Product Reviews
Only the Kitchen Sink is Missing
NetIQ's DRA and ExA provide comprehensive administration of all facets of Exchange 5.5, 2000 and Windows domains and computers.
If you're looking for a comprehensive administration tool that deals
with Active Directory, Exchange 5.5, Exchange 2000 and, with the optional
File System Administrator, files and folders, NetIQ has a product for
you. By comparison to the features and functionality provided by Directory
Resource Administrator (DRA) and Exchange Administrator (ExA) from NetIQ,
ExMS and
Aelita's Enterprise Directory Manager
seem like small fry. NetIQ has almost put all of its eggs in one basket
with this suite.
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Directory and Resource Administrator 6.4
Exchange Administrator 6.4, $9/user
NetIQ Corporation
San Jose, CA
408-856-3000
888-323-6768
http://www.netiq.com
For more Exchange tools, see "Keeping
Exchange Running" in the May 2002 issue.
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The power behind DRA comes from its three-tier architecture where an
administration server sits between the client console and the various
AD, Exchange, and other servers being managed. You can create ActiveViews,
which present a specific view of various objects, the rules applied to
the objects, and any assistant admins and roles allowed to manage them.
From an Exchange perspective, this was the only product reviewed that
allowed management of both Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000 servers, as
well as Active Directory.
Installing this product was easier than you'd imagine given its scope
and breadth. The installation program installed an Extensible Storage
System database to hold its configuration information policies and other
elements, which was a bit surprising considering most of the competition
use SQL Server or MSDE. Nonetheless, once installed and the domains and
Exchange server mailboxes, both 5.5 and 2000, were configured to be administered,
the policies that were configured and the objects that they were applied
to all worked as expected.
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NetIQ DRA and ExA provide the ability to manage Active Directory,
Exchange5.5, and Exchange 2000 servers from the same console. (Click image to view larger version.)
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The capabilities of this product blew me away. In larger organizations
you can configure multiple administration servers to distribute the workload
and take into account network topology. Managing user, groups, Exchange
5.5 mailboxes, Exchange 2000 servers and storage, and almost everything
else that you can find in a Windows 2000 or Windows NT environment is
possible. Creating policies to automate many repetitive administrative
tasks across a wide breadth of servers make this one a must-have.
Perhaps the only downside is that DRA and ExA try to do too much. The
resources needed to run them are significant, although only an Access
database is required for reporting (unlike the Aelita tools that require
MSDE or SQL Server). It can take some time to learn the product but the
upside can be quite tremendous.
About the Author
Damir Bersinic, MCSE, MCDBA, MCSA, MCT, is an independent consultant, trainer and author.