New primer on Directory Enabled Networks
 
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I've talked (some would say preached) about the Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) initiative quite a bit over the past two years. For those of you who weren't paying attention, DEN is not part of the Common Information Model of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). DEN is primarily interested in creating ways for hardware and its associated parameters (such as quality of service and policy-based management) to be integrated with and controlled from the directory.
I was pleased to see that a new book, called - strangely enough - Directory Enabled Networks, has recently been published by MacMillan Technical Publishing. Written by Cisco's John Strassner, this is the definitive guide to DEN. After all, John almost single-handedly shepherded the initiative from its beginnings as an ad-hoc working group through its incorporation by DMTF.
No one understands DEN better than Strassner, and few could explain it as well. As Fred Baker says in the foreword to the book: ". . . [Strassner] makes it understandable to all who need to understand; not only the technical wizard, but the technical middleman who must deploy it, and the manager who must describe his policies in a manner that the network can implement."
This is a tour-de-force, starting with the very beginnings of DEN, moving through the initial specifications and on to DEN's present and future.
Anyone who has anything to do with enterprise network management, or enterprise directory management, needs this book on their bookshelf.
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Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. His most recent book is "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks" published by SAMS. Dave's company, Virtual Quill, provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more at Virtual Quill or by e-mail at info@vquill.com
Directories archive
Past newsletters.
Network World, 12/20/99.
Novell to push NDS as Internet directory linchpin
Network World, 11/15/99.
From Interop: There was progress on Directory Enabled Networks
Network World, 09/29/99.
The discomfort of DEN
Network World, 09/27/99.
