From its start in 1991, NetPro Computing, Inc. (NetPro) of Scottsdale, Arizona, has grown to become a leading provider of third-party enterprise network utilities. Working with Novell, NetPro has developed the only real-time tool for monitoring, troubleshooting and optimizing eDirectory. The company's customers, in more than 50 countries, include such giants as Nike, GTE, Nissan, CitiBank*, Cargill, and Novell itself-huge businesses that house some of the largest enterprise networks in the world.

NetPro's DS Expert and Config Central for NetWare qualify as true innovations in the world of networking, designed to anticipate administrator needs as the networking environment evolves. DS Expert helps unlock NDS capacities, empowering the administrator to track more than 100 unique statistics to monitor eDirectory server loads and optimize eDirectory replica traffic. And NetPro's Config Central for NetWare minimizes crashes and expensive downtime due to tough-to-find NLM™ problems. NetPro's solutions help companies with large and growing eDirectory trees avoid or solve problems before they have the chance to affect operations.

As a privately held merchandiser, processor and distributor of agricultural, industrial and financial products and services, Cargill's businesses comprise more than 40 product lines- from grains to salt to steel, plus extensive financial trading and futures brokerage services. More than 76,000 people work for the world-wide giant at nearly 1,000 locations in more than 65 countries.

At company headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Cargill was beginning its worldwide migration from NetWare 3.12 to 4.1. As Senior Network Technician Scott Sattler and his team planned the migration and evaluated the long-range requirements of managing their growing eDirectory environment, Sattler knew he would need a powerful tool to monitor the health and status of eDirectory across the globe. He was charged with a daunting task: increase capacities and provide maximum availability for users, without adding resources to the Novell Team at Cargill.

Sattler began looking for a product that could provide time-sync monitoring (the "glue" that holds eDirectory together) on all servers worldwide. To accurately troubleshoot eDirectory-related issues and provide the mechanism for change control, Cargill also needed reporting of current eDirectory replica information and configuration. Further, the ability to tie into a common monitoring console with paging capabilities was another critical issue. And finally, Sattler hoped that migration could proceed on schedule or even ahead of schedule.

After the migration was complete, managing the world-wide server configuration requirements would require Cargill to frequently distribute patch and server OS software to a large number of remote sites without allocating extra time or resources. Sattler's team had to troubleshoot NLM-related server problems, globally update NLMs and related files, and modify and distribute new server configuration files. Plus, rather than tediously sending commands to remote servers individually with RCONSOLE, Cargill hoped to send commands en masse.

Following the recommendation of Novell Consulting and Novell Premium Support, Sattler evaluated NetPro's DS Expert. "This product seemed tailor-made for our needs," he said. "It was obviously written by a team with prior enterprise management and support experience who knows how important it is to monitor critical services that can affect the whole eDirectory tree."

During the evaluation, there were several instances where DS Expert immediately and accurately identified problems that could have adversely affected eDirectory. "We increased server uptime by avoiding or preventing eDirectory outages and were able to keep on track with our aggressive 4.1 migration plans," Sattler reported. An additional benefit was realized when DS Expert was able to send eDirectory-related alerts into Novell's ManageWise console via SNMP. "Some of our less eDirectory-knowledgeable staff were able to get alerts for problems that could impact eDirectory and resolve them without the eDirectory Team even being summoned," Sattler said.

Shortly after Cargill purchased DS Expert, NetPro released Config Central for NetWare. During the product's alpha and beta stages, Sattler identified the next missing piece of his toolkit. He now uses Config Central to push and pull NLMs and other files from any server. The intuitive interface enables quick identification of NLM-related server problems. Servers' NLMs can be compared side-by-side, with differences highlighted. And now, Cargill can issue server console commands to multiple servers at once. These tasks, which formerly wasted staff hours with individually-routed commands, can now be handled in minutes.

Thanks to NetPro's solutions, Cargill realized significant cost savings. Server uptime has increased, eDirectory integrity was maintained, and no additional resources were needed to monitor the eDirectory environment and manage server configuration. Sattler reports that server management has improved and monitoring the server environment is easier than ever before.

Sattler and Cargill are believers. NetPro has the solution for managing eDirectory environments, as evidenced by the fact that Novell itself purchased a corporate license for its tree. Novell's Michael L. Simpson, Director of Marketing for Novell's Internet Infrastructure Division, said, "We recognize NetPro Computing as an important partner in our efforts to ease the access and management of enterprise and intranet networks via eDirectory. DS Expert complements our other management tools and provides valuable SNMP integration. Our rapidly-growing customer base will find DS Expert, as Novell has in our own implementation, to be a valuable, time-saving product for managing their enterprise networks."

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