Novell to push new NDS role

Novell to outline metadirectory plans; Microsoft gets into metadirectory game with Zoomit buyout.

By JOHN FONTANA
Network World, 07/12/99

Novell and Microsoft are scrambling to fill gaping holes in their directory service strategies as they try to make their respective technologies cornerstones in enterprise network infrastructures.

Sources say that Novell this week will unveil a product that adds metadirectory functionality to Novell Directory Services (NDS). Microsoft positioned itself to add similar functionality to its forthcoming Active Directory last week by acquiring Zoomit, a leading metadirectory vendor.

Novell and Microsoft are jumping on metadirectory technology because it can synchronize disparate directories with each other and with an enterprisewide directory. Both vendors have lacked the technology until now.

Enterprise customers are demanding metadirectories to unify their directories, which can number into the hundreds.

At The Burton Group's Catalyst Conference this week in Lake Tahoe, Calif., Novell will unveil a standards-based metadirectory tool likely to be called Directory Integrator 1.0.

The tool, code-named Virtual Replica, will interconnect data from extranet, intranet and electronic commerce applications around a hub-and-spoke directory structure with NDS at the center.

Directory Integrator will use XML and Extensible Style Language to describe data in a common way between directories and applications. Using NDS replication, Directory Integrator will exchange data bi-directionally, allowing authoritative directories to maintain ownership of data. An important feature of the tool is that it will be able to replicate data in pieces. For example, a person's phone number could be replicated, but not his home address.

XML will be used for data conversion, data mapping and event mapping to create the "join" between directories, while NDS will manage the flow of data.

Directory Integrator also will make use of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol to link NDSto LDAP-compliant directories, such as Microsoft's Active Directory, Netscape's Directory Server, Oracle databases and metadirectory products from Isocor and Zoomit.

Novell is targeting Directory Integrator at enterprises with hundreds of directories. The product is expected to go into beta testing in the third quarter and ship sometime next year.

Novell's news comes on the heels of Microsoft's purchase of metadirectory vendor Zoomit for an undisclosed amount.

The purchase reflects Microsoft's newfound belief that Active Directory will not be the center of the universe and will have to work with other directories. "We understand it will be a heterogeneous environment for a while, and we are addressing that," says Peter Houston, lead product manager for Active Directory.

Microsoft plans to begin integrating Zoomit's Via 2.0 technology into Active Directory, but such integration will not be complete until sometime in 2000.

Zoomit's technology allows enterprisewide management of identity data, such as account information, passwords and access rights, stored in heterogeneous directory services. Zoomit's Via also helps manage access to application databases through a single interface.

"Identity management is what it's all about," says Don Bowen, directory architect for a large heavy-equipment manufacturer in the Midwest. "If you can't consolidate identities, you can't talk about higher-level functionality." Since late 1997, Bowen has been working on consolidating hundreds of directories in hopes of supporting e-commerce and other network applications.

With Novell and Microsoft going head-to-head in the metadirectory arena, some say Novell has the advantage.

"Novell's technology is a ways ahead of Microsoft's, but now Novell has to market it and increase its visibility," says Laura DiDio, an analyst with Giga Information Group.

Both vendors will have to deal with IT professionals who are increasingly directory savvy.

"Users are getting to the point of asking the hard questions about directories and realizing what they need to do and what it takes to do it," says Keith Hazelton, IT architect for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is wrapping up a project to link directories to support a photo ID application at the school.

To further the message that integration is key, a group of vendors led by Novell and IBM last week formed the Directory Interoperability Forum (DIF).

The goal of the forum, which includes Oracle, Isocor, Data Connection Limited and Lotus as members, is to speed the creation and extension of industry standards, notably LDAP. The group also wants to foster development and deployment of directory-enabled applications.

The forum has the support of 31 nonmembers, including AT&T, Lucent and Cisco. It plans to release tools by year-end to aid independent software vendors (ISV) in the creation of directory-enabled applications.

Absent from the list of members and supporters are Microsoft and Netscape, which began advocating open standards directories nearly three years ago.

Netscape officials say they were invited to participate, but declined noting that the group seemed counter to open standards development.