Data Center Management Articles
At BrainShare in Amsterdam last week, Novell launched SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which delivers enhanced virtualization capabilities, advances in high availability clustering, and more flexible maintenance and support options. As a result, customers can take advantage of the latest open source technologies to run their mission-critical services cost effectively on any platform - physical, virtual or cloud.
Posted May 26, 2010
In his recent Computerworld blog post, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols highlights the five best features of the latest Red Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration. Fedora 13 is a strong release, and because it is more user-friendly than past releases, Fedora is no longer just for Linux experts, he
Posted May 26, 2010
IBM has opened a Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards in the capital city of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with the goal of driving the development and adoption of open standards and open source technologies among the businesses and government organizations of Kazakhstan. Opened under a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding, signed by IBM and the Kazakhstan Ministry of Information & Communications, the agreement covers several areas of cooperation. The IBM Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards will help local software developers increase their Linux and open standards expertise and better connect them to the worldwide Linux community. As part of this process, IBM will develop new ways to apply information technologies to improve business life in Kazakhstan.
Posted May 26, 2010
At BrainShare in Amsterdam last week, Novell launched SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which delivers enhanced virtualization capabilities, advances in high availability clustering, and more flexible maintenance and support options. As a result, customers can take advantage of the latest open source technologies to run their mission-critical services cost effectively on any platform - physical, virtual or cloud.
Posted May 26, 2010
In his recent Computerworld blog post, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols highlights the five best features of the latest Red Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration. Fedora 13 is a strong release, and because it is more user-friendly than past releases, Fedora is no longer just for Linux experts, he writes.
Posted May 26, 2010
IBM announced on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sterling Commerce from AT&T for approximately $1.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of the Dublin, Ohio-based company will expand IBM's ability to help organizations create more intelligent and dynamic business networks by simplifying and automating the way they connect and communicate with customers, partners and suppliers both on-premise or through cloud computing delivery models. IBM and AT&T expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2010, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Posted May 25, 2010
The Pillar Axiom's unified storage architecture allows users to consolidate SAN and NAS from a single storage pool within a single system, and its ability to be provisioned in a similar way as virtualized severs make it suitable for any virtualized environment. The unified storage system can be automatically and dynamically optimized for server virtualization environments. Additionally, the Pillar Axiom storage system allows administrators to provision storage uniquely tuned to the application need and priority, running on virtual servers. Storage can be provisioned in both a "thin" and "physical" context.
Posted May 20, 2010
CA has introduced new capabilities in its mainframe management product portfolio. These new offerings represent the second round of deliverables for CA's "Mainframe 2.0" initiative, announced in November 2008 to simplify the governance, management, and security of IBM's z/OS platform, notes David Luft, senior vice president of software engineering for CA's Mainframe Business Unit. Separately, the company unveiled its new name — CA Technologies — to demonstrate its commitment to managing and securing IT environments and to deliver more flexible IT services to its customers.
Posted May 17, 2010
AES has announced CleverView for cTrace Analysis v6.2, designed to help global enterprises accelerate virtualization migration and keep virtualized environments running smoothly.
Posted May 17, 2010
IBM announced that it has acquired Cast Iron Systems to broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients. Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company founded in 2001 and based in Mountain View, Calif., provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University.
Posted May 17, 2010
Luminex, developer and provider of the Channel Gateway Modern Mainframe Virtual Tape products, announced enhanced enterprise features of their Channel Gateway products. These new features and capabilities include real-time local and remote status monitoring of tape availability and integrity at a remote disaster recovery location and "Synchronous Copy" capability in which local tape operations complete only after replicated tape data is validated to be available.
Posted May 17, 2010
Clerity, a provider of mainframe management solutions, announced enhancements to Clerity Universal Test Manager (UTM), an automated tool for creating, managing, and validating automated application test cases during large-scale mainframe migrations.
Posted May 17, 2010
Brocade and EMC Corporation announced an agreement for EMC to resell the Brocade IP networking portfolio of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switching products through the EMC Select program. This new agreement reflects the companies' joint commitment to address key customer requirements with 10 GbE switching products as they consolidate and virtualize data centers on their journey to the private cloud.
Posted May 17, 2010
SAP and Sybase, Inc. announced Wednesday afternoon that SAP's subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Sybase for approximately $5.8 billion, in a transaction that will bring the companies together to enable customers to become better-run "unwired enterprises." The transaction is expected to close in July 2010, and Sybase will be run as a standalone company. "This is a strategic moment for SAP, for Sybase, our customers, and the IT industry," said Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP and a member of the SAP executive board, in a conference call for analyst and the press. "This acquisition is about accelerating growth for both businesses. This transaction is fully aligned with our strategic objectives to significantly expand our addressable market, opening up new opportunities in mobility, in-memory computing, and analytics."
Posted May 13, 2010
IBM Offers Linux Webcasts On-Demand Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.For a replay of "Discover the Benefits of Running Your WebSphere Workloads on Linux and System z" go here.For a replay of "Cloud Computing Made Easy with IBM and Linux," go here. For a replay on "System z and Linux: The Winning Combination," go here. For a replay on "Leveraging Linux with the IBM Client for Smart Work," go here.For a replay on "IBM Smart Business Development and Test with Linux on the Cloud," go here.
Posted May 12, 2010
On May 3rd, Jean Staten Healy, director of Linux strategy at IBM, gave a keynote presentation entitled "Linux as a Catalyst for a Smarter Planet" at the Red Hat & JBoss EMEA Partner Summit in Valencia, Spain. Healy discussed the role that Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays within the context of a Smarter Planet, and how IBM's Linux strategy helps support IBM and Red Hat's joint clients.
Posted May 12, 2010
To broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients, IBM has acquired Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company, founded in 2001, that provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University. The acquisition will expand IBM's process and integration software portfolio, which grew more than 20% in the first quarter of 2010.
Posted May 12, 2010
Virtual Bridges, an IBM partner and maker of the VERDE desktop virtualization suite, has announced the availability of VERDE 4. According to the vendor, this release provides higher levels of simplicity, ease of deployment and management for administrators, as well as ease of use and a high-fidelity desktop experience for end users, often cited as major issues in VDI deployments.
Posted May 12, 2010
Embarcadero Technologies has released Rapid SQL XE, the latest version of its integrated development environment (IDE) that enables developers and database administrators (DBAs) to produce high quality SQL code faster. Rapid SQL XE includes direct native support for heterogeneous database environments from a single user interface, and debuts support for Embarcadero InterBase and the open source Firebird database, in addition to full Unicode support.
Posted May 11, 2010
While enterprise users are ready to move a broad set of workloads to the cloud, they remain wary of moving their most critical business application workloads there, according to the results of a recent Unisys poll.
Posted May 10, 2010
UNITE will hold its conference this month - May 23-26 - at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. In recent years, the UNITE conference has traditionally been held in the fall. The timing was changed based on extensive interviews done with focus groups at the last conference in Minneapolis, Jim Shelton, chairman of the board for UNITE, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "I think it has been received pretty well," says Shelton of the change. "We are certainly getting plenty of registrations, and we are actually running slightly ahead of Minneapolis."
Posted May 10, 2010
In today's economic climate, application modernization has an even greater significance and return on investment potential for global organizations than has been seen over the past few decades. While most business drivers for application modernization are well known and change little from year to year, some newer drivers are emerging, and certain older drivers are growing in urgency - all increasing the impetus for change.
Posted May 10, 2010
Mergers and acquisitions often come quickly and when they do, it is critical to have tools and utilities capable of scaling to meet new challenges so operations continue seamlessly, customer service standards are upheld, and costs are contained. This was the case for UGI Utilities, a large natural gas and electric service provider in the eastern U.S. In 2006, UGI acquired the natural gas utility assets of PG Energy from Southern Union Company. A longtime customer of BMC, UGI found it was aligned with the right software company to provide implementation of mainframe service management solutions as well as first class support to get the job done and successfully integrate the newly acquired company's data into its environment, saving time and money.
Posted May 10, 2010
Application monitoring started off with a simple need - to help an administrator or manager of an application, monitor and manage its performance. It was narrow in scope and limited in use - to monitor a single application and provide metrics useful for managing that application only. Monitoring tools were often provided by application vendors, but the growing and complex nature of IT environments necessitated the entry of third-party monitoring tools. These were more specialized, with the ability to centrally monitor several different applications. They helped administrators gain visibility across several different applications, understand where problems occurred, and helped to quickly resolve them.
Posted May 10, 2010
Today it's all about optimizing the business. IT is being charged with finding ways to simplify and automate business processes, making them both more reliable and less expensive to operate. It's a never-ending process, and as time goes on, the demands get greater. Yet while IT has largely been successful to date in helping other parts of the organization save time, money and effort, the same cannot be said for itself.
Posted May 10, 2010
Until recently, IT professionals have been conditioned to regard response time, or throughput, as the ultimate measure of application performance. It's as though we were building automobiles and only concerned with faster cars and bigger trucks. Yet, just as the automotive industry has come under increasing pressure to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles, so has the IT industry been challenged to reduce the power drain associated with today's data centers.
Posted May 10, 2010
Oracle president Charles Phillips unveiled Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g during a presentation in the Guggenheim Museum's Peter B. Lewis Theater filled with customers, analysts and the press. "Now that we can instrument the entire stack, because it is our stack, we can do things we couldn't do before," Phillips told the audience. There is value in being able to get a handle on management costs and gain more predictable environments so downtime is not a threat, and integration is not a struggle, he stressed.
Posted May 05, 2010
Pillar Data Systems has introduced new features to increase the performance, efficiency and ease of management for its Pillar Axiom storage system, building on the Axiom's Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities.
Posted May 05, 2010
Progress Software Corporation has announced what it describes as the industry's first Type 5 JDBC drivers - intended to overcome the limitations in Type 4 JDBC driver architecture, which renders them impractical for use in modern Java applications. Progress DataDirect Connect for JDBC, which features Type 5 Connect for JDBC drivers, offers a client-side, single-tier, 100 percent Java Type 4 architecture with faster performance, better use of memory footprint, and simplified deployment.
Posted May 05, 2010
Whether you are a long-time SHARE member or new to the organization, SHARE provides multiple ways to register for its upcoming event in Boston.
Posted May 03, 2010
IBM is delivering a portfolio of software appliances across IBM brands, all powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Leveraging the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell, the initiative enables IBM to provide "plug-and-play" appliances that lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses and help independent software vendors simplify the packaging of their solutions for multiple environments, enabling them to test, deploy and scale offerings.
Posted May 03, 2010
Zmanda, a provider of open source backup and recovery software, has upgraded its flagship backup and recovery management product, targeted at SMBs and departmental customers. New features include support for virtualized environments.
Posted May 03, 2010
SOA Software, an SOA and cloud services governance provider, announced a repository solution that enables enterprises to understand what services and software assets exist, where they are located and how each fits into a company's business and technical landscape. Repository Manager Version 6.2 is designed to provide a context for understanding and assessing existing software assets, and automates the path to SOA and cloud.
Posted May 03, 2010
Oracle announced two new products intended to enable companies to run Oracle WebLogic-based applications within virtualized environments.
Posted May 03, 2010
Building on a shared vision of data center virtualization for building private clouds, Cisco and VMware announced the expansion of the companies' relationship with the launch of a channel partner acceleration initiative.
Posted May 03, 2010
Progress Software Corporation has announced what it describes as the industry's first Type 5 JDBC drivers - intended to overcome the limitations in Type 4 JDBC driver architecture, which renders them impractical for use in modern Java applications. Progress DataDirect Connect for JDBC, which features Type 5 Connect for JDBC drivers, offers a client-side, single-tier, 100 percent Java Type 4 architecture with faster performance, better use of memory footprint, and simplified deployment.
Posted May 03, 2010
Micro Focus, provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions, has partnered with dynaTrace software to provide a new enterprise performance testing solution, branded as Silk Performance Assurance. The new offering integrates SilkPerformer, Micro Focus' enterprise-class performance testing product, with a new root cause diagnostic product powered by dynaTrace, SilkPerformer Diagnostics.
Posted May 03, 2010
Sybase reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010. "We are off to a very good start this year," stated John Chen, chairman, CEO and president of Sybase, during a conference call last week. "We are very pleased to report our 10th consecutive record quarter. The highlights include historical first quarter highs in revenue, operating margin, earnings and cash flow. We also have double digit growth in total revenue as well as license growth and message revenue growth."
Posted April 29, 2010
The Red Hat Summit will be held June 22-25 in Boston. Red Hat partner IBM is a premier sponsor of the event. Visit the IBM booth and breakout sessions to see how hardware and software solutions from IBM and Red Hat provide solutions for a Smarter Planet.
Posted April 28, 2010
BrainShare technical sessions are unsurpassed in content quality, depth, and hands-on experience.
Posted April 28, 2010
Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.
Posted April 28, 2010
On April 19, IBM hosted a panel discussion at the annual High Performance Computing Linux Financial Markets Show and Conference in New York City. Jean Staten Healy, director of Linux strategy at IBM, moderated the panel of industry leaders whose discussion focused on high performance considerations beyond the cluster. She was joined by Tom Befi, vice president of information services at ISO; Feargal O'Sullivan, head of enterprise software at NYSE Technologies; Len Santalucia, CTO at Vicom Infinity; and Doug O'Flaherty, senior marketing manager at Red Hat.
Posted April 28, 2010
IBM is delivering a portfolio of software appliances across IBM brands, all powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Leveraging the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell, this initiative enables IBM to provide "plug and play" appliances that lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses and help independent software vendors simplify the packaging of their solutions for multiple environments, allowing them to test, deploy and scale their offerings to their customers' specific needs.
Posted April 28, 2010
Addressing the growing demand for business-focused collaboration, IBM is adding new tools and services, language support and pricing to its LotusLive cloud services, including integrated business products and services from UPS, Skype, salesforce.com and Silanis. IBM will also offer the first cloud service package combining social networking and email for business starting at $7.
Posted April 28, 2010
IBM recently marked a milestone with 10 years of participation in the Linux community. At the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit recently, Dr. Dan Frye, vice president of open system development at IBM, gave a keynote in which he reflected on the achievement and offered advice for other organizations and developers that want to improve their participation in the community.
Posted April 28, 2010
Canonical has announced that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop Edition, the latest version of the popular Linux desktop distribution, which includes 3 years of support through free security and maintenance updates, will be available for free download on Thursday, April 29.
Posted April 28, 2010
The opening of a new $30 million manufacturing facility at its Poughkeepsie site to produce the next generation of System z mainframes and high-end Power Systems servers, was recently announced by IBM. The facility, built inside an existing structure, will produce IBM's next line of System z mainframe computers and high-end Power Systems servers.
Posted April 28, 2010
The Linux KVM hypervisor is gaining traction in the cloud computing market, as evidenced by major vendors including IBM using the virtualization software to create cloud platforms, according to a Network World article by Jon Brodkin.
Posted April 28, 2010
BrainShare technical sessions are unsurpassed in content quality, depth, and hands-on experience. This year Novell and its partners will provide you with loads of technical sessions, designed to expand your knowledge and increase your value to your organization.
Posted April 28, 2010
Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.
Posted April 28, 2010