End-user Computing

Join Bill Callero and Doug Ouzts to gain a more complete understanding of the Novell File Management Suite. This suite is often misunderstood as simply a storage play; it does so much more. Customers can gain control of their unstructured file by utilizing the audit, compliance and policy capabilities this suite delivers.

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• End-User Computing

The Vibe Desktop and Microsoft Office Add-in deliver new capabilities to Vibe that expand its usefulness in the workplace. Join Tracy Smith to learn how these new capabilities fit into the message you can take to our customers.

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• Web Best Practices

We are pleased to announce that GroupWise 2012 is now available!

Press releases were issued Monday!!! Communication activities and a community celebration was held in Long Beach, California in conjunction with the GWAVACon event. The product is available on download.novell.com today and in your Novell Customer Center.

Evaluation Copy too!

GroupWise 2012 marks the beginning of our new commitment to more frequent, customer-focused releases. End-user productivity remains a hot button for today's organizations, and our focus in GroupWise 2012 on 1) simplifying everyday email and calendaring tasks, 2) enhancing mobile collaboration, and 3) bringing social collaboration tools into the GroupWise interface is resonating very well with our customers.

New features to learn and share with customers and end-users include the following:

1. iPad web templates that give users the ability to access their GroupWise data on today's hottest mobile device, and IT a simple way to support them.
2. A complete WebAccess refresh featuring a more current look and feel, recurring appointments, graphical busy search, column sorting, contact photos, cross-client signatures and more.
3. Calendaring enhancements that streamline common scheduling tasks like delegating appointments, editing appointments, setting recurring appointments, and managing multi-user calendars.
4. Integrations with Novell Vibe and Skype that bring external and social collaboration capabilities right into the familiar GroupWise interface
5. Simplified ways to find and share information, including shared folder trees, easier attachment editing, and a new "relevance" sorting engine that presents your most-used contacts, folders and categories first.

Not only do we have a strong release to offer today; we have a robust roadmap (for GroupWise and the products in our collaboration portfolio) that will help us meet customer needs more effectively than ever before. In fact, there's every reason to remember why GroupWise was a solid investment when you made it, and why it remains so today. To assist you, we've produced a collection of resources--including a dynamic roadmap application you can point to and that you can access using the links below.

Web Resources:

• Refreshed Web Site

Collateral and Tools:

• Flyer
• Data Sheet
• Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade
• Community Chat Webcast

Videos and Demos:

• Animated Product Demo
• "Dispersed Information: 2-Minute Demo
• "Cross-Organizational Scheduling" 2-Minute Demo
• "Managing Tasks" 2-Minute Demo
• "Leveraging Contacts" 2-Minute Demo

GroupWise Training Promotion

Train your GroupWise Admins and Get End-User Training FREE!! Check out the new training offerings from Novell and BrainStorm. Novell is offering several dates where you can have hands-on training that gets your administrators and users up to speed on all of the productivity enhancements that are part of GroupWise 2012. Courses include a "Moving to GroupWise 2012" session which is two days and introduces all of the new features. "Novell GroupWise 2012 Advanced Administration" which is great for new email administrators as well as your seasoned professionals. This is a four day course that will prepare your team to move to GroupWise 2012 and get the most out of your investment. We also have a "Getting the Most out of the GroupWise 2012 Client" which is a two hour online course that is perfect for end-users who are not leveraging all of GroupWIse today and is also perfect opportunity to learn what’s new.

There are several upcoming dates and opportunities for your organization to plan their GroupWise 2012 upgrade and be prepared to upgrade, roll out and train!

Check out this link for all of the details.

Interactive Roadmap

I am very excited to introduce you to our latest tool. The Interactive Roadmap application that allows you to stay informed about what products we have delivered, which support packs and hot patches are currently available for your version of the product and most important – what is coming and when! The roadmap application will be your way to see what the engineering and product management teams have in store for GroupWise, Messenger and Mobility. We will add other products later.

We want to be as transparent as possible on what our current thinking, priority and expectations are for features, release dates and solutions. Of course, these are plans and plans can change….which is why this application is so useful. Bookmark this link and visit often to see the progress we are making, the latest available patches and when your feature is expected to be delivered!!

Dynamic GroupWise Roadmap Application

GroupWise 2012 Launch Party

If you were unable to attend GWAVACon, Torrance, you missed an awesome party!! We celebrated the release of GroupWise 2012 with a launch party on the Queen Mary for all attendees of GWAVACon! It was a blast!! Bob Flynn gave the keynote, we had fun losing "Novell" money in gambling games, with a Chinese New Year theme and great prizes from our sponsors/partners. We leveraged some of the new technology and features of GroupWise 2012 by having one of our customers in Germany and the VP of Engineering at Novell, Dave Wilkes, Skype into the party and talk to the crowd...live!

There was plenty to eat and drink and it was a great party with a unique community feel. Check out some of the videos and pictures!! Join in the social part of this product by checking out these Twitter and FaceBook accounts!! as well as this fun video of the party, the event and the customers who attended.

GroupWise_Info Twitter Account
FaceBook Account
GWAVACon Video

So enjoy in the fun! Share your story! Tweet when you are planning on upgrading to GroupWise 2012!!

Dean

• End-User Computing

I am pleased to announce "Novell Kanaka for Mac" for all Open Enterprise Server customers. The powerful combination of Novell Kanaka for Mac and Open Enterprise Server deliver the worlds best Mac file sharing solution for Corporate enterprises and Educational institutions.

Kanaka benefits include

- Single Sign-on to OES file shares / homedirectory
- New Group home directory allows easy mounting of group shares
- Mobility - allows users to edit files offline and sync to the network
- Store desktop settings on the network
- Ability to use AFP or CIFS protocols, with cross-protocol file locking

Novell Kanaka for Mac is available at no additional charge for current OES customers on Maintenance. The solution works with OES11, OES2, and can also work with NetWare ( with the agent running on OES).

With the features of the Kanaka client, the native Apple File Protocol Support, and the scalability/performance of users all provided with Open Enterprise Server, there is no better solution in the industry for supporting Mac users on the network. Later this year, you will also see Kanaka integrate with iPrint and the Zenworks Agent for Mac, for a total Single Sign on solution to these services.

Customer Feedback

Here are bits and pieces of some discussion seen on the forums regarding this announcement -

#1
"Novell listened.. it’s now free, it runs on OES Linux, And it now supports both AFP and CIFS - AFP is arguably the best protocol for Mac usage (for a number of reasons, especially the
preservation of Resource forks), and AFP on OES Linux has proven very
stable and performance. I think I'm going to be a very happy bunny. Its GREAT to see Novell
listening and coming up with solutions *now*, this is the kind of responsiveness we need."

#2
I still think that Novell is the best at File services. We have about 3400 Macs connecting to our 2-Node OES2 Cluster at any given time of the day…but compare that 2-Node Cluster to the 5 Open Directory Replica's I need to have [to do a similiar workload] because they can only handle up to 1000 users per replica or you'll most certainly corrupt OD and they are only doing the delivery of mcxsetting/mcxflags until we move that to [Novell] eDirectory! Which then you look at [Novell] eDirectory vs Open Directory and the performance and management tools alone give OD a spanking.

#3
"Kanaka leverages technologies already present in OES (eDirectory attributes with the posixAccount extension, AFP, CIFS) and OS X (the DirectoryServices framework, AFP and CIFS client functionality, a little bit of MCX) to provide a simple-to-configure but relatively rich client experience on OS X. Ultimately that means that it is highly supportable and doesn't try to mangle either the Novell or Apple engineering."

"Between this, iPrint, iFolder, Filr, Vibe, and ESPECIALLY the Zenworks Mac [agent (coming)] we should soon be able to treat Macs as first-class citizens on Novell networks. Congratulations to all involved."

#4
Wow!

Additional Information

Press Release -
http://www.novell.com/news/press/2012/1/novell-ope...

Video - Download the attached file and unzip it. Execute the file to see a video on the overview of the product.

Documentation - http://www.novell.com/documentation/kanaka/

Download - www.novell.com/center.

Enjoy!

AttachmentSize Video - An overview of Novell Kanak for Mac (for playing on Windows)10.48 MB Video - An overview of Novell Kanaka for Mac ( for playing on Mac)13 MB

• Open Enterprise Server Cool Solutions

Jon Giffard has written an article entitled "Why Should You Choose Novell ZENworks 11?" in which he covers the following aspects...

What is meant when we say Novell ZENworks 11 is an adaptable platform
* Management by Exception
* Management by Location
* Device-Based Management
* User-Based Management

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• End-User Computing

GroupWise 2012 is coming soon. Together with Vibe, it delivers a truly valuable Collaboration platform for our Customers. Please join us on this webcast to gain a better understanding of how to use GroupWise with Vibe, and how to evangelize its benefits to our customers.

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• End-User Computing

I wanted to take a moment and update our customers, partners and other interested parties on our current schedules for GroupWise, Vibe, Messenger and DataSynchronizer. We will be launching a new ‘Roadmap Application’ in a few weeks that will allow you to always know what is coming and when to expect it. Watch the GroupWise product page for this new tool that will allow our customers and partners a real-time view into current priorities, roadmaps, delivery expectations and major features that are being implemented for GroupWise and DataSynchronizer.

GroupWise

GroupWise has currently two products versions that the development team is working on. GroupWise 8 and GroupWise 2012. After GroupWise 2012 ships, we will maintain 3 branches of our flagship GroupWise product….one of them will, of course, be an internal development and forward looking line of the Product – the one we call Windermere. So here is how it is looking…

GroupWise 2012 GroupWise 2012 is scheduled to release very soon. As we communicated previously: we are saying Q1. That is still our external communication. However, I will say that we have been having weekly status meetings for several weeks and our meeting last week confirmed that all indications were positive and we were meeting all exit criteria and all future status meetings/updates have been cancelled. You can read into that what you may….I can only say – it will be Q1 :)

We have also scheduled at least one Hot Patch for GroupWise 2012. This is code named ‘Cardiff’ and it will ship several months from now and is completely driven by customer demand and will be used to address any unforeseen quality issues or significant problems reported by our customers who are deploying GroupWise 2012. The earliest that Cardiff would ship is in the summer, but this could push later if there is no compelling demand. There are no new features planned for Cardiff. However, we may choose to expand some platform support.

GroupWise 8.0.x The GroupWise 8 product line is scheduled to release its next support pack early in calendar Q2 of 2012. This will be GroupWise 8.0.3 or GroupWise 8, Support Pack 3. This will be an accumulation of all changes, FTFs, Hot Patches and fixes implemented, shipped and released since we shipped GroupWise 8.0.2 in September of 2010. So, this will obviously include all fixes that can be aggregated together in the entire GroupWise 8 version line…including the current latest Hot Patch, GroupWise 8.0.2 HP3.

We do plan a GroupWise 8.0.4 and may choose to release a Hot Patch or two between GroupWise 8.0.3 and GroupWise 8.0.4. Hot Patches on the GroupWise 8.0.3 line will be cumulative and will be made available, if and only if, we have customer demand that warrants some delivery. GroupWise 8.0.4 is currently scheduled to release in mid 2013. We expect that GroupWise 8.0.4 will be the final release of the GroupWise 8 product/version line. We also expect GroupWise 8.0.4 to contain very few fixes. We want to encourage our customers to move with us to GroupWise 2012 and get not only their issues resolved, but also take advantage of the new functionality, capability, stability and latest platform support that can be found by staying current with your GroupWise deployment.

Note: As part of GroupWise 8.0.3, we will support OES 11. OES 11 is already a supported platform for GroupWise 2012 and we have had very few reports of any issues running GroupWise 8.0.2 HP3 on OES 11. However, we have not completed a QA cycle on this platform yet with the GroupWise 8.0.x product line. Officially, it is supported and we expect it to work, but we are still validating.

GroupWise Windermere The next major release of GroupWise is scheduled for early 2013 and is code named Windermere. This release will concentrate on a new Web Administration model and the product will add support for Active Directory. Of course, we also think it will include a variety of other enhancements, but we are not prepared to commit to any of these changes until engineering has adequately scoped and a project plan is in place to deliver the Web Admin and AD functionality by the planned release schedule. We demonstrated our progress so far with Windermere and we have had a team of engineers concurrently working on Windermere as we finished up the final details of GroupWise 2012.

Novell DataSynchronizer Mobility Pack

In December, we released Novell DataSynchronizer 1.2.1. We expect to release 1.2.2 during Q1, 2012. This update will only include bug fixes reported by our customers. After this update, we will turn our attention to ‘Eenou’. This is scheduled for Q2 and in addition to continued quality improvements; we will also add support for Tasks.

Two other releases for DataSynchronizer are planned for 2013. These releases will increase scalability, add new functionality and are designed to coincide with new devices and availability of new capabilities on those devices. This is our most agile development project and it will continue to be.

Novell Messenger

The next release of Novell Messenger is code named ‘Dillon’. Dillon is scheduled for a mid-2012 release and is heavily focused on providing an iPhone and Android IM client. The iPhone app is well under way and good progress is being made. We expect to start on the Android app soon.

The next release after Dillon is code named Eaglewood. Eaglewood will line up fairly closely with the release of Windermere and will include things like support for Active Directory and a web client that will integrate with both GroupWise WebAccess as well as with Novell Vibe. We are also planning a web based administration model for Messenger in this time frame.

Novell Vibe

Novell Vibe released version 3.2 in November. This product line has a couple of releases on the horizon for 2012. The code names for these releases are ‘Granite’ and ‘Hudson’. We are still working on a schedule and scope for each release. There are some fundamental changes that need to be made in order to complete our usability and user-interface designs. We are evaluating priorities across all of our current collaboration solutions and Vibe continues to receive significant attention. There are just so many things we would like to do! Some of the things we are considering for Vibe are peer-to-peer messaging, simple groups or quick teams and some file system integration. We will also continue to heavily focus on usability, quality and performance.

That should give you a pretty good view of what is currently planned for the year.

It is important to understand that all of this is subject to change. We are heavily engaged in meeting with our customers, soliciting their input and feedback and having their voice impact our priorities, schedules and the actual list of enhancements we will implement.

In addition, I have only shared a high-level view for each of these releases and product lines. As we solidify on the details, I will use this blog, the Roadmap Application and other communication methods to share those details with our customers and partners.

See you at GWAVACon!!

Dean

• End-User Computing

What do you get when you purchase GroupWise?

When you purchase GroupWise, you are entitled to a variety of other products and related technologies. It does not matter if you login using the Novell Customer Center or go directly to download.novell.com and login. Your credentials should eventually get you to the exact same download page where you can access all of the software and entitlements for GroupWise.

The four products you get when you purchase GroupWise and Maintenance include eDirectory, Novell Messenger, SLES and Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack. Here is a brief description of each and some of the legalese related to some of these technologies.

• GroupWise Messenger: Novell Messenger is a corporate, cross-platform instant messaging product that is based on Novell eDirectory. Your Messenger system can be set up on Linux or Windows.
• Novell eDirectory:

  Novell eDirectory is a highly scalable, high-performing, secure directory service. It can store and manage millions of objects, such as users, applications, network devices, and data, as well as GroupWise objects, such as domains, post offices, and agents. Novell eDirectory provides a secure identity management solution that runs on Linux or and Windows.

  In the EULA: The quantity of licenses for the Novell eDirectory software included with your lawfully acquired licenses of the Novell GroupWise Software is equal to the greater of (1) the quantity of licenses you have lawfully acquired for the Novell GroupWise 8 Software, or (2) 250,000 Users per company/entity.

  The foregoing Novell eDirectory licenses are not upgradeable and are otherwise subject to the license agreement accompanying the Novell eDirectory software. The foregoing Novell eDirectory licenses are not upgradeable and are otherwise subject to the license agreement accompanying the Novell eDirectory software.

• Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack: Novell Data Synchronizer allows personal information management (PIM) data such as e-mail, appointments, tasks, and contacts to synchronize between enterprise e-mail and collaboration applications such as Novell GroupWise and collaboration applications. The Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack replaces GroupWise Mobile Server in providing synchronization between GroupWise mailboxes and mobile devices. The Mobility Pack includes Data Synchronizer, the GroupWise Connector, and the Mobility Connector.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:

  SUSE Linux Enterprise Server delivers UNIX-like server performance and reliability for significantly less cost. Selecting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as your platform gives you access to Novell product support and services, ensuring that your GroupWise system runs securely and without interruption.

  Notwithstanding the license rights in the license agreement accompanying the copy of Novell SUSE®. In the EULA, if provides the following text and agreement:

  Linux Enterprise Server product (SLES) You received with the Software, You agree to use SLES solely for the purpose of running the GroupWise 8.0 Software.

This is also true for Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack. You also have entitlement for SLES to run your Mobility server. You are entitled to as many licenses that are needed to support your GroupWise / Mobility infrastructure.

Of course, if you purchase GroupWise through the NOWS buying program, you will not only be entitled to all of these products, but you will also be entitled to Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell Vibe, ZENworks Configuration Management, ZENworks Endpoint Security Management, ZENworks Linux Management, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and LibreOffice.

Most of these products are user licensed. Meaning that when you purchase a certain number of GroupWise licenses, you are also entitled to the same number of eDir and Messenger licenses. Mobility licenses are to mobilize any user in your GroupWise system, so essentially it is also licensed per user. SLES, on the other hand is license for each server required to run your GroupWise system.

In addition, because these products are part of a 'bundle', maintenance for GroupWise entitles you to updates/patches for each entitled product in the bundle

So - get the most out of your GroupWise investment by deploying the other technologies that come as part of your GroupWise license/maintenance

Let me know if you have questions or if there are other points that I can clarify....

Dean

• Data Synchronizer Cool Solutions

Novell Data Synchronizer Connector for Vibe

Novell Data Synchronizer Connector for Vibe will release FCS this week – passed first article and should be available by the end of the week. (FCS = First Customer Ship. Bascially means when the product will be publicly available for download and deployment.)

This is our 1.0 debut for the Vibe Connector, which synchronizes tasks and calendars from Vibe to GroupWise. Our internal rollout for the connector is servicing more than 500 users. This connector has been under development for some time and further integrates our collaboration solutions together. You can now have Team calendars and Tasks in Novell Vibe and interact with those items from within the familiar GroupWise interface/habitat.

Although this technology is predominately uni-directional, there are a couple of areas that allow for a bi-directional synchronization model. For example, if you have Team task in a team workspace in Vibe and that task is synchronized to GroupWise, the GroupWise user can mark that task complete or set the % complete information for that task and that information will be synchronized back to the Vibe workspace.

To be a bit more specific, here is the a summary description from the Vibe Connector documentation that provides the details and functionality for this technology.

Calendar Synchronization

• All Vibe calendar folders that contain calendar appointments in your personal workspace synchronize to GroupWise.
• All Vibe calendar folders that contain calendar appoitments in team workspaces where you are a team member synchronize to GroupWise.
• Vibe Calendar folders synchronize as sub-calendars under your main GroupWise Calendar.
• Additions, modifications, and deletions on the synchronized Vibe calendars are reflected in GroupWise.
• Calendars deleted in Vibe are deleted from GroupWise.

Task Synchronization

• Tasks and calendar appointments that are assigned explicitly to you, to a team you are a member of, or to a group you are a member of (regardless of the team where the assignment originated).
• Additions, deletions, and modifications made to tasks that are assigned to you, to a team you are a member of, or to a group you are a member of in Vibe are reflected in GroupWise.
• If you modify the % Complete or Completed fields of a task in GroupWise, that status information synchronizes back to the Vibe task. (These fields are the only fields that support bidirectional synchronization.)

Additional Synchronization Behavior for Tasks and Calendars

• Vibe tasks located in Calendar folders synchronize to GroupWise calendars. Vibe calendar entries in Task folders synchronize to GroupWise in the corresponding sub-calendars.
• The GroupWise sub-calendar called Other Vibe is created by the Vibe Connector to store tasks and calendar appointments that meet the synchronization criteria but are either located in folders where you do not have access rights to the parent workspace or folder, or that are located in a folder that is not a Tasks folder or Calendar folder. For example, it is possible in Vibe to create a task in any type of folder, such as a Blog folder.
• Synchronized Calendar and Tasks folders reflect the name of the team or personal workspace where the folder is located, with the name of the folder itself in parenthesis. If the calendar or task entry does not pertain to a team that you are a member of, the folder name in GroupWise assumes the name of the Vibe folder that contains the calendar or task entry that is being synchronized.

This Vibe Connector works using the Data Synchronizer engine, the GroupWise Connector and the new Vibe Connector. You must install the Vibe Connector software on a server where Data Synchornizer and the GroupWise connector have already been installed.

See the documentation here.

Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.2.1

Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.2.1 will also release 'FCS' this week. We haven't released Mobility since the 1.2 release in early August. So we are very excited, and so are our customers, about this update

Mobility 1.2.1 will be available both via the NCC patch channel and Patch Finder. It includes all of the work engineering performed and delivered after feedback we heard at BrainShare and delivered in a patch. This update also provides fixes for ~50 customer-reported defects and ~100 QA-reported defects. Customers will see improved reliability, especially with attachments and appointments. We'll continue to address customer-reported defects via regular, frequent updates in an effort to maintain customer confidence. This will be engineerings focus for some time and then they will turn their attention to the feature set communicated previously through the code name: Eenou.

We encourage all of our customers to download and install this update as it level sets all of our customers on very stable, well tested and reliable functionality.

Novell Vibe Desktop and Novell Vibe Add-In for MS Office

Novell Vibe Desktop and Novell Vibe Add-In for MS Office did release Beta 2 on Monday 12/12/2011. Vibe Desktop provides a local, synchronized file store for Vibe files, allowing users to work on Vibe files in offline mode. The Add-In allows users to work on Vibe files without ever leaving their familiar Office apps.

Novell Vibe Desktop Details:

You can synchronize your Novell Vibe files with your computer, then modify the files without accessing the Vibe site directly. Additions and modifications are synchronized between Vibe and your computer. You cannot delete Vibe files from your desktop. If you do delete a Vibe file from your desktop, it is not deleted in Vibe, and is synchronized back to your desktop at the next synchronization.

Synchronization occurs at an interval designated by your Vibe administrator. The default is every 15 minutes.

You can manually synchronize files if you do not want to wait for the scheduled synchronization. For more information, see Manually Synchronizing Files.

Which Folders Are Synchronized?

Only files in Files folders and Photo Album folders within your personal workspace are synchronized by default.

You can easily configure files in Files folders and Photo Album folders within your teams or followed places to be synchronized, as described in Synchronizing Your Teams and Favorite Places.

What Actions Are Supported?

When you perform any of the following actions on documents, the action is synchronized between your computer’s file system and the Vibe server:

• Create documents
• Modify documents

In order to prevent you from inadvertently making changes on the Vibe server that you do not want to make, the following actions are not synchronized between your computer’s file system and the Vibe server:

• Delete documents
• Delete folders
• Create folders

Novell Vibe Add-In Details:

The Novell Vibe Add-In for Microsoft Office enables you to work with documents on the Vibe site without ever leaving Microsoft Office. You can easily browse to a document that is located on the Vibe site, open the document, edit it, then save it back to the Vibe site, directly from Microsoft Office.

You can work directly from Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents.

MS Office Requirements

The Novell Vibe Add-In for Microsoft Office is supported with the following versions of Microsoft Office:

• Microsoft Office 2010, with the latest support pack
• Microsoft Office 2007, with the latest support pack

Note: The Beta 2 distribution is limited to our Firestone beta testers. Beta 3 / Public Preview will give the world a peek at these cool features and will be made available in the coming weeks. Engineering is on track for an early-February FCS.

If you don’t have Novell Vibe – its time to check it out!! This is a fantastic collaboration tool that expands your collaboration capabilities and gives your end-users easy options for teams, documents, projects and workflows. For those who don’t know….the NOWS buying program was recently updated to include Novell Vibe in the bundle at no extra cost. So if you are purchasing GroupWise through NOWS, you already own it!!! Its time to deploy it!

Dean

• Data Synchronizer Cool Solutions

Open Enterprise Server (OES) took a major step forward today with the release of OES 11. OES2 skipped some version numbers to "11" to coincide with the platform it runs on, which is Suse Linux Enterprise Server 11 ( SP1). The real geeks out there will also remind me what 11 stands for in binary.

Some of the benefits you will see with OES11 are benefits from SLES11 itself, as well as new innovations with OES coming now and in the future. Novell is taking some aggressive steps forward to provide additional value to our customer base.

Current Benefits with OES11:
- Patch up to 100 times faster
- Power Savings - Tickless idle shuts down processors not in use
- Latest Hardware and Software Certification Support
- MAC 10.7 DHX2 support
- Novell Remote Manager - email reports, clear file locks
- Novell Linux Volume Manager - support for >2TB partitions, pool moves, posix partition creation in NSSMU, seamless integration of Posix and NSS partitions on the same disk and more

One of my goals is to provide our customers additional value for the OES product line. Moving forward Novell is planning both an OES11Sp1 as well as "Feature Updates". Feature Updates, will give customers new features more frequently and in a more easily consumed manner, by delivering them into an optional "Feature Channel". Stay tuned for more information on Domain Services for Windows and Mobile iPrint. These and other components will be delivered in the feature update channel in 2012.

In addition - Novell Filr is being developed for OES customers as well as for the broad market. Some are calling Filr, the "Dropbox for the enterprise", but it does much more than just file backup and synchronization with security and compliance. It allows you to use the file systems and files you already have in your corporate data center, and doesn't care if those files are on NetWare, OES, Windows or a Netapp appliance. It allows you to use some newer file sharing features, such as sharing file links ( with time expiration ) or putting notes on files as you share them with others. It also allows you to sync files to android, IOS and other mobile devices.

In a nutshell the future looks bright for OES. OES11 is here and more value is coming with OES11SP1, Feature Updates and Novell Filr.

• Open Enterprise Server Cool Solutions

GroupWise 2012 Schedule Update!

I know that many of you are anticipating and watching for the final release and general availability announcement for GroupWise 2012. Although the product is coming along nicely, we are not ready to release the final version to the public. We did expect to release by the end of the year, but within the last few days, that schedule has changed. The engineering, beta sites and product business leaders are working very hard to make sure this product is as good as it can possibly be when it hits the streets in the coming weeks. We do not anticipate this being a long delay, but we do believe that the additional time will be worth it!

As many of you know, the WebAccess component for GroupWise 2012 has gone through fairly aggressive changes over the last year. The GWINTER agent is no longer part of the network topology for GroupWise 2012. With that shift in technology, the WebAccess client, features and capability need just a bit more bake time before we are comfortable deploying in a robust set of production environments. In the end, with our commitment to quality and Engineering Excellence, we have erred on the side of making sure the product is solid, scalable and reliable at the expense of a small schedule change. The advice from our beta sites has also been clear. Although not all environments are experiencing or reporting the same types of issues with WebAccess, they all recommended that it is better to be late with a solid product, then to ship the product before its time.

I will say that the exit criteria for this release has been more strict. As we have met the criteria for the majority of the components like the POA, MTA, GWIA and Windows Client, the WebAccess components are still seeing a small gap in the pass rates for the QA test runs. We want all components to meet all of our exit criteria before we ship. That is our commitment to you, as our loyal customers, and we know this attitude builds confidence in our solutions and our company. So please be patient with us a bit longer and we believe the extra effort will pay off for everyone.

In the mean time, please check out the product web site and see all of the colleteral and material that has been prepared to promote, talk about and train customers about GroupWise. Things like Flyers, Data Sheets, GroupWise 2012 BrainShare Demo, Technical details, Product Documentation and Training Videos.

GWAVACon, Torrance - January 22- 24, 2012

I also want to take this opportunity to invite all of you to GWAVACon in Torrance, CA. It is sure to be a great event! Several members of the Product Management, Marketing, Sales and Engineering teams will be attending from Novell. It is a great place to not only hear the very latest updates on all three of the major product lines…OES, GroupWise, Vibe and ZenWorks, but it is also a unique opportunity to meet in smaller groups or one on one with representatives from Novell and Attachmate. This year, we are very pleased and excited to have Bob Flynn, President and General Manager for Novell, deliver the Novell keynote address.

Check out the GWAVACon web site for all of the details.

Here are the Collaboration sessions that will be presented:

• What's New in the GroupWise 2012 Windows Client
• What's New in GroupWise 2012 WebAccess (including iPad Support)
• Novell Collaboration Overview/Futures
• The Future of GroupWise Administration
• The Novell Mobility Story (GW, Messenger, Vibe)
• Vibe Overview/Futures and Use Cases
• Integrating Vibe in Your Existing Infrastructure

Also – during GWAVACon, we will be presenting and participating in a live ‘Validation Event’. We did this same activity at GWAVACon Berlin in October and it was a huge success. This is where we distribute hand held voting machines to the audience and have them interactively participate in shaping the priorities, features and new capabilities we are planning for future releases of our Collaboration Solutions. Make sure your vote is counted by coming to GWAVACon, meeting Bob Flynn and participating in this extremely empowering exercise.

So…hang with us just a bit longer to get your hands on the very latest version of GroupWise…..GroupWise 2012! Come to GWAVACon and find out what else we are doing!!

Dean

• End-User Computing

Introduction

A service level agreement is a business contract that specifies service level expectations around critical infrastructure and business services. Typically, they refer to restoration targets that the Service Desk needs to meet.

OLAs & UCs

Operational level agreements (OLAs) are similar to SLAs, except they communicate internal team-based expectations within specific stages of the Workflow process. Similarly, the obligations of external service providers are specified using Underpinning Contracts (UCs). Unlike an OLA where an appropriate Team Technician is assigned responsibility for servicing a request, it is the responsibility of a Service Level Manager to monitor the performance of the external service provider in relation to the business's expectations as defined in UC Workflow States.

Workflows and Workflow States

Workflows define the sequence of steps that Service Desk staff are required to follow when managing customer requests. With the system, any number of Workflows can be personalized for the Incident, Problem, Change, Release and Service Request Management processes. Each step, or Workflow State, defines the activity, and if relevant the OLA, with Default Team, or UC contract required to successfully process the request at that step. Only after the nominated Team Technician has successfully concluded the activity does the request get routed to the next appropriate Workflow State. The Workflow is deemed complete once the request enters an Exit Workflow State.

Escalation

When a request enters a Workflow State, an appropriate Team is assigned to service the request. Within the Team, escalation layers are configured. Escalation layers manage the request’s flow by automatically guiding the request through a pre-defined escalation pathway. During its journey, the escalation engine monitors the request's priority level and responds to . It also reacts if too many business hours elapse without contact with the Customer or if the request uses up the total time allotted to it for resolution.

SLAs and Workflow

The Service Level Management module allows service level expectations to be mapped to end-to-end business processes. In so doing, the system performs the following Service Level Management validation:

SLA resolution time >= Sum (Workflow States (OLA or UC resolution times)

When validating Workflows, the system disallows adding States to a Workflow that will force the sum of the Workflow State resolution timers for OLAs and UCs to breach the SLAs resolution timers. In such situations, the system will warn the service level manager to either increase the SLA resolution timers (targets) or select a more appropriate UC or OLA that will fall within the SLA targets.

Configuring SLM in the system

Before requests can be processed using SLM, a Supervisor typically needs to perform the following sequence of configuration steps:

1. Define Technicians. Set Roles & Process permissions

2. Define service level managers (Users > Users) To become a service level manager a User must be assigned the Service Level Management Process

3. Establish business SLAs

a. Specify service level manager

b.Availability %

c. Warning and breach notifications

d. Set priority targets

e. Specify blackout periods

4. Setup OLAs

a. Specify service level manager

b. Set service targets

5. Setup Underpinning Contracts (UCs)

a. Specify service level manager

b. Specify Vendor

c. Set service targets

6. Define ITIL process Workflows

a. Name the process and associate it with one of the ITIL processes

b. Optionally set default open and close states { you might need to come back to this once all states have been defined}

c. Specify SLA for the Workflow from Step 3.

d. For each Workflow State, specify:

i. Is the Workflow State active?

ii. Is the State an entry or exit state?

iii. The Contract Type: None / OLA / UC

• Specify an OLA if the OLA Contract Type is set.

• Select a default Team, that has been assigned the OLA.

• Specify a UC, if the UC contract type has been selected.

iv. Should the SLA timer continue counting time when the request has entered this State?

v. Should the State be used to measure SLA restoration or resolution time (for reporting purposes only)

vi. Specify relevant next / previous States to define the end-to-end Workflow.

• To prevent the SLA target from being breached, the contract time will be calculated when an OLA or UC is assigned to a State.

e. Update 6b) if required.

7. Define the service Teams

a. Specify Technicians

b. Specify OLAs

c. Specify Workflows

d. Define escalation layers or work groups

8. Make any modifications to the Workflow State

a. Specify a default Team to provide support for this State {review 6diii 1a)

Applying SLM to the process of raising an Incident

After SLAs, Workflows and Teams have been defined, the Service Desk is able to use the system to efficiently process Incident, Problem, RFC and Service Requests according to organizational standards and procedures.

The following steps outline the process of raising and managing an Incident in the system:

1. Within the Operations > Incident tab select the New button:

a. Assign a Customer

b. Select a Configuration Item (CI), which include Services within Service Catalog

c. If prompted by the system, assign an SLA to the Incident as:

i. No Customer SLA exists or

ii. No Org Unit SLA exists or

iii. No CI SLA exists

d. Profile the Incident

i. Select a Classification

ii. Enter Description of the Incident

iii. Complete any custom fields

e. If the proactive analysis option is enabled, proposed solutions will be available within the Analysis Tab. If a relevant Solution is proposed, apply the Solution to close the Incident. Otherwise, click ‘Next’ to move to the Summary tab of the Incident screen.

2. In the Incident Summary screen, confirm:

a. SLA

b. Workflow

i. A list of Workflows options is derived based on the SLA selected

ii. If a Workflow has not been assigned to the SLA, then the system default Workflow is assigned to the Incident

c. Team

i. A list of Team options will be derived based on the Workflow selected

ii. If a Team has not been assigned to the Workflow, then the CI’s default Team is assigned to manage the Incident

d.Technician

e. Incident Urgency / Impact / Priority

f. Notifications

g. Workflow State (= Incident Status)

h. Add Note(s), and apply private/public visibility and Customer email distribution options

i. Upload attachments

j. Access Audit trail details

k. Access Impact information (i.e., Service Targets, SLA breaches, Item Relationships, Planned Outages, Contract Monitor)

3. Perform analysis within the Analysis tab

a.Allows the system to recommend a proposed Workaround or Solution

b. Search Workarounds / Solutions

c. Raise new Workaround / Solution

d. Raise a new Problem and link it to the Incident

e. Raise a new RFC and link it to the Incident

f. If the Incident is related to other Incidents, Problems, Change or Service Requests, view all related requests within the Incident > Related tab.

4. Save the Incident

5. Group similar or related Incidents within an Incident Group and manage the collective from the Incident Group tab.

• Novell Service Desk Cool Solutions

I have been reading a bunch of competitive information today and reviewing several recent reports from industry analysts about email and collaboration. Many of these ideas I have felt for a very long time and it is great to see some of these ideas being shared by industry experts.

Just as I was researching a few trends and seeing what was happening in the industry, our Marketing department sent me a link to this CIO Magazine article which is being distributed widely throughout out customer base and which I am including here for you to download, read and put on your CIO's desk.

I don't want to spoil the content, but here is a quote that seems to summarize the conclusions of this article quite well.

"Together, Novell GroupWise and Novell Vibe create an environment that combines the ubiquity and reliability of email with the latest team collaboration tools to maximize information sharing and idea exchange. This combination boosts productivity and sparks innovation without introducing higher costs, complexity, or risk. It also provides a way to break down barriers to idea sharing while meeting security and compliance requirements, reducing travel costs, and preserving corporate knowledge."

Download your copy here.

The fact that we just shipped Novell Vibe 3.2 and are about to ship Novell GroupWise 2012 plays so well into this message, our future and the direction of our technologies.

I wanted to complement this article with several quotes from Gartner and other analysts regarding the email space, cloud computing and our strategic direction.

First of all, the statement that "E-mail is a Commodity" is a fairly tale. As stated by the Gartner report by Matt Cain, Feb 2011. His key findings are:

• E-mail is far from a commodity for most organizations — user demands are rapidly increasing, leading to custom deployments that cannot always be matched by cloud suppliers.
• A well-run, feature-rich e-mail system can add significant value to an organization via better uptime, resiliency, security and content control.

Gartner, in another report, dated Nov 2011, states that the email market is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 11%. The CIO Magazine also states that 'there are today 2.9 billion active email accounts, and by 2014, that figure is predicted to reach 3.8 billion.

So - first conclusion - Email is not going away! Email will also not be replaced by other forms of collaboration. In fact, Gartner also states: "The prevailing school of thought at Gartner holds that the email user interface (UI) is likely to expand to encompass multiple communication modalities, so that email becomes the launch pad and aggregation point for most collaboration interactions."

Email in the Cloud

Gartner also lists 10 broad categories of email services which generally demonstrate that email in a customized form may not be available from cloud suppliers. Customers should closely evaluate each of these categories to make sure that their current and future needs are being met.

• Security
• Integration
• Routing
• Uptime
• RTO/RPO
• Mobility
• Storage
• Compliance
• Topology
• Management

Gartner states: "In many ways a "commodity" e-mail service from a cloud supplier offers lowest common denominator e-mail services. Most organizations, however, don't run a commodity e-mail service —making cloud e-mail a misfit for many organizations."

Now Gartner is very pro-cloud services and expects this segment of the industry to grow rapidly. They are predicting significant growth compared to where Cloud Services are today. That rapid growth translates to only a small portion of the overall market even 4-5 years from now. In other words, 85% of all email will still be in on-premise enterprise email systems in 2014 according to Gartner. I have watched these predictions over the last couple of years. I remember that originally 20% of all mailboxes would be in the Cloud or hosted by 2012. Now they are not even that aggressive 4 years further into the future with their current predictions.

Sounds to me like the magic 8 ball is not working particularly well. I think it is important to watch and be aware of everything that is happening in your industry. I can only imagine what the next 5 years will bring to the market. How many of us would have accurately predicted the success of things like the iPhone, Kindle, iPad, Mobile Apps, FaceBook, Twitter and others. Seems to me that usually the future presents something we were not entirely expecting....

One thing I think is very clear and I quote:

".... a well-run, feature-rich e-mail system can add significant value to an organization. And e-mail is far from a commodity for most organizations —internal demands are rapidly increasing, leading to custom deployments"

Thoughts?

Dean

Reference: Email is a Commodity and other Fairy Tales, Gartner, Feb 2011
Reference: Market Trends: The Enterprise Email and Calendaring Market Is Being Revitalized by Cloud Services, Gartner, Nov 2011

• Data Synchronizer Cool Solutions

Introduction

Over the last decade, Novell ZENworks has developed a reputation as one of the industry's most complete and capable solutions for centrally configuring and managing endpoints in complex and heterogeneous networking environments. With Novell ZENworks, thousands of organizations ( See http://www.novell.com/success ) have discovered the benefits of using a policy and user-based approach to simplify and automate software and patch deployment, asset tracking, endpoint security, OS migration and a long list of other routine endpoint management tasks. Novell ZENworks allows IT organizations to perfectly align their desktop environments with established business policies and shift more time, money and resources away from mundane, repetitive tasks and toward strategic IT initiatives.Novell ZENworks 11 represents another major step toward completely automated and nearly effortless endpoint management—by bringing the family of ZENworks products together under a single integrated platform and then extending all those capabilities to a wider range of Windows, Linux and Apple Mac platforms and devices.

Novell ZENworks 11 includes:

• An architecture that adapts to your environment with flexible choices for the platform OS, database, directory services and range of supported devices for management.
• A new identity-based, heterogeneous endpoint management platform that consists of a unified ZENworks Control Center console, a single ZENworks Adaptive Agent and ZENworks server software
• Integrated configuration, asset, patch and endpoint security management for Windows, Linux and Apple Mac endpoints.
• Optional Full Disk Encryption for Windows devices
• Managed device location awareness capabilities that add a new dimension to ZENworks Configuration Management, ZENworks Asset Management, ZENworks Patch Management and ZENworks Endpoint Security Management 11's identity-based approach.
• Power management and reporting for Green IT initiatives
• The use of standards-based protocols
• Network consumption control when rolling out new applications or installing updates
• Full manageability over the Internet using secure communication channels
• Simple and speedy installation, deployment and updates
• The ability to integrate seamlessly with your choice of user directory and database platforms
• Support for 64-bit hardware and operating systems
• Rapid installation with an appliance on VMware ESX(i) Hypervisor

Choosing the Best Management Paradigm for Your Business

Every feature found in Novell ZENworks 11 flows from the Novell vision of the Open Enterprise, which embraces the value of creating a simple, secure, productive and integrated IT environment that works across heterogeneous systems. Novell ZENworks 11 empowers IT organizations to manage systems in ways that support real users—with all their various security, location, device and other needs—while still maintaining simple, centralized control over the entire end user environment. As an essential corollary to this philosophy, Novell ZENworks 11 also gives IT departments the freedom to manage their systems according to the paradigm that best reflects their organization’s business policies—and the IT staff’s preferred working style.
With Novell ZENworks 11, IT departments can choose to manage systems tactically (on a device-by-device basis) or strategically (in synchronization with business policies) using any combination of four distinct management paradigms: management by exception, management by location, device-based management and finally user-based management.

Management by exception

When you evaluate any configuration management solution or paradigm, you should carefully consider two important criteria. First, how well does the management paradigm scale? And second, how large a burden does it place on your IT staff as they continually update the solution to accommodate changing business policies? Novell ZENworks 11 can provide the right answers to both of these questions. Novell pioneered the “management by exception” paradigm, and ZENworks 11 continues to offer it as a powerful tool for continuously adapting to changing business policies and practices with minimal IT effort.

In most situations, management by exception serves as a complement to policy-driven management paradigms. It allows for the strict, high-level enforcement of general configuration management rules across user or device groups, while still permitting exceptions at a more granular level to accommodate specialized needs.

For example, normal business policies may allow employees to remotely access the corporate network. However, applying this policy across the board to all desktops—including PCs in the finance and legal departments—could expose the company to regulatory penalties and corporate spies. Exception-based management allows IT departments to create and automatically enforce general access policies across the whole company, and then apply more restrictive policies to PCs and users in specific groups or departments. In this case, the additional stricter policy would restrict access to normal business hours, on-site, by authorized users. Exception-based management allows for complete flexibility, without requiring IT to manage separate policy silos for each type of user and machine.

Management by location

According to research from major analyst firms such as Gartner, IDC etc.. the number of traditional static desktops within our organizations is becoming smaller. Observational evidence confirms this as we see the number of laptops growing almost on a daily basis. Laptops have provided many benefits to todays modern workforce but they present I.T management challenges. Take the example of an application rollout. A laptop could be connected in an office, airport, hotel , home office or even across a 3G connection using a cell phone link, all of which have different conection characteristics which may not be suitable for distribution activities.

Our desktops are not immune from location based management challenges. We clearly do not want them reaching out over Wide Area Network links to communicate with our management system. As far as possible , all management activities using the network should occur locally; anything which needs touch the central site should only happen when network loading is low.
But it is not just management activities we wish to control based on device location. We also want to adjust the security posture. Many organizations take the view that devices inside the office network perimeter are reasonalbly safe but when outside they are at risk. Therefore items like firewall configuration, allowed plugable devices , encryption, wireless settings etc.. should be adjusted based on location.

The unique ability to use information about location adds a whole new dimension for management. You can create policies that reflect business requirements for any given location that a device may be in.

Device-based management

Many organizations base their configuration management practices on the devices they manage. In fact, this is the default method used by most competing configuration management products on the market today. In the absence of user-based and exception-based policy management, products that only target specific device configurations typically end up treating actual business policies and the needs of users as an afterthought because they essentially link a specific user to a specific device. By tying applications, policies and other configuration parameters to a specific managed device or set of managed devices, this approach often forces users into rigid roles instead of supporting them as dynamic participants in ever-evolving business processes. Because of these limitations, Novell ZENworks 11 places more emphasis on user-based management than device-based management.

However, to keep the solution as flexible as possible, Novell ZENworks 11 does offer device-based management capabilities that can be used in conjunction with other management paradigms to fill specialized needs. For example, call centers where multiple users share a single PC in shifts, manufacturing-floor PCs and public kiosks can all create situations where device-based management may be more appropriate than user-based management. In addition, companies that normally rely on user-based management may need the ability to quickly set up a device for ad hoc, tactical purposes. For example, quickly configuring a device to auto-run a presentation in a conference center might make more sense than creating a new “user” for that single instance.

With the Novell ZENworks 11 architecture, you have the option of using device-based management whenever it suits your specific needs. Because device-based management is very familiar to most IT professionals, and because it offers the fastest way to configure a machine before you create long-term user-based policies, device-based management is presented as the default management paradigm when you first install ZENworks 11.

User-based management

User-based systems management—which leverages user identities, group roles and business policies—is the gold standard for automation, security and IT control. User- based management has always been a Novell specialty. And even though the underlying architecture of Novell ZENworks 11 has been dramatically enhanced, the full power and complete range of Novell ZENworks 11 user-based management capabilities has been preserved.

True user-based configuration management disassociates users from the specific devices they use. This makes it possible to treat users as the company’s most valuable managed asset and relegate devices to their proper role as tools that must serve the needs of users. Allowing people—rather than machines—to be managed as first-class configured entities means that policies, applications and other configuration details can “follow” users from machine to machine. User-based management also ties IT policies directly to business policies, which increases responsiveness to changing business conditions. Finally, a user- based approach leverages identity stores and business systems across the enterprise to eliminate errors, increase security, standardize workflows, document regulatory compliance and support effective decision-making.

The user-based paradigm represents a truly strategic approach to systems management, while device-based management is almost purely tactical. With Novell ZENworks 11, you can mix and match both approaches—based on your changing business and IT requirements—by using the management by exception paradigm. For example, Novell ZENworks 11 allows you to apply a policy to a specific device and then selectively override that policy based on the identity information of the user who is currently logged on. Conversely, you could choose to override a general user- and role-based policy based on a specific machine and its context, such as when a mobile device attempts to access the network from outside the firewall.

Conclusion

Novell ZENworks can offer your business a long list of unique benefits and advantages. It is based on the proven Novell ZENworks 11 platform that combines and integrates configuration, asset, patch, and endpoint security management for Windows, Linux and Apple Mac devices. It offers a single, modular architecture that maximizes flexibility and scalability, simplifies and speeds management throughout the device lifecycle, minimizes processing demands on managed clients, reduces bandwidth consumption for management processes and uses standards-based protocols to seamlessly integrate with your choice of user directory and object database. It lets you manage systems based on users identities, roles, groups and locations, so I.T can work hand-in-glove with the company’s business priorities and policies. Finally, it gives you a secure, web-based console for unified control over all your management tasks—from virtually anywhere.

• End-User Computing

CIO Magazine has written a great playbook for Novell about Next Generation Collaboration Tools

Full text available to group members after login.

• End-User Computing

Available immediately, the latest release of our team workspace solution has been officially released.

Check out the latest features and functionality that compliments our GroupWise solution with added collaboration, document management and work flow with Novell Vibe.

Version 3.2 has just been released!

Download the eval/starter pack from here.

Or you can order the product or update your version using the 'Customer Center'.

Novell Vibe Product page:

Novell Vibe 3.2 makes team collaboration even easier and more efficient with new mobile apps that make it seamless to connect from your favorite device, enhancements that give you better control, and overall performance improvements that tighten the flow of your experience. From a high level, here are the top areas of focus for this new release:

• File management
• Improvements with workflows and surveys
• Expanded capabilities with landing pages and task management
• New mobile apps for iPhone and Android devices
• Performance, usability and quality improvements

Here is a link to the product page for more details.

Novell Vibe SandBox

Not sure what Novell Vibe can do for you and your organization? Check out the Novell Vibe Sandbox, where you can setup your own account, see use case videos, try out the work flows and see where personal productivity meets team collaboration.

Novell Vibe makes it easy for users and teams to contribute, share and find the knowledge they need, while preserving that knowledge long after its original contributors have either left the organization

Also note, Novell Vibe, formerly known as Novell Teaming, has been under development for several years. Novell acquired this technology about 3 years ago and has since made very focused and regular improvements. If it has been a while since you looked at Novell Vibe, you are in for an awesome surprise. Not only has the engineering team spent significant efforts in adding new functionality, but they have also significantly improved the user interface, added integrations with GroupWise that are compelling and provided out-of-the box solutions with 'Forms and Work Flows'.

GroupWise Integrations

I want to specifically highlight the integration pieces that are available between GroupWise and Vibe. First of all, once the administrator links the two systems together, the end-user will see all of their Vibe workspaces/folders in their GroupWise folder tree. As they navigate these folders, they will be able to access Vibe content without ever leaving GroupWise. End-users can also easily drag/drop content from their GroupWise inbox to their integrated Vibe folder and have that content automatically copied to the Vibe repository/workspace. Of course, you can also send content directly to Vibe by sending an email to the Vibe workspace folder email address.

In addition, if you do a 'Find' in GroupWise, you will get hits in both GroupWise and Vibe and the query results dialog will easily present all of the results. Finally, new for GroupWise 2012 is the Vibe mail message icon indicator. All messages and notifications that are sent to your GroupWise email account from Vibe will have a special icon that will allow you to easily identify messages and content from Vibe. When you open/read those messages, they are no longer static message bodies, but actually load the content in real-time from Vibe as you open/read the messages/notifications.

So in summary:

• Integrated Vibe workspaces in the GroupWise folder tree
• Access live Vibe content without leaving your GroupWise habitat
• Easily drag/drop or email content from GroupWise to Vibe
• Search in GroupWise facilitates query results from Vibe as well
• New Vibe icon indicators with any message from Vibe.

We will also soon release the Novell DataSynchronizer Vibe Connector which further expands the integration to include team task/appointment synchronization between GroupWise and Vibe.

We are very excited about the growing and robust set of collaboration solutions that are now available from Novell. They include: Novell GroupWise, Novell Vibe, Novell Messenger and Novell DataSynchronizer.

Dean

• End-User Computing

RIM has several in-market offers for upgrading to the latest version of BES. BES 5.0.x is the recommended version for all currently supported GroupWise versions. BES 5.0.x will be the only version of BES that is supported with GroupWise 2012. Take advantage today of the offers from RIM to upgrade to the best BES ever.

As many of you know, BES 4.x was developed long before the GroupWise SOAP Server protocol was available. BES 4.x uses a combination of the client API known as the ObjectAPI and with later versions did begin to utilize SOAP for some functionality.

RIM has since developed BES 5.0.x which is completely based on the recommended SOAP interface to the POA. This implementation is much more scalable, more supportable and has the ability to leverage more of the features and functionality of the GroupWise system.

In addition, BES version 4.1 has been transitioned through its life cycle and is now in EOL....End of LIfe. The RIM/BES lifecyle page can be accessed here. RIM has further announced that support for Novell GroupWise 2012 is planned for early 2012 and will be for BES version 5.0. Also note that BlackBerry MVW Version 5.1 requires BES 5.0 or higher. See http://www.blackberry.com/mvs.

So now that you know all of the reasons that you need to upgrade to BES 5.0, let's talk about some incentives to get your organization moving :)

FREE PLAYBOOK OFFER:

The details:
- Offer is available until Dec. 31, 2011.

• Upgrade Option 1
  Purchase an upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5 and upgrade by December 31, 2011 and receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
• Upgrade Option 2
  Purchase a BlackBerry® Technical Support Services subscription—either Advantage Level or higher, which includes a free upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5. Install the provided upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5 by December 31, 2011 to qualify to receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
• Upgrade Option 3
  If you're a current BlackBerry Technical Support Services customer at the Advantage Level or higher, your subscription includes a free upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5. Install the provided upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5 by December 31, 2011 to qualify to receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Find your upgrade download on the 'Downloads' tab within the BlackBerry Expert Support Center.

See the fine print here:

• for Canada
• for the US market

We are confirming still that these offers are available in other regions. I will update the blog as soon as I can confirm.

RIM tells us that approximately 1/3 of GroupWise customers already subscribe to BTSS – so they would only need to upgrade to BES 5 and go the site above to register to receive their free PlayBook!

What are you waiting for??? Get cracking, get upgraded and get your free PlatBook!!

Thanks to Ettan Romm, Senior Product Marketing Manager at RIM,for providing this information.

Dean

• Data Synchronizer Cool Solutions

Our awesome consulting team has put together some great information on tuning a SLES server for GroupWise 8. A lot of this can also be applied to GroupWise 2012. Check out the details…

Novell consulting is always creating excellent tools, documentation and utilities to improve the their own engagements and on occasion we can convince them to share their insight with the community and with our GroupWise administrators.

This information can be used to get the most out of your SLES environment. Feel free to augment with your own experience and share back with the community how this advice and information has impacted your environment and configuration. Thanks Ed Hanley for the great details and real-world application.

How to tune a SLES 10+ server for GroupWise v8+

TCP/IP Stack
Disable IP V6 (if the GroupWise GWINTER will be running on the Linux server. See
http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw8/gw8_install/?
page=/documentation/gw8/gw8_install/data/b3kipez.html which has a section “2.3.1 IPV6 Support”

Add the following to /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-lo (see TID 7007575)
MTU='1500'
All GW services should use Bind Exclusive in Cluster enviornments
All GW services should use factory default IP Port numbers in Cluster environments

File System
In nsscon
nss /NoATime=GWVOL
nss /NoSalvage=GWVOL
nss /ReadAheadBlks=GWVOL:2 ← make sure this stays at 2 or lower (default is 2)
Add the following to /etc/opt/novell/nss/nssstart.cfg
/IDCacheSize=131072 (see TID 7006996)
/UnplugAlways
If using non-NSS file systems, the NoATime attribute applies there also
If using ext3 file system, the HTree feature must be disabled to run GW on it

NCP Protocol

Add the following to /etc/opt/novell/ncpserv.conf
CROSS_PROTOCOL_LOCKS 1 (see TID 7004594)
COMMIT_FILE 1
OPLOCK_SUPPORT_LEVEL 0
MAXIMUM_CACHED_SUBDIRECTORIES_PER_VOLUME 300000
MAXIMUM_CACHED_FILES_PER_VOLUME 120000
MAXIMUM_CACHED_FILES_PER_SUBDIRECTORY 6000

Core OS
Install libstdc++33-32bit (x86_64) to run 32-bit binary GW code on 64-bit Lnux server
NAMD – (from CoolSolutions article 12597 author peter6960)

To get the current "namcd" configuration execute:
namconfig get
If the preferred-server value does not point to the local ip address, or an ip address of a server on the same physical subnet, this can be changed with the following sequence of commands:
namconfig set preferred-server=[ndsd's ip address]
namconfig -k
namconfig cache_refresh

This step can also solve a lot of other OES related issues, and increase performance.

GroupWise

Add the following to /etc/init.d/grpwise
ulimit -c unlimited
export MALLOC_CHECK_=0
GWPOA
MAX APPLICATION CONNECTIONS = 4096 (4/user)
MAX PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS = 2048 (2/user)
MESSEGE HANDLER THREADS = 12 (the sweet spot)
C/S HANDLER THREADS = 50 (auto allocates up to 99 under load, then auto de-allocates back down to 50)

Other Items
Ensure that all AV scanners are disabled for scanning the GW PO, Domain and Gateways file structures. If your AV will support it - you can scan the temp storage area for WebAccess attachments.

All servers should have Hyperthreading disabled - the second pipe has only 3 steps as opposed to the primary that has 7 - net result for a server is ~17% slow down (Windows folk noticed this 4 years later) To disable Hyperthreading - modify the BIOS of the server

If your server is dedicated to GW, Set your hard disk controller Read/Write ratio to 80/20, if possible, most controllers can only be set to 75/25. Most disk controllers are set at 50/50 as their default R/W ratio. GW is mostly doing index read in small chunks of data. The GW average number of reads is 4 times more than writes.

I hope you find this information useful and applicable. If you have further ‘tuning’ suggestions, please let us know and we will update our own documentation and best practices.

Dean

• End-User Computing

Several things to blog about today. I am currently sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for my connecting flight from SLC to Seattle....through Phoenix. I guess it is just one of those days :)

So...first up...Zimbra owned by VMWare recently put out some FUD and mis-information about the future of GroupWise. We have prepared the following information.

Zimbra Mis-Information and FUD

Several customers recently received an erroneous and self-serving communication from Zimbra/VMware. This communication promoted the misinformation that Novell is ending support for GroupWise 8 next month, with no new release anywhere in sight. To validate this claim, they pointed to a dated screen capture of a customer-maintained wiki. This information obviously did not reflect Novell’s actual support of or product plans for the GroupWise product line.

Here are the facts:

1) The Attachmate Group has made several public statements about its unwavering support for GroupWise and GroupWise customers.

Proof Point: “Attachmate Corporation Reaffirms Commitment to GroupWise” web page available at http://www.novell.com/promo/collaboration/groupwis....

2) Novell does, indeed, have an imminent release of GroupWise: GroupWise 2012, slated for general availability in late November.

Proof Point: “Coming next for GroupWise” content available at http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/. Look for the top “Highlights” item under the “Overview” tab.

We also recently posted in this blog about Public beta for GroupWise 2012.

3) Beyond this, Novell has an aggressive GroupWise roadmap that will feature major releases on a roughly annual basis.

Proof Point: Interactive roadmap app coming to the GroupWise home page when GroupWise 2012 releases (stay tuned).

4) General support for GroupWise 8 is not ending in November of 2011. In fact, Novell will support GroupWise 8 through at least May of 2013.

Proof Point: Official product support lifecycle page for GroupWise available at http://support.novell.com/lifecycle/.

5) Novell is taking every opportunity to reach out to GroupWise customers, listen to their feedback, and let this input inform development plans.

Proof Point: Through the GroupWise “War Room” effort, we are meeting face-to-face with 210 GroupWise customers globally. Several hundred more are being contacted by phone to re-establish relationships and solicit input on our product plans.

In preparation for the release of GroupWise 2012, Novell has already taken the following steps related to our launch of GroupWise 2012 at BrainShare last week. These steps should provide concrete proof of Novell’s very real plans in the GroupWise space.

1) E-mail to our full GroupWise and NOWS customer database reaffirming support for GroupWise, announcing the launch of the product at BrainShare, and promoting the availability of a public beta.

2) “What’s coming in GroupWise 2012” content on the GroupWise home page. This is now the first item in the “Overview” section. www.novell.com/groupwise.

Let me know if you have further questions about Novell's commitment to GroupWise and its very bright future.

Los Angeles and their ongoing issues with Google

As many may know, the City of Los Angeles has been trying to move from GroupWise to Google over the last few years. It does not appear to be going very well.

Check out this news article from MarketWatch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-documents-sho...

AND

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/e-mail-fails-to-d...

It appears that the security of GroupWise is still making headlines. If I remember correctly, the City of Los Angeles was running GroupWise 7 at the time they decided to kick the tires with Google. Now we are about to release GroupWise 2012. Imagine the comparison between Gmail and GroupWise 2012 and how much better Novell's product is in comparison.

At the end of the day...you get what you pay for and the City of Los Angeles is learning a very costly lesson. Cheap is exactly what you get!

Mobility News for GroupWise

Normally the following information deserves top billing, but with today's blog...there is so much to share.

First of all....Apple released iOS5 last past week. If your organization has already deployed Novell Data Synchronizer 1.2 from August 5, 2011 - then you are good to go. The Apple upgrade will not disrupt service for your users who upgrade to iOS5. However, the new features that are available in iOS5, like Task Management, will not function until our next major release of Novell DataSynchronizer. The code name for that release is Eenou and is scheduled for Q4, early Q1.

On to the next topic...

Mobility Pack Patch File

Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.2 Patch File 1 has been published on patch finder. This is Not an update and will not modify the Build Numbers. It will only replace few files on the Mobility Server running Build 579 to fix some issues mentioned in the Readme

http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=J-KjQH...

Quick and to the point, but my flight BACK north is about to board. Love the free Wi-fi in Phoenix airport....nice.

Enjoy!

Dean

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