Since 1990, Computer Associates, Inc. (PSI) of Islandia, New York, has been developing directory services management (DSM) tools that reduce the cost while increasing the efficiency of managing Novell networks. CA's DS Standard eDirectory Manager and AuditWare* for eDirectory have captured about 70% of the market share for DSM software. As a result of the success of these and other CA products-including the industry-leading Origen* (a NetWare 3 management tool)-CA has become a leading developer of DSM solutions.

With more than 150,000 copies sold, DS Standard is the most widely distributed CA product and is the most popular NetWare migration tool available. This Windows*-based Novell eDirectory modeling and management tool enables administrators to capture views of their live network to a back-end database, where they can make and test changes to their directory tree before effecting those changes on line. Recognizing the need for and value of DS Standard, Novell supports its full implementation and includes a subset of the tool (called DS Migrate) in NetWare 4.11.

Headquarters Pacific Air Forces (HQ PACAF) on Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, is the hub of all U.S. Air Force activity in the Pacific Rim. As such, HQ PACAF depends on a reliable network that users can access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Consequently, when faced with the task of transitioning the HQ PACAF network from NetWare 3 to NetWare 4, network systems analysts Sgt. Michael Varnadore and Jeff Pahl began searching for a tool that would enable them to complete the transition without disrupting their users.

During the early phases of the NetWare 4 migration, Varnadore and Pahl tested Novell's across-the-wire and in-place upgrade migration methods. Although both methods worked, Varnadore and Pahl were not fully satisfied with either. The across-the-wire migration method involves running the NetWare 4 MIGRATE.EXE utility on a client that can communicate with both a source and a destination server. As expected, this method successfully changed the NetWare 3 bindery objects into eDirectory objects, which it loaded into a single container in a new eDirectory tree. However, the across-the-wire migration method did not support the network's naming convention: When migrated across the wire, underscores in object names (such as LAN_ADMIN) became spaces (LAN ADMIN)-a small but significant change that posed potential problems. With 1,250 users and eight NetWare 3.11 servers, correcting each object name would have been inefficient and impractical.

The in-place upgrade method proved equally impractical for the HQ PACAF network. This method involves running the NetWare 4 INSTALL NLM on a NetWare 3 server and choosing the upgrade option from that program's main menu. Unfortunately, the method also requires downing the server during the upgrade process. For Varnadore and Pahl, downing a server was not a viable option. "The people that use our network," Varnadore explains, "need to stay on line all the time." Varnadore and Pahl needed a tool that recognized their network's unique naming conventions and that enabled them to complete the migration without downing their servers.

CA's DS Standard, the third migration tool Varnadore and Pahl tested, precisely met their needs. DS Standard recognized and properly migrated every object and convention on their network-including the underscore in object names-and, more important, enabled them to migrate servers without interrupting network services to their users. Using DS Standard, Varnadore and Pahl were able to copy the bindery information from NetWare 3 servers to a back-end database, where they could use that information to design and manipulate an eDirectory tree off line. Because they were working off line, Varnadore and Pahl were able to make and test changes until they felt confident that they had designed the best directory tree possible for the HQ PACAF network. Varnadore and Pahl ran the DS Standard configure process, which modifies the live network, only after they had thoroughly tested their new tree, its objects, and those objects' access rights.

While they were using DS Standard, Varnadore and Pahl discovered that in addition to being an excellent migration tool, DS Standard is an invaluable disaster recovery tool. Twice they lost or corrupted their eDirectory tree beyond repair during the network transition period, but were able to recover the tree with the copies they had made of it using DS Standard. "Without those copies," Pahl says, "we would have had to start the transition process all over again." Now, the network management team at HQ PACAF uses DS Standard about twice a week to back up eDirectory so that if anything happens to the network, a picture-perfect copy of its directory tree is only a click away.

Pahl estimates that DS Standard saved him and Varnadore nearly 10 hours per server during the migration process, which yielded a fully operational NetWare 4 network with an eDirectory tree containing approximately 2,500 objects. Both Varnadore and Pahl agree that what they like best about DS Standard is its ability to capture views of a network to an offline database, where you can safely manipulate your tree without disrupting users and without implementing potentially faulty changes on your live network. As Varnadore explains, "With DS Standard, I don't have to hope my new eDirectory tree works when I impose it on my production network; I know it will work, because I've already tested it."

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