WooHoo, just finished my last day of tech support!

[agallag]

Wow, what a relief, no more whiny users, no more "my computer keeps crashing randomly, fix it right now". On monday I'm moving to a new job in, get ready for this, "Enterprise Directory Services". I'll get to play with lot's of cool stuff, like Novell NDS e-Directory, Solaris, Linux, kick-ass hardware, the whole bit. And if I ever have trouble with my new laptop, I can call someone else to fix it (not that I would, but I could ).

That's all for now, just had to get that out

--
Andrew

[Jorden]

Errrm, Andy, I got this problem with my computer, can you help me with it before you quit helping us for real?

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Jord

[xortam]

Cool. Welcome to the world of X.500. Not too many people have much an idea what the Directory is all about, which makes it kinda cool and a struggle at the same time.

[agallag]

Tell me about it xortam. When I try to explain what my new job involves to non-techies, their eyes glaze over in about 4 seconds. We are going to be doing some pretty cool stuff though. The main goal of the first phase of the project is to get single sign on for as many apps as possible. We'll be doing the DirXML thing to link everything up without rebuilding it all from the ground up.

The only problem is, the executives are talking with microsoft about active directory. That would be, uh, bad.

--
Andrew

[agallag]

Jord, I've quit doing tech support for a living, but that means I'll be more likely to help out here. I won't be quite so sick of it from doing it at work, so I won't mind helping you guys. I posted a response in your thread over there...

[xortam]

agallag, yeah, glazing is the normal response: I got that from all levels, grunts to SVPs, VPs, Marketing types, everyone. When you do find a colleague, its kinda exciting, in a geeky way. The DirXML thing should be hot because the biggest drawback is the effort in developing Directory enabled apps. IBM and MSFT are even getting back in bed together to spec out XML. I worked on Active Directory on Win2K (used to be called MAD) a couple years ago but went on "sabbatical" 16 months ago and haven't kept up with Directories much since. MSFT said they "want to develop a Directory that's easy to use" which implies that it will have limited capability. Their implementation has a couple advantages over NDS but has some fatal limitations. Novell has been at this for some time and it will take MSFT at least a couple more years to have something competitive. Novell isn't waiting around. I first ran into NDS at Novell back in '89. Directories have been a very long time in coming but I think they provide a key infrastructure for the enterprise and eCommerce. I'm about to start looking for work again and hope to find a small company that needs my Directory experience. I hope you enjoy it as much as I. Its a niche.