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Market Roundup October 6, 2006 |
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EMC Smarts Up the Resource Management Portfolio
EMC has released Smarts Application Discovery Manager (ADM)
5.0. The new data center management solution allows enterprises to view network
and storage resources in the context of distributed business applications using
model-based resource management. According to EMC, the software can quickly
pinpoint the impact of infrastructure incidents and configuration changes on
business service availability. Smarts ADM 5.0’s real-time dependency catalog
minimizes change-induced service outages, degradations, and failure, as
enterprises can detect, log, and report on software and hardware configuration
changes and compare them on a server-to-server basis. The software also has an
embedded, real-time Configuration Management Database (CMDB) that allows IT
managers to accurately manage the impact of changes and infrastructure
incidents across multiple data centers. The software also extends EMC’s
discovery and mapping capabilities by adding reconciliation, federation,
analytics, and new dashboards. EMC believes that the new release includes all
the underlying components needed to automate the population and maintenance of
a CMDB. The new release incorporates technology from the nLayers acquisition
three months ago and allows EMC to leverage the Smarts capabilities into the
applications domain.
For EMC, Smarts ADM 5.0 is a key component of its resource
management portfolio. EMC designs these products to monitor, report, and
provision information infrastructure. For large enterprises, proactive decisions
mean having information to make the right decisions in configuration change or
provisioning. Understanding the effects of proposed changes means there is less
negative impact to IT infrastructure and theoretically better performance and
resource utilization which should save money and make IT more efficient. The
challenge, of course, is that all of these bits in the data center are
interdependent, which means that a change to entity A on the network could have
ramifications on entities B and C that weren’t readily apparent. One of the
ways to manage this data is the CMDB. The goal of a CMDB is to bring various
data sources into a federated system which then provides an accurate picture of
what’s happening. The ability to automatically discover and track changes
differentiates CMDB from other management tools that cannot update
automatically. The ability to map and reconcile changes is also an important
function of CMDB.
What makes this product special for EMC is its focus on applications and components, including packaged enterprise apps, documented and active dependencies, intraserver relationships, and multiple instances of installed application server and database apps. EMC has purchased several companies in the last eighteen to twenty-four months that have been outside the mainstream storage DNA on which they built the company. While some products might not seem obvious fits at first glance, the resulting products, such as these, demonstrate that there is method to EMC’s madness if you will: the company knows what it needs, and it’s going to buy it if it can integrate it rather than lose time-to-market in building. There is a lot of fragmentation in the management market, as there are still many specialized vendors. The larger players will continue to purchase the best of these small players and incorporate them into end-to-end portfolios that have richer content. EMC is building its credibility in this space as it expands its coverage of information management, but the products it is launching reveal that EMC means to be a key vendor and strategic partner. It’s a long road, especially as it will need to continue to boost its services heavily—customers need help with implementing these types of products—but if EMC can scale its services and the capabilities its partners offer, then it has a shot at being one of the key players.
IBM has announced that it has acquired the Dorana product
line and associated assets of Ubiquity Pty Limited. Ubiquity is a privately
held software developer and distributor based in Melbourne, Australia that
specializes in supplying systems management solutions for the MVS, UNIX, and MS
platforms; the company is a long standing IBM business partner. Dorana is a
tool that supplies capabilities in the areas of z/OS and UNIX Software asset
identification and monitoring. In effect Dorana scans z/OS and UNIX platforms
to identify all software, and its version levels, installed. Furthermore the
tool monitors and delivers reports on the usage of identified software. As is
now common in such deals, the financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Two members of the Dorana development team and one salesperson will join IBM as
part of the acquisition. IBM has stated that it plans to integrate the Dorana
technology into its Tivoli License Compliance Manager (TLCM) for z/OS.
Another week, another acquisition.
In particular IBM sees this acquisition as strengthening its ability to supply
its mainframe customers with solutions that will allow them to operate their
mainframe systems more closely in line with business demands. Mainframe systems
are typically the most effectively and efficiently managed platforms in any
organization and it is essential that accurate information be available on the
actual usage of software in order to ensure that spending reflects business
requirements. Dorana will also help organizations address the mundane but
essential need to be able to demonstrate that they operate their mainframe
applications in accordance with the license conditions of their software
suppliers. The software can also help ensure that license costs are rationalized
by identifying unused software.
While the Dorana acquisition of itself is not large, the
addition of the Dorana technology will strengthen IBM’s software asset
management capabilities on the mainframe. It highlights that this is an area in
which the company has made considerable investments over the last eighteen
months. The addition of Dorana to IBM should enhance its IT Service Management
capabilities on the mainframe, a move that is mirrored by the continuing
development of IT Service Management across the Tivoli portfolio. IT Service
Management is, without doubt, the way in which systems management must develop
as it addresses not only the need to ensure that essential business services
are available when required but that such services are delivered cost
effectively.
This acquisition demonstrates, yet again, that the IBM sees the mainframe, now known as System z, as a platform in which it will continue to invest considerable resources and financial muscle. The goal of this concentration and effort is not only to maintain its well established user base but to also encourage new workloads and customers onto the platform. The Mainframe is, without doubt, a business platform for today and tomorrow.
Dell has recently instituted the policy it announced was
coming in June: that of free home pickup of any used Dell computer or
peripheral. This program does not force people to buy new Dell products prior
to pickup, unlike some other manufacturer’s recycling programs. Another aspect
of Dell’s program is that if the customer selects the recycling option at the
time of purchase of a Dell product, Dell will recycle the customer’s old PC and
monitor at no cost. This is even if the old equipment is not a Dell product.
Recycling your computer responsibly is a great idea,
especially if the vehicle coming to pick up your returns is a hybrid rather
than a Hummer. With the EU and North America both making real efforts to become
more environmentally responsible, the rest of the world will most likely follow
their lead. In fact, the EU has already enacted legislation that is making all
suppliers, not just IT vendors, responsible for taking back their equipment
without charge at the end of its working life. This is good news. The bad news
is the temporary economic cost to the individual companies that are being made
to foot the bill to recycle their own products. However, a slight individual increase
in cost for recycling is overall a much lesser evil than, say, dumping millions
of tons of toxic waste into third-world countries. Lack of demand for dump
space may hurt those developing countries temporarily, but with help from the
industrialized countries to develop sustainable economic options, they should
pull through.
Competitively, HP has also instituted a hardware recycling
program, but there is a variable charge to the consumer dependent upon the
country where pickup is happening. However, HP will also arrive at the
customer’s home or office for the pickup rather than make the customer travel
to a centralized recycling location. A recent environmental ranking from
Greenpeace placed Dell as the top environmentally friendly computer company,
with Apple and Lenovo at the bottom of the list. Lenovo is, of course,
disputing the ranking. Since Lenovo deals with companies more often than
individual consumers, they claim that not all of the facts about their
environmental policies are published.
The IT industry is mostly a product of the 1970s, when society as a whole started becoming aware of environmental issues, and thus has—for the most part—always had an environmentally responsible attitude. That attitude has been ramped up recently by a combination of consumer demand and legislative actions, which are most likely also driven by consumer demand. The reason Lenovo is fighting the Greenpeace ranking is that consumers don’t just want a good product any longer. They want a good product that isn’t going to harm the environment, and of course their pocketbooks determine the directions companies expand. The youngest generation of consumers, especially, seems to be concerned with environmental impact almost more than processor speeds, and this will be manifest in the offerings by companies in years to come.