Novell: Towards Managing the Data Centre

Ovum, May 2009, Pages: 21

In 2007 Novell published a system management blueprint that highlighted the wide gap between its ambitions and its capabilities. In 2008 the company narrowed the gap, mostly via acquisitions. However, it still has a long way to go.

Executive summary
The Ovum view
SWOT analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Three product lines, 20% revenues
Three product lines
Attacking data centre management from three angles
ZENworks
PlateSpin
Managed Objects
20% of revenues
From 15 to 20% of revenues in three fiscal years
A difficult fiscal 2009 so far
Still the SRM BU is profitable
From blueprint to fulfilment
2007 - ITIL blueprint
Painting the big picture
Building on the efforts of other Novell BUs
2008 - First moves to deliver on the blueprint
Via acquisitions
Still some way to go
Data centre management
Technology and business angles
Federation
Workload management
Policy management
Open architecture
ZENworks: moving up - to a point
More clarity is required
Expanded offering
From desktop to server
From Windows to Linux
Into new domains
Into the data centre
Re-architected offering
Openness and integration (with Novell as third-party technologies)
Ongoing effort
Configuration management-centric vision
Expand the customer base
Better integrated
Key to data centre ambitions
Linux management: from ZENworks to PlateSpin
From YaST to ZENworks
Virtualisation management: from Linux to PlateSpin
PlateSpin: virtualisation-centric management
2008: Virtualisation focus
From Linux to SRM
A careful, solution-orientated approach to the data centre
Partners are key
PlateSpin evolution
From VMware to neutrality
From Windows to other OSs
From server virtualisation to other types of virtualisation
From RedMojo to FOSSA/Novell Architectural Foundations via PlateSpin
RedMojo orchestration/automation technology
From workload migration to workload lifecycle management
Ongoing FOSSA/Novell Architectural Foundations efforts
Managed Objects: linking the IT and business perspectives
A business approach to the data centre
Key challenges
Weaving Managed Objects’ capabilities into its offering
CMDB
Modelling
Analytics
Storage management
A catalogue of failures
Past: failure to build on NetWare’s strengths
Present: failure to move from OS to SRM
From OES to SLES
OES dynamic storage technology for NetWare users to move to Linux faster
From OES to SLES: Novell Storage Manager
SLES: cluster-related storage
Stalled open source plans
Not much on the SRM front yet

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