Data Center Management Articles
Oracle has made enhancements to Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g enables organizations to develop and deploy internal and external portals and websites, composite applications, mashups, and social and collaboration services all tightly integrated with enterprise applications. The updates combine best-of-breed capabilities from Oracle's portfolio of portal products and provide customers with a unified user experience platform for the enterprise and the web, Andy MacMillan, vice president, Product Management, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted February 02, 2011
Data growth is driving the use of virtualization within data centers. The virtualization evolution from server to storage to desktop is catching on at many small-to-medium size businesses, as well as at large enterprises. Aimed at providing a better end-user and administrator experience than their physical counterparts, virtualized desktops promise lower cost of acquisition and management with a highly scalable, easy-to-deploy and fully protected environment. However, with virtualization desktop infrastructure (VDI) comes a set of new challenges. Chief among these are storage and server resource allocation and data protection and recovery.
Posted February 02, 2011
IBM announced the latest release of the Informix database server, version 11.7, in October 2010, thus marking the fourth major release since Informix joined the company. One of the most exciting features in Informix 11.7 is the "Flexible Grid." Wouldn't you like to administer multiple servers as easily as a single server? Wouldn't you like to mix different hardware, operating systems, and versions of software? The Informix Flexible Grid provides this capability.
Posted February 02, 2011
The market for data warehouse appliances - solutions consisting of integrated software and hardware - is heating up, with new twists emerging from both established and new appliance vendors. Netezza, an early proponent of the appliance approach, was acquired in November 2010 by IBM. Here, Phil Francisco, vice president, product management and marketing for IBM Netezza, shares his views on what's changing and what's ahead. Going forward, Francisco sees very specific, vertically-oriented solutions that are built on appliances, whether it be for Telco, retailers, or financial services. "These appliances will take into account the kinds of data models that are required, but also the kind of functionality that is required for those industries and relieve even more of the day-to-day administration requirements," he notes.
Posted February 01, 2011
HP and Microsoft have announced four new converged application appliances that combine applications, infrastructure and productivity tools into a single system. In addition, there is the previously-announced HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance, an enterprise-level mission-critical system. Now available with a starting price of $2 million, the HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance is said to deliver up to 200 times faster queries and 10 times the scalability of traditional SQL Server deployments."Our appliances have been engineered from the beginning with time to solution in mind," Fausto Ibarra, senior director of Business Intelligence at Microsoft, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "We are really offering a unique value proposition."
Posted January 25, 2011
BMC Software announced a workload automation solution that enables business users to manage their own workloads without requiring the intervention of IT departments. The new tool, BMC Control-M Self Service, enables users check the status of their work, make workload processing changes for their business transactions and access a service catalog of predefined workloads. "BMC Control-M Self Service is arming business users with more control over their IT environment," says Bill Miller, president of mainframe service management for BMC Software. "The lines between IT and business users are being blurred and BMC is seeking to provide a clear vision with easy-to-use tools that empower them to play a leading role in delivering their end product."
Posted January 24, 2011
Application Security, Inc., a provider of database security, risk and compliance solutions, and NEON Enterprise Software, a provider of mainframe solutions, have announced a strategic alliance to deliver enterprise security solutions for monitoring database activity on the mainframe. The "compliance tidal wave" that has been hitting IT is now crashing on the mainframe, Josh Shaul, vice president product management, AppSec, tells 5 Minute Briefing. As open systems have succeeded in becoming "much more locked down," regulators are naturally expanding the breadth of their audits to include mainframes to ensure that proper controls are there as well, he explains. And while it is very hard to hack into mainframe systems, Shaul notes, for authorized users the potential for abuse exists on the mainframe in the same way as it does in distributed systems.
Posted January 24, 2011
Symantec Corp. has introduced two new appliances designed to provide customers with a more flexible delivery model for its data protection, storage management and security solutions. The Symantec FileStore N8300 is a scale-out, clustered network attached storage (NAS) appliance designed to help customers address the business challenges associated with building out cloud storage, managing large volumes of data and controlling the associated storage costs. The NetBackup 5200 appliance series helps customers expand their data protection infrastructure with an all-in-one hardware and software backup solution that integrates deduplication to reduce storage.
Posted January 24, 2011
IBM has announced a new tool feature designed to provide improved data access by simplifying and automating the process of cloning entire IBM IMS subsystems or databases. The IBM IMS Cloning Tool employs storage processor fast-replication facilities to clone IMS systems and refresh databases. IMS Cloning Tool simplifies, automates, and speeds up IMS system cloning and database refresh operations, while at the same time using fewer CPU, I/O, and storage resources than traditional methods by offloading the copy process to the storage processor.
Posted January 24, 2011
Veryant, a COBOL-to-Java vendor, has released vCOBOL Enterprise, a platform to migrate legacy COBOL applications off IBM mainframes. vCOBOL includes an optimized compiler and COBOL-to-Java runtime technology. "vCOBOL software's strong compatibility with legacy COBOL dialects, combined with the ability to natively call COBOL programs directly from Java it enables, makes the technology a natural choice for mainframe modernization initiatives," Dovid Lubin, vice president of technical operations for Veryant, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted January 24, 2011
3X Systems has released version 3.0 of its 500 and Tera Series remote backup appliances, capable of automatically backing up Microsoft Windows-based servers, workstations, and laptops over the internet to a central storage device that delivers data protection and disaster recovery capabilities. The new features in version 3.0 of the appliances provide more flexibility for users, Alan Arman, CEO, 3X, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "You utilize one console to back up your servers, your virtual environment, your laptops in the field, and back up remote offices, all managed under a policy-based back up. That saves administrators quite a bit of time."
Posted January 24, 2011
IBM announced bullish fourth-quarter and 2010 year-end results for software and solutions sales, marking an acceleration in the resurgence from the recent economic slump. The company said its fourth-quarter net income was $5.3 billion, an increase of 9% over $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 were $29 billion, an increase of 7%. Revenues from System z mainframe server products increased 69% compared with the year-ago period. Total delivery of System z computing power, as measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second), increased 58%.
Posted January 24, 2011
Application Security, Inc., a provider of database security, risk and compliance (SRC) solutions for the enterprise, and NEON Enterprise Software, a provider of solutions for mainframe customers, have announced a strategic alliance to deliver enterprise SRC solutions for monitoring database activity on the mainframe. The "compliance tidal wave" that has been hitting IT is now crashing on the mainframe, Josh Shaul, vice president product management, AppSec, tells 5 Minute Briefing. As open systems have succeeded in becoming "much more locked down," regulators are naturally expanding the breadth of their audits to include the mainframes to ensure that proper controls are there as well, he explains. And while it is very hard to hack into mainframe systems, Shaul notes, for authorized users the potential for abuse that exists on the mainframe is the same as in distributed systems.
Posted January 18, 2011
Unisys Corporation has added the Security Event and Log Management solution to its Unisys Managed Security Services (MSS) offering. This new solution gives clients enhanced capabilities to identify and deflect potential cybersecurity breaches as they emerge from anywhere in the enterprise IT infrastructure, as well as to create and maintain the detailed audit trails of threats and responses increasingly required by regulatory and industry bodies.
Posted January 12, 2011
UNITE's series of Best of UNITE Conference webcasts continues. Topics of upcoming webcasts include: Using - Really Using - COBOL-85; How to Secure a ClearPath OS 2200 Server,;and An Agile Business Suite User Case Study.
Posted January 12, 2011
Software Diversified Services (SDS), a mainframe tools vendor, announced it has made PGP Corporation's data encryption platform available for IBM z/OS systems. The offering, PGP Command Line for IBM Mainframes, integrates into existing mainframe processes and provides compression and encryption for data at rest, in transmission, and in archival backups, SDS says.
Posted January 10, 2011
At HP Software Universe in Barcelona, HP introduced a new release of its configuration management tool, incorporating a module for policy-based topology and inventory configuration analysis, as well as greater integration with the vendor's discovery and mapping platform. HP's UCMDB-Configuration Manager (UCMDB-CM) is an instant-on module that is part of the UCMDB product delivered with UCMDB 9.10.
Posted January 10, 2011
GT Software, a provider of mainframe integration solutions, announced that the company's flagship product, Ivory Service Architect, has released version 4.3 that adds the REST architecture as a new interface option.
Posted January 10, 2011
Attachmate Corporation says it is now shipping a solution that helps securely connect local and remote users to legacy applications on a variety of host platforms including IBM, HP, Unisys, UNIX and OpenVMS. The new release, Attachmate Reflection for the Web 2008 R3 is designed to help administrators use LDAP and Active Directory services to centrally install, deploy and control access to legacy applications. The new release also provides support for emerging platforms such as Linux on System z, Google Chrome and the latest versions of Java.
Posted January 10, 2011
Luminex Software Inc., a provider of mainframe virtual tape for data deduplication storage systems, announced Luminex Tape Monitor software (LTMON) for mainframe virtual tape systems, part of its family of Channel Gateway mainframe virtual tape products. Luminex also announced its High Availability Grid (HA-Grid) functionality, which provides highly available and redundant mainframe virtual tape storage.
Posted January 10, 2011
Without a doubt, Cloud Computing is the hottest topic in information technology today. Gartner has identified Cloud Computing as the #1 (of 10) strategic technology for 2011. Gartner specifically states "Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. The next three years will see the delivery of a range of cloud service approaches that fall between these two extremes. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies (software and/or hardware) and methodologies (i.e., best practices to build and run the service) in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise. Many will also offer management services to remotely manage the cloud service implementation."
Posted January 10, 2011
The idea of moving off IMS might seem compelling at first glance, but once you look at the whole picture, you might think otherwise. Most people think of cost as the primary reason to move off IMS. But if you look at all of the comparative costs of IMS on a mainframe against a WINDOWS/UNIX solution, you will find that running IMS is actually cost-effective. The obvious cost elements are hardware and software and the huge expense of converting hundreds of thousands of lines of code and hundreds of databases. However, these are only a small part of the story.
Posted January 07, 2011
At Oracle OpenWorld in Beijing, Oracle announced Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management, a new module within Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 portfolio, aimed at optimizing the management of products that consist of a variety of different attributes including styles, colors and sizes. To meet increasingly volatile and specific consumer expectations, manufacturers and distributors need to be able to streamline the management of complex multi-attribute items, Lyle Ekdahl, Oracle group vice president of JD Edwards, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "We definitely wanted to carve out a niche for apparel because of the growth of apparel manufacturing and distribution in emerging markets, but when you take a look at the overall global economy, we think that there are a lot of good uses for the product," says Ekdahl, pointing out that the capabilities of the module can be applied to any industry that deals with multi-attribute items.
Posted January 05, 2011
Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0. Part of Oracle's portfolio of virtualization solutions, Oracle VM VirtualBox enables desktop or laptop computers to run multiple guest operating systems simultaneously, allowing users to get higher flexibility and utilization out of their PCs, and supports a variety of host operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, popular flavors of Linux (including Oracle Linux), and Oracle Solaris.
Posted January 05, 2011
An IBM computing system named "Watson" will compete on Jeopardy! against the television game show's two most successful contestants. The first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days.
Posted December 22, 2010
The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced that all the leading commercial Linux companies are certified to Linux Standard Base 4.0 (LSB 4.0), including Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat.
Posted December 22, 2010
The openSUSE Project, a worldwide effort sponsored by Novell, has announced the appointment of Alan Clark to the position of openSUSE board chairperson.
Posted December 22, 2010
Novell has announced the winners of its First Annual Dister Awards, which recognize innovators and inventors who build Linux-based software appliances using SUSE Studio from Novell.
Posted December 22, 2010
An IBM computing system named "Watson" will compete on Jeopardy! against the television game show's two most successful contestants. The first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days.
Posted December 22, 2010
The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced that all the leading commercial Linux companies are certified to Linux Standard Base 4.0 (LSB 4.0), including Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat.
Posted December 22, 2010
The openSUSE Project, a worldwide effort sponsored by Novell, has announced the appointment of Alan Clark to the position of openSUSE board chairperson.
Posted December 22, 2010
Novell has announced the winners of its First Annual Dister Awards, which recognize innovators and inventors who build Linux-based software appliances using SUSE Studio from Novell.
Posted December 22, 2010
Sybase, an SAP company, recently announced its support for a new managed mobility offering from Verizon Business that aims to reduce the complexity in developing and deploying mobile applications running across a variety of back-end enterprise systems and mobile device types. Verizon's new Mobile Services Enablement Platform (MSEP) leverages Sybase Managed Mobility as well as the Sybase Unwired Platform and can be fully integrated with existing Verizon Managed Mobility Solutions modules.
Posted December 15, 2010
Sybase, an SAP company, recently announced its support for a new managed mobility offering from Verizon Business that aims to reduce the complexity in developing and deploying mobile applications running across a variety of back-end enterprise systems and mobile device types. Verizon's new Mobile Services Enablement Platform (MSEP) leverages Sybase Managed Mobility as well as the Sybase Unwired Platform and can be fully integrated with existing Verizon Managed Mobility Solutions modules.
Posted December 15, 2010
Sybase, an SAP company, recently announced its support for a new managed mobility offering from Verizon Business that aims to reduce the complexity in developing and deploying mobile applications running across a variety of back-end enterprise systems and mobile device types. Verizon's new Mobile Services Enablement Platform (MSEP) leverages Sybase Managed Mobility as well as the Sybase Unwired Platform and can be fully integrated with existing Verizon Managed Mobility Solutions modules.
Posted December 15, 2010
At SAP TechEd 2010 held in Bangalore, India, SAP AG, Sybase's parent company, announced availability of the new High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA). "We genuinely believe that HANA and the in-memory computing technology inside HANA represents a once in a generation kind of technological shift that happens in the industry," said SAP CTO Vishal Sikka, speaking during a teleconference from India.
Posted December 15, 2010
Sentrigo, Inc., a database security software provider, has announced the latest version of its database vulnerability assessment and security scanning software solution. The new release, Repscan 4.0, available with more flexible pricing options, offers support for additional database platforms, productivity enhancements for database administrators (DBAs), and added management capabilities.
Posted December 15, 2010
Progress Software Corporation has announced the release of DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET 3.5, extending support for Microsoft Entity Framework 4.0 to its Sybase, Oracle, and DB2 providers. With this release, Progress extends the high performance and easy-to-deploy benefits of its managed code architecture ADO.NET providers to Entity Framework 4.0-compatible applications.
Posted December 15, 2010
Oracle has announced a world record TPC-C benchmark result for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 on a SPARC Supercluster with SPARC T3-4 servers.
Posted December 15, 2010
Demonstrating its commitment to the SPARC platform, Oracle has expanded the SPARC platform by announcing a SPARC Solaris-based Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B engineered system and a complete refresh of the SPARC server product line.
Posted December 15, 2010
Continuing their more than 20-year partnership, Oracle and Fujitsu have enhanced SPARC Enterprise M-Series server product line with a new processor SPARC64 VII+. Oracle and Fujitsu also unveiled the unified enclosure design of the Oracle and Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise M-series servers which features the logos of both companies.
Posted December 15, 2010
Oracle has expanded its Sun Blade systems portfolio with new SPARC and x86 blade products and supporting integrated solutions. With this announcement, Oracle is targeting the enterprise, or private, cloud market and also highly virtualized data centers, Dimitrios Dovas, director, product management for x86 servers, blades and networking, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted December 15, 2010
INNOVATION Data Processing, a mainframe data management provider, announced it is working with EMC, a storage solutions provider, to offer joint solutions for IBM's new zEnterprise mainframe, together with EMC Symmetrix multi-platform access from System z (i.e., z/SOS for Symmetrix). INNOVATION announced two new solutions, FDRSOS V5.4.75 and SOSINSTANT, to support enterprise backup of open systems onto a mainframe and EMC platform.
Posted December 13, 2010
CA Technologies has begun shipping object-oriented, role-based workspace tools for mainframe management, based on Web 2.0 technologies. CA Mainframe Chorus and CA Mainframe Chorus for DB2 Database Management are part of the vendor's "Mainframe 2.0" strategy to simplify mainframe management.
Posted December 13, 2010
Attachmate Corporation announced the availability of the latest version of Attachmate FileXpress, a family of products for the managed file transfer software market. FileXpress 7.0 is intended to simplify the task of securing file exchanges with business partners and customers by extending managed file transfer capabilities to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and providing enhanced automation and auditing features. The latest version of FileXpress includes enhanced support for stringent data security regulations through encryption, authentication, auditing and role-based administration functionalities for B2B data exchanges between partners, vendors, suppliers and customers.
Posted December 13, 2010
BMC Software announced new capabilities in its BMC Control-M workload automation solution that enables integration with Informatica and SAP BusinessObjects. With these new capabilities, Control-M offers a single point of control for automating the delivery of business information across multiple platforms and applications, the vendor says.
Posted December 13, 2010
TwinStrata, Inc., a provider of data protection and iSCSI cloud storage solutions, has integrated Scality's RING storage platform into its family of CloudArray virtual and physical appliances. With the addition of Scality integration, CloudArray customers can now choose and deploy either a private cloud environment or connect with available public cloud providers powered by Scality RING, and receive off-site data protection and disaster recovery capabilities on a plug-and-play basis.
Posted December 13, 2010
Unisys has announced a new solution intended to offer IT organizations a lower-cost alternative to coordinate delivery of IT services and support to their users. The new Unisys IT Service Management Software as a Service (ITSM SaaS) solution is hosted in Unisys client services centers. It gives clients' service personnel web-based access to a common set of IT service management tools based on standardized service-delivery processes, so they can provide services to end users in a uniform way.
Posted December 12, 2010
Unisys has announced Unisys Hosted Secure Private Cloud Solution, the latest addition to the growing list of Unisys cloud solutions and services. Managed in a Unisys client services center, the Hosted Secure Private Cloud Solution gives clients the primary benefit of a provider-hosted cloud - fast access to IT resources to address dynamic changes in business requirements without purchasing additional infrastructure.
Posted December 12, 2010
Attachmate Corporation and Novell, Inc. recently announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Attachmate to acquire Novell for a purchase price of $6.10 per common share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $2.2 billion. Novell helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments through solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux-based operating platforms.
Posted December 12, 2010