Data Center Management Articles
IBM revealed a series of new products, services, clients and partnerships for the next phase of its "Blue Cloud" initiative. The cross-company portfolio of cloud computing offerings for business includes server capacity on demand, online data protection, and Lotus e-mail and collaboration software.
Posted February 23, 2009
CommVault announced availability of Simpana 8, a new release of its enterprise data management software, which includes advances in recovery management, data reduction, virtual server protection, and content organization. The company's largest software release to date, Simpana 8 is the result of 18 months of development and includes more than 300 enhancements and 140 newly added product features, CommVault said.
Posted February 23, 2009
Voltaire Ltd., a provider of network solutions for data centers, announced that it is designing a next-generation, high-performance 40 Gb/s InfiniBand switch module for IBM BladeCenter. The new custom switch will deliver 100% faster InfiniBand connectivity to accelerate performance of applications running on BladeCenter, the vendor said.
Posted February 23, 2009
IBM announced it is teaming up with Amazon Web services to provide software developers with pay-as-you-go access to development and production versions of IBM Information Management database servers, IBM Lotus content management, and IBM WebSphere portal and middleware products, all running on Novell's SUSE Linux on Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Computing).
Posted February 17, 2009
Librato, Inc., a provider of data center utilization software, announced a new product that enables the safe suspension of an application, relinquishing all shared resources consumed by that application to run a higher priority job. Librato Smart Suspend, the vendor said, requires no application or OS modification, and integrates with popular queuing systems such as Platform LSF. Smart Suspend is an application-agnostic job preemption product that can suspend running applications and free critical shared resources, including application licenses, to improve server utilization.
Posted February 17, 2009
To help IT transform from cost center to revenue generator, BMC Software released new versions of its Service Automation portfolio, which enables tighter integration between disparate systems across enterprises, as well as support for virtualization.
Posted February 17, 2009
Stratavia, a provider of data center automation software, today announced it has begun shipping the newest version of its Data Palette Data Center Automation Platform. Data Palette, version 6, includes features such as native workflow, embedded solution applications and metadata injection for intelligent data center automation.
Posted February 17, 2009
Symantec Corp. plans to announce today Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite, intended to improve end-user productivity and lower the cost of managing endpoint devices. The suite enables customers to provision anything from traditional endpoints to full virtual endpoint workspaces based on standards independent of hypervisors, operating systems, and hardware platforms. The solution provides support across traditional endpoint and emerging end-user computing environments such as server-based computing, virtual hosted desktops and client-side hypervisors.
Posted February 17, 2009
A leading supplier of data integration software for businesses, finding that its developers were spending too much time grappling with data management inside each of its products, adapted its architecture to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and built its own data services platform (DSP). However, problems arose that required a complete rebuilding of the architecture. The underlying cause of those problems? Poorly architected data access.
Posted February 15, 2009
Nervousness about the economy may drive down IT budgets, but won't necessarily reduce IT expectations, according to Ross Turk, community manager at SourceForge.net.
Posted February 09, 2009
VMware Inc., a provider of virtualization solutions, announced what it calls the first open source client for virtual desktop infrastructure. VMware says that the product, View Open Client, enables IT organizations to host user desktops in the data center, while letting users access their personalized desktop environments from almost any device, at any time.
Posted February 09, 2009
CiRBA Inc., a provider of capacity management analytics software, announced the release of CiRBA Version 5.1, which provides advanced analytics and collaborative capabilities to enable enterprise views of capacity health for both physical and virtual infrastructure.
Posted February 09, 2009
dynaTrace software, a provider of application lifecycle performance management software for Java and .NET applications, announced the latest release of its software for monitoring, diagnosis, and prevention of performance issues, from development, to testing and production. dynaTrace 3 introduces a broad range of new features designed to address the new technical requirements of managing application performance for large, globally deployed SOA, Java and .NET applications. dynaTrace is also introducing three new integrated product editions, built on a common platform, designed to meet the unique needs of the different stakeholders in the application lifecycle.
Posted February 09, 2009
IBM has announced it has upgraded its Tivoli Storage Manager product with enhanced scalability, data deduplication tools, and new reporting and monitoring features. Part of IBM's Service Management strategy, Tivoli Service Manager 6 is intended to offer customers the visibility, control and automation required to maintain access to information while making more efficient use of storage resources.
Posted February 09, 2009
Syncsort, a global leader in data integration, has announced the release of DMExpress 5.0, the latest version of its ETL data integration product for data warehousing, business intelligence, and other mission-critical applications. The new release combines functional enhancements and new platform support with ease of use, allowing customers to transform and aggregate even larger volumes of data from multiple, heterogeneous sources faster and at a lower total cost of ownership.
Posted February 03, 2009
GE knows a thing or two about managing energy consumption—and is applying this know-how to its massive data center in Ohio.
Posted February 02, 2009
IBM announced today results from its annual 2008 "X-Force Trend and Risk" report, which found that corporations are unwittingly putting their own customers at risk for cybercriminal activity. With an alarming increase in attacks using legitimate business sites as launching pads for attacks against consumers, cybercriminals are literally turning businesses against their own customers in the ongoing effort to steal consumers' personal data, the study reveals.
Posted February 02, 2009
As part of its "Mainframe 2.0" initiative, CA announced it has named Montreal-based Nexio Technologies as part of its business partner network to deliver "Out-Tasking" for Canada. Nexio will deliver turnkey management software and services solutions that will enable customers to better govern, manage, and secure their mainframe environments, despite budget and staffing constraints. Nexio has been a CA business partner for more than 10 years.
Posted February 02, 2009
Progress Software Corporation, a supplier of application infrastructure software, has announced Actional Diagnostics, a standalone quality and validation desktop product that helps application developers build, test, and deliver high quality XML-based services, including SOAP, REST, and POX (Plain Old XML). The product which leverages recently acquired Mindreef SOAPscope technology, is currently in beta testing with customers and will be available in April as a free download, Frank Grossman, vice president of technology for Actional Products, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted February 02, 2009
Novell has announced a new version of its storage solution, Novell Storage Manager 2.5, which automates storage management tasks based on events, identities and policies that reside in the directory.
Posted February 02, 2009
GE knows a thing or two about managing energy consumption—and is applying this know-how to its massive data center in Ohio.
Posted February 01, 2009
Sometimes, sudden spikes in new activity unveil the continuing existence of systems that may have been around long before the current IT workforces tasked with handling them.
Posted January 27, 2009
Citrix Systems, a provider of enterprise desktop infrastructure solutions, announced today that it will develop application and desktop delivery solutions optimized for Intel Core 2 desktops and Centrino 2 laptops with Intel vPro technology. Under an agreement with Intel Corporation, Citrix plans to produce a new class of virtualization solutions that optimize the delivery of applications and desktops to millions of Intel Core2 and Centrino 2 processor-based devices, intended to reduce the cost of desktop management.
Posted January 27, 2009
IBM announced it had a relatively strong fourth quarter in 2008 as well as a robust year overall, at least part of it led by its mainframe systems and software offerings. IBM's fourth-quarter 2008 revenues of $27.0 billion decreased one percent, adjusting for currency, from the fourth quarter of 2007. Revenues from continuing operations for the entire fiscal year 2008 totaled $104 billion, an increase over $99 billion in 2007.
Posted January 27, 2009
IBM announced it had a relatively strong fourth quarter in 2008 as well as a robust year overall, at least part of it led by its mainframe systems and software offerings. IBM's fourth-quarter 2008 revenues of $27.0 billion decreased one percent, adjusting for currency, from the fourth quarter of 2007. Revenues from continuing operations for the entire fiscal year 2008 totaled $104 billion, an increase over $99 billion in 2007.
Posted January 27, 2009
Oracle announced it is shipping Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, marking the first major release of Tuxedo—formerly a BEA Systems offering—since Oracle's acquisition of BEA. Tuxedo 10g is the latest in a series of product releases that combine technology from Oracle Fusion Middleware and BEA, the vendor says.
Posted January 27, 2009
Attachmate Corporation announced Attachmate Reflection 2008, the next generation of its terminal emulation line, which includes support for leading virtualization technologies, greater security capabilities, and customization support built on Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Web Services.
Posted January 27, 2009
Quest Software has introduced LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle, bringing the high-performance backup compression and encryption it has offered in the SQL Server market, to the Oracle platform. According to Quest Software, LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle is tailored to the needs of Oracle and cross-platform DBAs, integrating seamlessly into Oracle's Recovery Manager (RMAN) and export backup strategies. Other benefits of LiteSpeed's low-impact compression technology include backup size reduction of up to 90 percent; backup and restore times reduced by up to 50 percent; four levels of encryption; direct integration with Tivoli Storage Manager; and support for Oracle's Media Manager architecture.
Posted January 23, 2009
As the new year started, a noted IT analyst declared SOA to be "dead," stating that the methodology "turned into a great failed experiment—at least for most organizations.
Posted January 20, 2009
Symantec Corp. said it is shipping Enterprise Vault 8.0, the newest version of its email and content archiving platform. Launched in conjunction with the 10-year anniversary of Enterprise Vault, version 8.0 helps customers reduce the costs of storing unstructured information such as email, file server, and SharePoint content. "As the solution for archiving has evolved over the years, we have taken a lot of the direct feedback and input from those customers of all size and applied that directly to Enterprise Vault 8.0," David Campbell, senior product marketing manager for Symantec, told 5 Minute Briefing. "We feel it is one of the most advanced archiving solutions on the market today."
Posted January 20, 2009
CA announced new releases of its network and systems management solutions, designed to help data center customers improve performance and increase application availability. CA's latest releases of CA NetMaster and CA SYSVIEW enable IT personnel to discover and correct technical issues to prevent outages and optimize performance.
Posted January 20, 2009
SOA Software, an SOA governance vendor, has launched a tool designed to ensure the alignment of strategic investment in SOA and business objectives by helping enterprises build the right services at the right time. Portfolio Manager, an SOA planning governance product, helps customers identify candidate services and build an SOA roadmap through SOA modeling (i.e., top-down analysis), asset identification (i.e., bottom-up application inventory), and SOA roadmap management (i.e., service identification, prioritization and allocation) processes.
Posted January 20, 2009
Novell today announced it is shipping a Web-based application that taps into social networking methodologies to enhance enterprise configuration management database (CMDB) usability, accessibility and accuracy. myCMDB, a part of Novell's recent acquisition of Managed Objects, employs a community-based architecture, similar to social networking applications, to provide a single view of federated data center resources across any physical or virtual environment.
Posted January 20, 2009
More than a decade ago, some IBM researchers began pitching a bold vision of information technology, called utility computing at the time, in which processing power would be made available just as electricity is available, as easily accessible as plugging into an outlet in a wall.
Posted January 15, 2009
Enterprise IT departments deal with a conflicting set of priorities and constraints in data centers. The number of IT systems identified as critical to core business processes continues to increase as enterprises seek higher levels of operational efficiency and business growth, and because of increasing awareness about the costs of downtime. IT departments are being required to ensure the continuous operation of a growing number of these critical IT systems. Traditional solutions to these demands typically call for adding more servers to the data center.
Posted January 15, 2009
DataDirect Technologies, a leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software Corp., has introduced a new version of the DataDirect Data Integration Suite featuring new versions of its XML-based component technologies for data integration in traditional and service-oriented environments. "We have focused in this release mostly on the feedback that we have received from our customers and we have followed the evolution of the standards that we are tracking especially the XQuery standards and the EDI standards," Dr. Carlo Innocenti, senior XML program manager for DataDirect Technologies, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The DataDirect Data Integration Suite contains the latest product releases of DataDirect XQuery, DataDirect XML Converters (Java and .NET) and Stylus Studio. New features and functionality in the suite are intended to help maximize developer productivity, reduce the need for manual coding, and accelerate the delivery of mission-critical information to enterprise applications and end users
Posted January 13, 2009
Business end users are usually understanding of glitches when told in advance of a major data center change. But when they are kept in the dark, frustration results.
Posted January 12, 2009
CA, Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire New York-based Orchestria Corporation, a leading provider of data loss prevention (DLP) technology. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Posted January 12, 2009
Veryant, a COBOL-to-Java migration tools vendor, has released a new version of its isCOBOL Application Platform Suite (APS) software. The suite aims to blend the business-oriented nature of COBOL with the strengths of the Java platform without retraining staff or rewriting code. "isCOBOL APS is a set of tools for the development, maintenance and modernization of COBOL applications," Alfredo Iglesias, vice president of business development for Veryant, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted January 12, 2009
Vision Solutions, a high availability and disaster recovery solutions provider in IBM Power Systems markets, has rolled out a product called "Migrate While Active Quick Start," a service for companies requiring hardware, operating system or third-party application upgrades or migrations. Information technology improvements typically involve costly downtime, as well as extra evening or weekend work to transfer vital data to the new machine or system.
Posted January 12, 2009
Micro Focus, a provider of enterprise application modernization solutions, has announced the availability of Micro Focus COBOL for Eclipse, encompassing versions of Micro Focus' Net Express and Server Express solutions designed specifically for the Eclipse open source ecosystem.
Posted January 12, 2009
Our friends at HP recently shared their perspective on storage trends for 2009 that have emerged from discussions over the past year with customers, technology partners, and analysts. These trends are not new, but are being accelerated now by the overall global economic climate, says Kyle Fitze, marketing director for the storage platform division in StorageWorks.
Posted January 05, 2009
The old maxim, "may you live in interesting times" certainly holds true for data managers and professionals these days. The year 2008 was full of changes and challenges, and 2009 promises even more. To look ahead on the challenges emerging, we canvassed industry leaders across the IT landscape to get their views on what to expect in the year ahead.
Posted January 05, 2009