ZFD 6.5 not much differnt than 4.01?
It is true the ZEN 6.0 package was just all the current shipping version of all ZEN products, just with the patches pre installed, but 6.5 is all of those again, but things are fixed, and things are broken (no, it is not just M$ that breaks stuff with new releases and updates).
Fixed
Clientless authentication to windows distrabutions for a workstation object. In 4.01, if you were in a pure windows enviroment, ZFD4.01 has a VERY hard time pulling files from a member server of the domain when that members server is not the mid-tier or backend or have eDir on it and your app was accociated with the workstation object. Pure windows? no NetWare? yup, works great and works much better than the windows option. Novell added "proxy" (term?) user authentication to help the workstations gain the proper access to the domain. (goes a bit more indepth, but the experienced admin will get the jist of it).
Broken
Cluster no longer supported. They promis to put it back, but sofar, no go with the SP1. Cluster support will return in ZEN 7. Right now, you can install ZFD into a cluster resource and will work fine for application distrabution, but the inventory DB and the imaging will not work properly. Don't remember the inventory issue, but the image issue is because PXE can not read the NDS attribute for "Work to do", so it never does anything when you tell the system to drop or take and image.
But I have strayed off topic a bit much, to answer your question; your app objects will be fine, just be sure to double check paths if you change any of them during the migration. Policies will be fine since they are stored in NDS, be sure to double check them if server name gets changed. Imaging will be fine, be sure to check your image file path for the image object in NDS is any paths change. Workstation objects "should" be okay, but do expect some issues with Remote Control if your client PC's are on a different subnet, just recreate to repair this one. And as Marv has said, inventory will be hosed, no biggie, just recreate.
To continue on inventory, many of my clients get a bit bent out of shape when I tell them I will make zero effort to retain the inventory data when I do migrations. Why? there just is no point to putting in the extra work to do so. I could, and I could bill the time it takes to do so. The inventory database hold no history. It will always have only current data in it. So when you rebuild it, the new one will just have the same exact data as the previous one. Just figure for 25 - 150 workstations, it will take 3 days to rebuild, 151-500 will take 7 days, 501 to 1000 will take 2 weeks, 1000 to 5000 will take about a month. You can accelerate these time frames at the expense of network traffic, these time frames are with conservative policies for the gathering of inventory. So if your one of those people thats wants to hold onto your inventory database for the history, forget about it, there isn't one.
However, Novell will be introducing history to the ZEN 7 package, so there will be an inventory history in the next version.
And what ever you do, do NOT using shipping media. Download and use the SP1 media, shipping is riddled with so many bugs I have bald spots from yanking hair out trying to figure out 6.5 issues at some client sites.
In any case, you reinstalling the product. This is because when you do an across the wire migration, the migration wizard will place system directories into a SYS.MIG directory on the new server. You can take the time to pick through those and grab any ZFD files that got stored in any ofthe directories, I guestimate it would take about an hour to scan and verifiy and test to make sure you got everything. Or you can take the 10-15 minutes it will take to just reinstall the entire package. Don't worry to much about your clients, I have tested and verified my self that the 4.01 agent will work properly with the 6.5 agent; but do remember to git the clients updated also, there just ins't a rush to do it.
And for those that have experience with ZFD, git your bootie into the current training class roaming around the US. It is GREAT, no basic BS like the 3 and 4 class were. You really get the advance stuff this time (bash scripting in the imaging kernel, vbs scripting for your app distros and image setup, advance MSI packaging, and so on .... this time around it really is Advanced Technical Training, no place for mama's boys that never used ZFD before).
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt Certified nut case ![[hippy]](/data/assets/smilies/hippy.gif "[hippy] [hippy]")
Senior Network Engineer
![[neutral]](/data/assets/smilies/neutral.gif "[neutral] [neutral]")
. But hey, you'll be able to find my company pretty easy, we won the Novell Service Excellence Award this year, so there will be a few KIS people there to accept the award, push some palms, drink some beer, and speek geek.