteristics...

– QA container structure to support testing within the production environment (does not have to be within the production tree)

– “Golden” or “Mint” container structure for the corporate application portfolio

– Applications are propagated from here

– Supports policy based automation

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Design and ArchitectureRelease and Change Management Framework

• The Release and Change Management Site Container structure contains the following characteristics...

– Consistent container structure for site-based applications and other objects...

> Policy objects

> TED objects

– The container structure should remain consistent at each location... design, and implement it once

– Supports policy based automation

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Sample ArchitectureCentralized or De-Centralized Administration

Layer 4 Switch

Head Quarters

Devices include:Laptops, workstations, handhelds and tablets

Tier 1Backend Systems

Tier 2Middle Tier

Server Environment

Branch OfficeTier 3

Branch Appliance Systems

WAN

T1

Single DNS Record

Layer 4 Switch Layer 4 Switch

Scripting Environment

Core Campus Locations

T1T1

T1

PublicInternet

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

Laptop PCsTablet PCs

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Methodologies and Approach

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AfterBefore

Windows XP + SP 2Compaq Presario X6000

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Franken Machine

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Dell Latitude D800

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Compaq Presario M2000

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Dell Latitude D600

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2IBM Thinkpad T41PAll Core Applications

2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Toshiba Tecra M2

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Windows XP + SP 2Sony VAIO T140

All Core Applications2 GB Total

Image ManagementModularize and Simplify

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Upgrading to the Latest ZENworks®

Simple Upgrade

• Usually means you only have one or two sites to upgrade

– Use the installer

• Start at the top, and work your way down

• The story stays the same

– Upgrade schema

– Upgrade the servers

– Upgrade your clients

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Upgrading to the Latest ZENworks®

Complex Upgrade

• Usually means you have a central location, and a number of remote locations

– Use the installer

– Use Tiered Electronic Distribution to automate the upgrade

• Start at the top, and work your way down

• The story stays the same (yet again)

– Upgrade schema

– Upgrade the servers (possibly automated?)

– Upgrade your clients

Open Discussion

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