Active Directory still lacks support.

Systems management vendors rushing to support Windows 2000 admit that there is still little exploitation of the operating system's much-hyped Active Directory. The directory stores information about network resources including hardware, users and logical objects such as databases. Few applications currently exploit it, however.

Systems management vendors rushing to support Windows 2000 admit that there is still little exploitation of the operating system's much-hyped Active Directory. The directory stores information about network resources including hardware, users and logical objects such as databases. Few applications currently exploit it, however.

Active Directory was one of the last pieces of Windows 2000 to be completed.It is tightly integrated with Windows 2000, which means it is not suited to managing non-Microsoft systems.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) says its OpenView systems management suite does not significantly exploit Active Directory's features because Microsoft delivered the code late. HP says it is waiting to see how its customers use Active Directory. Computer Associates and Tivoli say their suites will also not significantly exploit Active Directory - at least for now.

'We'll co-exist with it, but in terms of significant detailed monitoring that will roll out in the coming months,' said John Haworth, senior consultant with HP OpenView.

A spokesman for Tivoli said: 'Our initial support will be what we do for NT4, porting that functionality. Towards the middle of the year we will exploit Active Directory.'

BMC said its Patrol package will be able to monitor Active Directory when the Windows 2000 edition is available in May.

Ovum principal consultant Neil Ward-Dutton said the directory will act as a vital hub, to which vendors will have to pay particular attention.'They'll have to manage it as a resource, but also integrate with it to find out where everything else is on the network,' he said.