123 School Work

Novell Cross platform challenge

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  The Novell Cross-Platform Challenge
  
  The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast my past and present workplace experiences with Novell's SSO (Single Sign-On) solution as described in Greg Shipley, and Kevin Novak's article titled "The Cross-Platform challenge." I will examine the author's arguments both for and against the use of Novell as a viable software vendor, in addition to commenting on their four-month evaluation of (Novell Directory Services) NDS Corporate Edition. This software incorporates Novell's eDirectory product which is a major challenger to Microsoft's ADS (Active Directory Server). Our company is planning to use Enterprise NDS and has a mix of networks and operating systems that are similar to those tested by the authors. Subsequently, this analysis was particularly relevant to our current strategy.
  My perspective will be that of a user of computer resources, as well as that of network provider/support personnel. Greg Shipley, and Kevin Novak's article in the August 2000 issue of Network Computing provides us with some very interesting insights into both perspectives. Incidentally, Network Computing is a highly respected industry wide standard bearer of premier information, resources, and evaluations on networking that I have found very useful over the years.
  Providing users with the ability to utilize a single point of authentication has become the "Holy Grail" of many competing authentication services, Greg, and Kevin's article focuses primarily on the Novell solution, but other vendors notably Microsoft with its ADS (Active Directory Service), are also striving to provide this capability.
  In summarizing the needs for SSO as described in their article I determined that the following are the key advantages Novell hopes to achieve, and are the overall goals of SSO:
       Simpler administration Eliminate or substantially reduces the need for administrators to maintain security controls across multiple operating system platforms, and computing resources...