e-Directory vs. Active Directory

[usafelix]

wil be as a new staff to join the new company for system engineer , for my first task is need to complile of one document is comparsion by novell e-directory and microsoft Active Directory Server of feature ranking.

what different feature between them ?
please use the point form to present the strenght point and weakness point !

Who can help me give the hint point or some notes to me ?

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I don't have the articles handy, but Novell's e-directory is faster and more reliable for an Enterprise environment than Active Directory. e-directory, or NDS as it was called, has been around since the mid 1990's, and offers a lot of management options for the Enterprise. NDS can manage disk quotas across the enterprise; AD does it on a server by server basis. NDS, in my opinion, has better tools and greater stability and functionality.

AD is not a deadbeat product, however. AD is tied into MS Exchange for Address book information. AD is a well needed step from the NT4 days of server islands out there without Enterprise management. AD can easily be setup to work with WAN sites and their often slow connections.

Perhaps to help us out, you might wish to tell us a bit more about your company, and what your needs are. What is important to you? Email? Printing? Citrix support? Different name spaces on the file servers?

Also, in order to attract comment to this topic, I am breaking your question into a new thread, so that others may notice it, and generate comments.

And between you and me, I would take the Novell.

Christian

[usafelix]

HI , christian
Thx your valueable comment and idea is very helpful for me as well . But I have
one question in these PDF file inside http://www.novell.com/collateral/4621396/4621396.pdf , the 12 pages that have one comparsion table by e-Diretory vs AD .

Can you give your comment by on these table which is better ?

[usafelix]

I have one question in these PDF file inside http://www.novell.com/collateral/4621396/4621396.pdf , the 12 pages that have one comparsion table by e-Diretory vs AD .

Anybody can help give your comment by these table ? which is strength or weakness by them ?

[kc0arf]

Hello,

Thank you for the link. I printed it out, and am going to look at it today. If I may ask, what is your background? Are you a CNA/E? MCSE? A+? I am CNA and MCP.

Christian

[usafelix]

I am just certify in unix administrator in UNisys and don't have any mircosoft products certificate yet.

[tayloric]

I think you're on the right track with that article from Novell. It does a pretty good comparison of the two. I just looked for Microsoft's response to it, they had one up a couple of years ago but it appears they took it down, which is good as it was full of holes.

Novell's article is right on with the strengths of e-directory.

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I am preferring Novell E-Directory to Active Directory. I have not tried the LDAP extensions though to see if I can get Linux and Mac OS X to follow one big login scheme though.

I also like Novell's ability to restrict file storage quotas across the Enterprise.

Christian

[mahfuzul_islam]

wil be as a new staff to join the new company for system engineer , for my first task is need to complile of one document is comparsion by novell e-directory and microsoft Active Directory Server of feature ranking.

what different feature between them ? please use the point form to present the strenght point and weakness point !

Who can help me give the hint point or some notes to me ?

I actually answer your question "what different feature between them?":

eDirectory uses hierarchical database while active directory uses flat database, therefore, no two entity can be same name in active directory, but it is possible in eDirectory, searching speed is more and reliable in eDirectory than Active Directory becuase of hierarchical archical architecture of eDirectory. Security is reliable in eDirectory. Because of flat database architectur of active directory, it has not been yel popular. Also it uses broadcast too much which slow or breakdown a network and it is potential barrier in secured network especially for a relaltime networking.

eDirectory is the one directory serivce which can integrates multiplatrom / different operating systems' network like linux, win2k, unix, sun into one platform which is called by Novell One-Net.

Thanks & Best Regards.

[meksikatsi]

good answer

[nicentral]

I'd like to add my 2 cents to this thread. In general, I'm not for any Microsoft products. However, Novell's e-directory adds a second layer of support, cost, and overhead to something that may already do what you need it to. If you're running a Windows only world, and AD does just what you need it to, there really is no need to use NDS.