Data Center Management Articles
CA Technologies has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Watchmouse B.V. (WatchMouse), a provider of SaaS-based monitoring for cloud, mobile and traditional web applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. "As companies extend more applications to their customers through the web and smartphones, the performance of those applications is having a greater impact on revenue, customer loyalty and brand value," says David Dobson, executive vice president, CA Technologies.
Posted July 29, 2011
Less than one year following its acquisition of Sybase, SAP AG is opening up mobile solutions from the Sybase portfolio to partners within the global SAP ecosystem. This marks the first time that SAP value-added resellers (VARs) that are currently authorized to sell SAP BusinessObjects and SAP Business All-in-One solutions get the opportunity to sell select Sybase-branded enterprise mobility apps and solutions for application development, device management and security. "Making Sybase solutions available through our existing reselling partners around the world allows us to reach a wider array of customers, both large and small, and allows customers to team up with the best partners to meet their distinct mobility needs," said Friedrich Neumeyer, senior vice president, Volume Reseller and Service Partners, Global Ecosystem and Channels, SAP.
Posted July 27, 2011
Sybase, an SAP company, has announced the general availability of Sybase IQ 15.3, which aims to help enterprise IT departments overcome the scalability limitations of many data warehouse approaches. By implementing a business analytics information platform that allows sharing of computing and data resources through the new Sybase IQ PlexQ technology, the company says enterprises can break down user and information silos to increase analytics adoption throughout their entire organization. There is a lot of talk about big data, but how to manage it and analyze it is only half the problem, observes David Jonker, senior product marketing manager of Sybase IQ. "The other half is how do you make it more pervasive throughout the enterprise and from our perspective that is where a lot of the existing data warehousing solutions fall down."
Posted July 27, 2011
SafeNet, Inc., a provider of information security solutions, has announced that Sentinel Cloud is now supported by the Dell Boomi AtomSphere cloud integration platform, enabling cloud service providers to easily connect SafeNet's licensing and entitlement management services with their existing on-premise or cloud-based back-office systems.
Posted July 25, 2011
IBM announced a new zEnterprise System - the z114 - intended for adoption in small to medium-size businesses, and designed to consolidate workloads from hundreds of x86 servers. The new machine, with a base price of $75,000, offers significant improvements over the IBM z10 BC system, the company says. In addition, IBM also announced the ability to integrate and manage workload on select IBM System x servers running Linux as part of the zEnterprise System. Support for Microsoft Windows on select System x servers will follow, IBM says.
Posted July 25, 2011
CA Technologies' Mainframe Security Management products have met the requirements of Common Criteria, an independent security certification recognized by governments in more than 26 countries, including the United States. "CA ACF2 and CA Top Secret are widely used by enterprise level customers, both government and commercial customers, and it's incumbent on us to be diligent in keeping the products current with the most rigorous global security standards," Mark Combs, distinguished senior vice president, mainframe at CA Technologies, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 25, 2011
SUSE, an enterprise Linux operating system provider and division of The Attachmate Group, says it is shipping the latest update to its development platform for building, updating and managing application images across x86, public cloud and IBM System z deployments. SUSE Studio Version 1.2 is designed to provide the ability to assemble, build and maintain complete portable application stacks quickly across a range of platforms. SUSE Studio also is intended to bridge x86 microprocessor architectures and mainframes by simplifying the creation, testing, maintenance and deployment of software applications on the mainframe. The toolset supports hundreds of mission-critical Linux images on mainframes, accessible by an interface for building mainframe workloads.
Posted July 25, 2011
HP announced a series of new software solutions designed to improve collaboration among application development and delivery teams. The new HP ALM software solutions include HP Service Virtualization 1.0, HP Application Lifecycle Intelligence (ALI), and HP Agile Accelerator 5.0. The new product updates are designed to help deliver cloud computing applications and complex business processes. Applications, once monolithic, are now architected on connected services and developed in rapid cycles. These composite applications can create crippling challenges for organizations as they struggle to quickly deliver applications, while still managing quality, performance andsecurity risks within heterogeneous development environments.
Posted July 25, 2011
IBM announced second-quarter revenues grew by 12% over the same period last year, propelled by mainframe revenues, which grew and a frenetic pace of more than 60%. Overall, IBM's 2011 net income for the second quarter was $3.7 billion, compared with $3.4 billion in the second quarter of 2010, an increase of 8%. Total revenues for the second quarter of 2011 of $26.7 billion, an increase of 12% from the second quarter of 2010. "Hardware, software and services revenue grew at double digits, and we achieved strong profit and free cash flow growth," says Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.
Posted July 25, 2011
Oracle has announced Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1. The latest release provides capabilities to increase the usability and flexibility of the product by introducing a new virtual machine cloning facility, enhanced large system support, improved remote access, and expanded platform and application support. "By significantly enhancing the world's most popular cross-platform virtualization software for the second time within a year, Oracle is clearly demonstrating its commitment to both the desktop virtualization market and the open source community," said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president, Linux and Virtualization Engineering, Oracle.
Posted July 20, 2011
Oracle today announced the availability of Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.0 and Oracle User Productivity Kit Professional 11.0, easy-to-use and comprehensive content development, deployment and maintenance platforms for increasing productivity and adoption for Oracle, third-party and custom applications projects. "The biggest feature set that is going out in UPK 11 is around the ability to add conceptual-type questions to the product as well as more easily link in conceptual information," Trish Trolley, according to senior director, Oracle User Productivity Kit Product Management, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 20, 2011
BMC Software and Unisys Corporation have formed a joint initiative to deliver and manage advanced cloud solutions. The two companies are basing their joint solutions on BMC's second-generation Cloud Lifecycle Management (CLM) offering combined with Unisys' cloud advisory, implementation and management services portfolio. The BMC and Unisys initiative will address strategy, planning, design, implementation and operational management of cloud computing solutions to make it possible for customers to realize both immediate and long-term business value through a disciplined approach to cloud computing.
Posted July 15, 2011
Unisys Corporation has introduced a range of value-added services that enable providers to integrate voice-based services with social media channels to drive new sources of revenue and enhance the user experience of their subscribers. The new services, available on the Unisys VoiceSource Express (VSE) 400 Series platform, benefit customers who use smartphones and feature phones - less fully configured mobile phones - by innovative, easy-to-use voice and data applications directly to their devices. The Unisys VSE 400 Series platform, a "fit for purpose" computing appliance, is based on a Unisys ClearPath system using Intel Xeon x64 processors.
Posted July 15, 2011
Attachmate Corporation announced it has begun shipping Attachmate Reflection for the Web 2011 R1, the latest version of its web-to-host tool for connecting local and remote users to legacy applications on a variety of host platforms. The latest release includes new support for multiple platforms and browsers.
Posted July 15, 2011
On July 12th, IBM announced the new z114. As the newest member of the IBM System z family, the z114 with Linux offers new levels of freedom and a whole new world of capabilities for a broader set of businesses, delivering the scalability, flexibility, and breakthrough performance you need-at a lower capacity and attractive entry price point for small and mid-sized organizations. On the same day, IBM announced the IBM Enterprise Linux Server (ELS), a proven Linux workload and server consolidation platform for mid-sized and large enterprises, supporting flexible service delivery for cloud computing as well
Posted July 13, 2011
GOSCON 2011 will be held in Washington, D.C. on August 23. This year GOSCON is co-located with Innovation Nation Forum.
Posted July 13, 2011
LinuxCon North America, the industry's premiere Linux conference, will be held in Vancouver, at the Hyatt Regency August 17-19. This year's North America's annual technical conference will host the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Linux, in which Linux creator Linus Torvalds will take part. In addition, Torvalds will participate in an interview-style keynote and discuss the technical advancements and challenges related to the Linux kernel with kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Posted July 13, 2011
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) supports enterprise-class performance and scalability to run mission-critical Windows and Linux workloads.
Posted July 13, 2011
On June 16, IBM marked the 100th anniversary of its founding. As part of the celebration of its centennial, IBM has curated 100 milestones that have shaped the company and the world in the last century. These 100 iconic moments-described in a list of 100 Icons of Progress-include the technology driving the Social Security System in the U.S., the invention of the floppy disk, the creation of the first corporate science research laboratory, the establishment of the Corporate Service Corps, a corporate version of the Peace Corps - as well as IBM's decision to support Linux.
Posted July 13, 2011
On July 12th, IBM announced the new z114. As the newest member of the IBM System z family, the z114 with Linux offers new levels of freedom and a whole new world of capabilities for a broader set of businesses, delivering the scalability, flexibility, and breakthrough performance you need - at a lower capacity and attractive entry price point for small and mid-sized organizations
Posted July 13, 2011
The Open Virtualization Alliance, a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), has announced the addition of 65 new members to the consortium.
Posted July 13, 2011
The Open Virtualization Alliance, a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), has announced the addition of 65 new members to the consortium.
Posted July 13, 2011
LinuxCon North America, the industry's premiere Linux conference, will be held in Vancouver, at the Hyatt Regency August 17-19. This year's North America's annual technical conference will host the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Linux, in which Linux creator Linus Torvalds will take part.
Posted July 13, 2011
GOSCON 2011 will be held in Washington, D.C. on August 23. This year GOSCON is co-located with Innovation Nation Forum.
Posted July 13, 2011
A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance. With 2011 marking IBM's centennial, as well as the 20th anniversary of Linux, Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization, reflects on the ways each has contributed to the other, and the promise offered now by open virtualization to help customers ensure cost efficiency and avoid vendor lock-in in virtualized environments. "As it happened with Linux, the need for virtualization technology will continue to grow, and open virtualization solutions based on KVM will become more and more important to customers looking for choice and cost benefits," Staten Healy observes.
Posted July 13, 2011
A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance. With 2011 marking IBM's centennial, as well as the 20th anniversary of Linux, Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization, reflects on the ways each has contributed to the other, and the promise offered now by open virtualization to help customers ensure cost efficiency and avoid vendor lock-in in virtualized environments. "As it happened with Linux, the need for virtualization technology will continue to grow, and open virtualization solutions based on KVM will become more and more important to customers looking for choice and cost benefits," Staten Healy observes.
Posted July 13, 2011
Attachmate Corporation announced the availability of Attachmate Luminet 4.2, an enterprise fraud management solution that helps thwart insider fraud and abuse. Luminet's ability to reveal user activity across enterprise applications and score risk in real-time to flag questionable activity patterns helps transform data into actionable intelligence. The latest Luminet version offers the option of a new Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 validated cryptographic module to conform to certain federal government requirements. The FIPS module is critical for federal government installations for making sure that they are meeting FIPS requirements, and allows Attachmate to add to the product's specific vertical appeal," Christine Meyers, senior product marketing manager for Attachmate Luminet, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 11, 2011
CA Technologies announced a series of enhanced mainframe-oriented products and programs aimed at reducing costs, simplifying management and improving operational efficiency. The upgraded products include Application Performance Management, DB2 for z/OS management tools, CA IDMS database management, CA Endevor Software Change Management, CA Mainframe Software Manager (CA MSM) and 84 other new additions to the Mainframe 2.0-enabled Mainframe Software Stack. CA has recently seen a shift in its mainframe base to greater consolidation of IT resources, Mark Combs, distinguished SVP for mainframe at CA Technologies, tells 5 Minute Briefing. This is seen particularly with "consolidating from Unix and Linux on distributed platforms onto Linux for System z," he says. "For quite a while, some customers had been moving Linux on mainframe, but not in large numbers. In the last year to 18 months, we have starting to see many more actual funded projects resulting in production deployments on mainframe, particularly among some of our larger customers, along with interest in our infrastructure management solutions to manage that environment."
Posted July 11, 2011
Romonet introduced Prognose, what it calls one of the world's first predictive modeling software suites for designing, building, operating and managing data centers and IT facilities. "Data center operators around the world are under increasing pressure to reduce business risk, control operational cost and maximize capital asset utilization while at the same time facing rising energy costs and increasing compliance regulations," says Zahl Limbuwala, CEO of Romonet.
Posted July 11, 2011
Oracle has agreed to acquire Pillar Data Systems, a provider of scalable SAN Block I/O storage systems. The acquisition will help Oracle deliver a complete line of storage products that runs Oracle software faster and more efficiently, the company said. Oracle president Mark Hurd and John Fowler, executive vice president of Systems at Oracle, followed up the announcement with a webcast last week in which they elaborated on Oracle's storage strategy and the importance of the capabilities that Pillar adds. They were joined by Phil Bullinger, senior vice president, Storage, at Oracle.
Posted July 11, 2011
CA Technologies announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Interactive TKO, Inc. (ITKO), a provider of service simulation solutions for developing applications in composite and cloud environments, for $330 million in an all-cash transaction. "The addition of ITKO to CA Technologies will extend our ability to deliver a complete set of capabilities to help our customers and partners to increase their adoption and value from cloud-based applications," says David Dobson, executive vice president, Customer Solutions Group, CA Technologies.
Posted July 11, 2011
Simplification is important in today's era of increasing complexity and ever-changing software environments. A key component of simplification is to remember the basics and apply some elementary rules and practices to your database environment. Many problems arise because we don't keep track of the things most of us already know. I stumbled upon the idea for this month's column after recalling Malcolm Gladwell's excellent business book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. In this book, Gladwell offers up case studies and examples depicting the benefit of our "adaptive unconscious" - a powerful innate ability that provides us with instant and sophisticated information.
Posted July 07, 2011
Today, we operate in a global economy at internet speed. Globalization of our workforce has shifted the way work gets done. The explosion of wireless and edge technology has raised the expectations of consumers, who are more informed, educated, and knowledgeable about products and services. This changing landscape places immense pressure on business applications in organizations worldwide. Critical application outages caused by software defects can cost the business millions of dollars in revenue for every hour of downtime.
Posted July 07, 2011
As the economy shifts to expansion mode, and businesses start hiring again, a familiar challenge is rearing its head. Companies are scrambling to find the talent needed to effectively run, maintain, and expand their technology platforms. This is not a new problem by any means, but this time around, it is taking on a greater urgency, as just about every organization relies on information technology to be competitive and responsive to growth opportunities. A new survey of 376 employers finds a majority depend on the educational sector - universities and colleges - to provide key IT skills, often in conjunction with their own internal training efforts. However, few of the executives and managers hiring out of colleges are entirely satisfied with the readiness of graduates.
Posted July 07, 2011
IBM has announced new cloud services designed to enable clients to protect, store and retrieve their most critical data quickly after a disaster. The new IBM SmartCloud Resilience services enable companies to protect their data and applications in a more efficient manner than with traditional disaster recovery centers, the vendor says. "Now more than ever, companies are relying on a massive amount of data to run their businesses, storing it longer and retrieving it as needed," says Rick Ruiz, general manager of IBM's Business Continuity and Resiliency Services. "This creates a need for a business resilience strategy that will ensure continuous operation and create a competitive advantage to enable growth opportunities."
Posted June 27, 2011
IBM has released the latest version of its transaction server software for z/OS environments, which includes additional support for event processing, Java, and the CICS Explorer. The new update, CICS Transaction Server for z/OS (CICS TS) V4.2, builds upon the new and enhanced capabilities developed and delivered in V4.1, to enable companies to compete in the marketplace, comply with standards and regulations, and control IT processes.
Posted June 27, 2011
Symantec Corp. has introduced the latest version of Symantec ApplicationHA, Symantec's high availability solution for VMware virtual environments that supports customers' ability to virtualize their business-critical applications. As customers move from virtualizing peripheral applications to more core mission-critical apps, virtualization adoption declines because they tend to be more cautious and risk-averse, Don Angspatt, vice president of product management for Symantec's Storage and Availability Management Group, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "No one wants to stake their career on whether SQL, Oracle, SAP, and Exchange can be running all the time and be up all the time in a virtualized environment."
Posted June 27, 2011
BMC Software has acquired the portfolio of IMS (Information Management System) database products and customers from NEON Enterprise Software, a mainframe management software company. According to BMC, adding NEON Enterprise Software's IMS products to its existing offerings will satisfy the critical need organizations have for industry-leading, high-performance solutions that not only help manage, optimize and support IMS environments, but also reduce operating costs and improve business service delivery. All told, BMC is acquiring more than 20 products through the acquisition, says Robin Reddick, director of MSM Solutions Marketing at BMC Software.
Posted June 27, 2011
HP has unveiled a new suite of software which it says is designed to rationalize, measure and improve IT performance called the HP IT Performance Suite. The suite provides CIOs insight from across a comprehensive range of solutions to manage and optimize application development, infrastructure and operations management, security, information management, and financial planning and administration. Each product in the HP Software portfolio improves the performance of the discrete IT functions addressed, while a new IT Executive Scorecard helps technology executives optimize overall IT investments and outcomes.
Posted June 24, 2011
Oracle has announced that it is has entered into an agreement to acquire FatWire Software, a provider of web experience management solutions. FatWire's solutions provide organizations with the ability to deliver relevant customer content, build community engagement and drive site stickiness and loyalty. "The addition of FatWire products will give Oracle the ability to provide a complete suite of software that empowers web marketers to engage visitors, converting more prospects to customers, and enhancing customer loyalty," says Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president at Oracle.
Posted June 22, 2011
When you think of mission-critical services, perhaps none is as critical as electrical service. Not much can happen in modern businesses, government offices, or even homes without it. Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS) is the largest electric company in Vermont. More than 159,000 customers in 163 communities rely on the electrical service CVPS provides. And, according to J.D. Power and Associates, a global marketing and surveying company, for overall customer satisfaction, CVPS continues to rank in the top tier of utilities in the eastern region, more than 50 points above the regional average.
Posted June 22, 2011
Is the day of reckoning for big data upon us? To many observers, the growth in data is nothing short of incomprehensible. Data is streaming into, out of, and through enterprises from a dizzying array of sources-transactions, remote devices, partner sites, websites, and nonstop user-generated content. Not only are the data stores resulting from this information driving databases to scale into the terabyte and petabyte range, but they occur in an unfathomable range of formats as well, from traditional structured, relational data to message documents, graphics, videos, and audio files.
Posted June 22, 2011
Confio Software, maker of the Ignite8 performance analysis software tool, has introduced IgniteVM, targeted specifically at DBAs to monitor and ensure database performance in a VMware environment. IgniteVM provides visibility beyond the database and into the virtual server layers, reducing the risk of database performance issues and helping to enable a successful physical to virtual (P2V) transition. With IgniteVM, which is focused squarely on the DBA and the DBA management team, Confio aims to reduce risk and increase visibility by combining the essential database response monitoring available in Confio's Ignite8 tool with non-intrusive VMware visibility.
Posted June 15, 2011
Varonis Systems Inc., a provider of data governance software, has released a new version of its solution, targeted at Microsoft Exchange administrators seeking increased visibility and control over mailboxes and public folders. DatAdvantage for Exchange provides greater visibility into activities, such as who deleted a message or a folder; who changed permissions; who sent a message on behalf of someone else; who changed the content of an email and forwarded it as or on behalf of the original sender; who accessed an inbox, read emails and then marked them as unread. The challenge with the Microsoft Exchange native journaling and diagnostics tools is that they only capture a limited amount of data, according to Varonis. "With this latest update, our customers not only have a critical audit trail that they didn't have previously, but they also benefit from Varonis' automated analysis of that audit trail," David Gibson, director of strategic accounts and technical marketing for Varonis, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted June 14, 2011