Blog

We had two more sessions today. In the morning we held our final Novell File Reporter session. It was well attended, and once again, we got a few attendees to stop by our Novell File Reporter station at IT Central for a demonstration. Of the people that I have demonstrated the product to, it's been evenly split between those that need the product for the file data reporting, and those that need it for the security reporting. One thing I noticed is that IT people in all industries are impressed with the capabilities of Novell File Reporter 2.0.

There was a contest among all of the people manning the Novell stations on who could get the most "hot leads." Our own Rich Lagger took the challenge quite seriously. He was constantly talking to people about Novell Storage Manager, Novell File Reporter, Novell Kanaka for Mac, and even convincing many Novell customers why they needed to upgrade to Novell Open Enterprise Server 11.

Rich ended up winning the contest by an overwhelming margin and was awarded a PowerTrip device.

At 4:30 PM, while some of us were breaking down the IT Central stations, others were conducting our last Novell Storage Manager session.

It was another great experience this year to participate in BrainShare. We saw some old friends, made some new ones, and introduced people to some great new products.

The morning started off with the keynote address. Novell Storage Manager and Novell File Reporter were featured during a skit. Among all of the items that were provisioned and set up for a new employee, a network home folder was provisioned through Novell Storage Manager and she was assured that no one had access to her files through a Novell File Reporter report. Here is a picture I took of one of the big screens of "Bob" the IT guy helping out the new employee on the phone.

Our first presentation of TT165-Novell File Reporter 2.0: The Next Generation of File System Reporting was held this morning. We had a good turnout and a few of the people in that session visited us later at our Novell File Reporter station at IT Central to get a hands-on demonstration of the product. We also participated with Session CAS262 - Simplifying Data Migration with Novell Storage Manager with our friends at Novacoast. The main part of the session was a demonstration of Cross-Empire Data Migration, which migrates Novell files and associated rights and trustee assignments to Microsoft.

We also had a busy day in IT Central, where we are demonstrating Novell File Reporter 2.0, Novell Storage Manager 3.1, and Novell Kanaka for Mac.

Tomorrow we are having our first Novell Storage Manager session: TT275 - Novell Storage Manager: Governing Data in Novell and Microsoft infrastructures.

We're happy to announce that the eagerly-awaited release of Novell File Reporter 2.0 took place last Friday. In coordination with the release, we also released Novell Storage Manager 3.1.

Novell File Reporter 2.0 is a complete re-architecture of its predecessor featuring a new interface, database, and a variety of new report types. A collection of new Permissions reports can significantly help customers address corporate compliance requirements and close potential security loopholes that are a result of the constant growth of unstructured data (files and folders) in the data center. For example, you can now quickly identify which users have access to a particular folder or file on the network and how those users obtained that access. You can also identify all of the files and folders a particular user has rights to on the network.

But Permissions reports, are only one of a variety of report classifications which include Directory Data reports, File Data reports, and Trending reports.

Novell File Reporter lets you report on the content of storage devices that reside in eDirectory and Active Directory—at the same time! That means, for example, that your customized report can specify the file content of NetWare and OES volumes, along with the file content of Windows shares and NAS devices in Active Directory.

You'll be hearing a lot more about Novell File Reporter 2.0 during the marketing launch activities that will be taking place right after Novell BrainShare. If you are attending BrainShare, be sure to attend one of the many sessions on Novell File Reporter and look for the Novell File Reporter 2.0 article in the BrainShare edition of Open Horizons magazine.

Novell Storage Manager 3.1 is an integrated update to Novell File Reporter 2.0. If you have both product updates, you can have Novell File Reporter generate reports on storage devices that are part of Novell Storage Manager policies.

Additionally, Novell Storage Manager 3.1 includes mobile management capabilities from an iOS or Android device, a new Network Operations Center dashboard, and some new pre-migration and post-migration tools for large Cross-Empire Data Migration projects.

Novell File Reporter 2.0 product download.

Novell Storage Manager 3.1 product download.

Novell File Reporter 2.0 documentation.

Novell Storage Manager 3.1 documentation.

The Novell video production team has completed the production work on the video of David Condrey introducing Novell File Management Suite. You can view the video here.

Novell Cool Solutions published a technical article yesterday that talks about simplfying data migrations using Novell Storage Manager. The article provides detailed steps on migrating home and group folders by changing the target path and then slecting Enforce Policy Path, as well as steps for migrating home and group folders from Novell networks to Microsoft networks using Cross-Empire Data Migration.

You can read the article here.

Condrey Corporation Director of Project Management Ed Shropshire gave a presentation this afternoon on Novell Storage Manager.

Because the Novell TTP group is made up of people in education, many of the session attendees were longtime Storage Manager customers. Novell Storage Manager is prevelant in education sites because it is a quick and cost effective means of provisioning student and faculty home directories at the beginning of the school year. Another resaon it is so popular in schools is because it allows administrators to easily create electronic virtual classrooms where teachers can distribute homework through a network homework folder and students can trun in assignments through a personal "turn-in" folder. For more information, see Chapter 7 in the Novell Storage Manager 3.0.x for eDirectory Administration Guide or the Novell Storage Manager 3.0.x for Active Directory Administration Guide.

Ed Shropshire will be presenting Novell File Reporter tomorrow morning.

Today Condrey Corporation released Aurora

Using Microsoft Active Directory, an authenticated Aurora user is granted access to all of the storage areas to which the user has rights. This includes access to the user’s home folder and group share storage areas.

Using a Web browser, a user first authenticates to Active Directory through an HTTPS connection. The same Web browser then launches an interface that serves as the means of downloading individual files or folders. Additionally, the Aurora user interface lets users upload files, rename files and folders, create folders, delete files and folders, and copy files.

In addition to the default Web browser access method, Condrey Corporation engineers are presently developing additional access methods. These will include access for mobile devices, Windows desktops, and Mac desktops. Additionally, we will also be introducing a file sharing module.

While offered as an individual product, Aurora is also a component of Condrey Corporation’s File Access 360°— a comprehensive suite of identity-based technologies designed to enable, simplify, extend, and manage network file access in Microsoft Active Directory networks.

We've recently completed three product updates that are all now available for download.

Novell Kanaka for Mac 2.7 now supports Novell login script parsing, has enhanced SSL certificate management, and supports container based collaborative storage. If you are a Novell Open Enterprise Server customer and are up to date on your Maintenance, you can download the new product for free at www.novell.com/center.

File System Factory for AD 3.0.4 includes enhanced SSL certificate management, support for IBM Hierarchical Storage Management for Windows, and enhanced support for Microsoft Distributed File System. You can download the lastest version here.

Novell Storage Manager 3.0.4 includes updates to both the eDirectory and Active Directory versions of the product.

For Novell eDirectory networks, Novell Storage Manager includes support for Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 and enhanced SSL certificate management.

For Microsoft Active Directory networks, Novell Storage Manager includes enhanced SSL certificate management, support for IBM Hierarchical Storage Management for Windows, and enhanced support for Microsoft Distributed File System.

You can download the latest version here.

Condrey Corporation will be introducing a new product that greatly simplifies Web publishing and management. Pointspin™ enables users and groups in an organization to publish and host Websites from the confines of their server-based network storage. With Pointspin, the process is as simple as a user placing Website content in a designated folder. Once placed in the folder, the new or updated Web content is published immediately. Pointspin includes an encapsulated Webserver that can be deployed in either a Microsoft or Novell network. Novell customers who have migrated to Open Enterprise Server might be especially interested in Pointspin because it provides the Web publishing capabilities that were previously available to them from the Apache MOD_EDIR module for NetWare. With Pointspin, now Novell customers who have transitioned from NetWare to Open Enterprise Server will again be able to publish static Websites from their Novell network. Pointspin:

• Publishes static Web pages from Web content located on the network
• Automates Web publishing by simply placing content in designated folder
• Simplifies Website administration with an encapsulated Webserver
• Supports password protected Website access
• Simplifies publication through an easy-to-use submission tool

Because of Pointspin’s low annual subscription price for an unlimited amount of users, we anticipate initial interest from academic customers.