| Making Linux and Windows network management easy |
Aug. 23, 2006
OK, "easy" really isn't the word for heterogeneous network management. Still, with the right tools, managing Windows and Linux systems on a LAN can go from dragging blocks, to building a pyramid, to using wheels to move those massive stone blocks.
Over at Linux-Watch's sister publication, eWEEK, we recently reviewed Centeris' Likewise Management Suite 2. This is a management program for Windows Server 2003 and W2K server managers who know how to snap an AD (Active Directory) whip, but aren't too clear on Linux management details.
It works well on the Red Hat family -- RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4), Fedora 4 (including CentOS 4.2) -- and on SUSE Linux. On the Debians, however, it's another story.
The Debian Linux family is popular with users, but it's still not covered well by tier-one network management tools.
There's also one change on Likewise's Windows side that I don't quite get. In the past, you used the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) to run things. Now, you use user interface components that resemble the Windows tools. And, the point is?
The whole idea is to make it easy for Windows-savvy network administrators to run Linux systems. At the level of detail that Likewise works, why not just let them continue to use the MMC. They already know it, and it works at this level. What's the problem?
Likewise is also not, in my opinion, the equal of Centrify Corp.'s Centrify DirectControl Suite 3.
Centrify takes the same basic idea -- use AD to let Windows administrators work with Linux without requiring them to learn a new management program -- and then expands on it. With Centrify, you can also oversee and administrator JEE (Java Enterprise Edition) and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) applications.
Since I first looked at it in late-beta, I've used it myself, and I have to say I like it. I run a small LAN of twenty PCs and five servers. On it, I have half-a-dozen different Linux desktops, along with Vista, Windows XP, and Media Center PCs. For servers, I have SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) 10; RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 4; Windows 2000; and Windows Server 2003.
It's quite a mix, and to run it all, I have to say that Centrify is my favorite AD-based management suite. Now, if you're not already in love with AD for administration -- and personally I'm not -- Novell's ZENworks 7 is my favorite program.
While ZENworks doesn't look and feel like most AD-based admin programs, you can use it with AD as well as Novell's own eDirectory. It also, unlike these other two programs, gives you a great deal more information and control over your network and its systems.
For example, ZENworks incorporates Tally's Census software and hardware inventory collection functionality. To date, I haven't found any PC-based system from which the Census function couldn't pull out its accurate inventory information. Fedora, Debian-based, Vista, whatever, if I wanted to know what was what on a system, it could give me the answers. And, in my LAN where everything is always changing -- or in an office where you never know what the users might be trying to sneak onto their PCs -- this is an invaluable function.
So, if you're going to be running Windows and Linux on your LAN, and most of you probably will be, soon, if you're not already, and you live and die by AD management, I'd say give Centrify a try. If, on the other hand, you're willing to expand beyond your AD ways, ZENworks is the current best of breed.
Last, but never least, all of these are just tools. Sooner or later, if you're running a hybrid network, you'll need to get your hands dirty and know the ins and outs of each operating systems' native tools. With these administration programs, however, you'll be able to do your day to day management work while learning what you need at your own pace to deal with the more complicated matters that are sure to pop up in any complex network environment.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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