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Data Center Management

Mainframes continue to represent the strong core of Data Center technology, while Virtualization and Cloud are also emerging as important technologies to support efficiency, scalability, and cost containment. Topics critical to Data Center Operations and Computing including hardware and software for Storage, Consolidation, High Availability, Backup & Recovery, and IT Optimization, as well as automated tools that help compensate for the growing Mainframe Skills Shortage.



Data Center Management Articles

IBM announced the availability of the IBM System Storage DS5020 Express, a new storage disk offering that delivers enterprise-class storage capabilities for midrange businesses.

Posted August 31, 2009

IBM announced four IBM Rational products that are among the first to apply the new Change Management services developed by the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) initiative. As a founding member of the OSLC, IBM is working with an open community of software vendors, integrators and corporate software delivery teams to develop specifications that make it easier for development teams to use lifecycle tools in combination and more efficiently share information between systems.

Posted August 31, 2009

Last week the Linux Foundation, of which IBM is a platinum member, released an update to its landmark 2008 study of who contributes to the Linux kernel. Again, IBM was the top systems vendor on the list, which spans over 4 years of kernel development.

Posted August 27, 2009

IBM has announced the System z Solution Edition Series, including seven packages of integrated hardware, software and services designed to help customers deploy new enterprise workloads.

Posted August 27, 2009

It is really Unix, and particularly Sun Solaris, that is most feeling the heat of competition from Linux in the server operating system arena, notes Dave Rosenberg in a recent CNET article. Rosenberg adds that during a recent IBM analyst meeting, Inna Kuznetsova, director, Cross-IBM Linux Strategy and IBM Power Systems Business Development, said the Linux business is growing in size. More than 1,800 clients have moved from other platforms to IBM and almost 50% of those migrations included Linux. In addition, IBM doubled its Sun customer wins between Q1 and Q3 of this year.

Posted August 27, 2009

In a brief announcement last week, Oracle stated that the U.S. Department of Justice has approved its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems and terminated the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

Posted August 25, 2009

AES, provider of service performance monitoring solutions, has announced CleverView for IP Service Performance v2.1, providing real-time remote service monitoring for virtual devices and cloud computing.

Posted August 24, 2009

HiT Software, Inc., a provider of products for database access, integration and replication, announced the availability of the HiT JDBC/DB2 v3.70 high-performance JDBC driver, featuring added support for IBM DB2 native data encryption. HiT JDBC/DB2 is now optimized to take advantage of IBM DB2's DES standard, and combined with HiT Software's HiT SSL Server, provides end-to-end 256-bit encryption for data traveling between Java applications and IBM DB2 LUW or z/OS databases

Posted August 24, 2009

Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical have introduced a new version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 2.0 software. The Open Virtual Client desktop is a combination of IBM's Smart Client desktop software, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux servers and Linux desktop, and Virtual Bridges' VERDE Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) offering.

Posted August 24, 2009

CA, Inc. announced that it is bringing enhanced automation and management of existing internal IT infrastructures and external cloud services to the enterprise. CA's Business-Driven Automation, Service Management, Application Performance Management, and Database Management solutions now support the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). CA also plans to extend the capabilities of several Systems Management solutions to support Amazon EC2. The power and flexibility to manage applications in the Amazon EC2 environment as an extension of their enterprise helps customers achieve Lean IT.

Posted August 24, 2009

Pillar Data Systems, a provider of application-aware storage systems, has formed a new distribution agreement with SYNNEX Corporation, a business process services company. Through this relationship, solution providers and VARs can take advantage of SYNNEX's distribution capabilities when sourcing the Pillar Axiom Storage Solutions. By joining with SYNNEX, Pillar Data Systems expects to deepen and expand its reach with storage solution providers who are focused on medium and enterprise-class business customers.

Posted August 19, 2009

IBM announced the System z Solution Edition Series—seven integrated hardware, software and services packages designed to help customers deploy new enterprise workloads such as data warehousing, electronic payments and disaster recovery. In addition, IBM says it is launching a new campaign to encourage companies to migrate from Sun and HP servers to the Linux platform on System z.

Posted August 17, 2009

SHARE will provide hundreds of enterprise technology professionals with education they need to support their organizations' strategic IT initiatives during the SHARE summer conference August 23-28 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colo.

Posted August 17, 2009

BMC Software has acquired privately held MQSoftware, a provider of middleware management and enterprise application transaction management markets. This acquisition expands BMC's leading Business Service Management platform, designed to provide customers views of their mainframe and distributed systems, to include entire middleware infrastructure and high-value business transactions it supports.

Posted August 17, 2009

VMware, Inc., a provider of virtualization solutions, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held SpringSource, an enterprise and Web application development and management vendor. As a result of the acquisition, VMware and SpringSource are targeting cloud environments - and intend to deliver new solutions that enable companies to more efficiently build, run and manage applications within both internal and external cloud architectures.

Posted August 17, 2009

As the U.S. markets strive for a recovery in 2009, many IT managers are cringing at the thought of managing their data through what may be a record year of mergers and acquisitions. Managing an ever-increasing mountain of data is not a simple task in the best of times, but doing so while combining formerly separate entities during an economic slowdown can be a monumental challenge.

Posted August 14, 2009

Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical have introduced the newest version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 2.0 software. The Open Virtual Client desktop is a combination of IBM's Smart Client desktop software, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux servers and Linux desktop, and Virtual Bridges' VERDE Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) offering.

Posted August 12, 2009

A longtime advocate of Linux, Bob Sutor is vice president for Open Source and Linux at IBM. He recently talked with The Linux Executive Report from IBM about the ways in which IBM has championed Linux over the past decade and the opportunities Linux is now enabling for customers.

Posted August 12, 2009

A longtime advocate of Linux, Bob Sutor is vice president for Open Source and Linux at IBM. He recently talked with The IBM LinuxLine about the ways in which IBM has championed Linux over the past decade and the opportunities Linux is now enabling for customers.

Posted August 12, 2009

Quest Software, Inc. has unveiled the newest version of SharePlex for Oracle, a real-time Oracle-Oracle database replication solution that supports high availability, reporting, data synchronization/integration, and load balancing on Oracle databases. Key features introduced in the new version include wildcard support, batch processing, and configuration management enhancements to SharePlex's monitoring and management dashboard, SharePlex Manager. These new features bring benefits in the areas of ease-of-use, improved performance, task automation, and managing complex replication environments

Posted August 11, 2009

Compuware Corporation announced the release of its next-generation upgrade of Xpediter with Eclipse 2.0. This latest upgrade of the industry-standard analysis and debugging tool enables new mainframe talent to support mission-critical business applications more quickly using a familiar point-and-click environment.

Posted August 10, 2009

Symantec Corp. has announced Symantec Workflow 7.0 and Symantec ServiceDesk 7.0, two updates designed to its IT management offerings. Workflow 7.0 is intended to help customers enforce policies, automate repetitive tasks and accelerate the delivery of IT and business processes. ServiceDesk 7.0 will offer customers a new process-driven and incident, problem, change, release and knowledge management tool based on the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices.

Posted August 10, 2009

Clerity Solutions, Inc. has signed an agreement under which HP will sell Clerity's UniKix mainframe rehosting software.

Posted August 10, 2009

Vision Solutions, a high-availability and disaster recovery solutions provider for IBM Power Systems, announced enhancements to EchoStream, the company's AIX real-time disaster recovery solution. Vision Solutions is currently offering a trial program of the software.

Posted August 10, 2009

Axios Systems, a provider of IT service management solutions, is partnering with GroundWork Open Source, a provider of commercial open source systems and network management software

Posted August 10, 2009

With the SHARE event in Denver coming up this month, 5 Minute Briefing caught up with Pam Taylor to talk about what attendees can expect in terms of hot topics and programs. As important as the online community is, Taylor observes that the in-person event provides unique opportunities for education and networking. "I think we have proof positive from just our experience as an organization that it's not ‘either/or.' It's 'both/and.' There are things you can conduct in a virtual online environment that are highly positive and extremely important and very helpful. But there's also that face-to-face engagement where you have the opportunity to take the conversation in real time in a way that it might not go if you're doing an online kind of exchange."

Posted August 05, 2009

Oracle has released a new version of Oracle Coherence, a distributed in-memory data grid solution. A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Coherence 3.5 now provides tera-scale support to in-memory data grids through configurable off-heap storage.

Posted August 05, 2009

In what is being hailed as a coming-of-age event for Linux, Red Hat, a leader in enterprise Linux and an IBM partner, has joined Standard & Poor's flagship S&P 500 stock index. Founded in 1993, Red Hat is based in Raleigh, NC.

Posted July 29, 2009

Novell has announced that independent software vendors (ISVs) are demonstrating support for its SUSE Appliance Program, a complete appliance solution that enables ISVs to quickly build, update, configure and go to market with fully supported software and virtual appliances.

Posted July 29, 2009

Bob Sutor, vice president of Open Source and Linux at IBM, will be a featured keynote speaker at the Red Hat Summit 2009. Red Hat's premier annual event will be held September 1-4 in Chicago, providing a unique opportunity to obtain up-to-date information on Red Hat Enterprise Linux products and open source initiatives.

Posted July 29, 2009

IBM today announced an agreement to acquire SPSS, a provider of predictive analytics software, services and solutions that help clients forecast trends and anticipate change for business advantage. The $1.2 billion all-cash purchase of SPSS, a publicly held company headquartered in Chicago, is expected to close in the second half of 2009.

Posted July 28, 2009

IBM has introduced new systems software for managing virtualized servers, to help clients plan, build and maintain data centers. The new systems software—IBM Systems Director VMControl—gives companies a tool to manage heterogeneous virtual servers. The solution is designed to enable users to discover, display, monitor and locate virtual resources; create and manage virtual servers; and deploy and manage workloads with a common interface across IBM System z mainframes, System x x86-based servers, BladeCenter, Power Systems AIX, Linux, and System i platforms.

Posted July 27, 2009

A number of VMware global partners, including Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and NEC, announced their support for use of VMware Distributed Power Management (DPM) to make their hardware more power efficient. VMware DPM, part of the VMware vSphere 4 platform, lowers power consumption in the data center by aggregating unused capacity and powering off unused servers without disrupting service levels.

Posted July 27, 2009

Netrics, a provider of data matching technology, announced it has signed TIBCO Software as an OEM partner.

Posted July 27, 2009

Bus-Tech, Inc., a supplier of data center connectivity products, has introduced the Mainframe Data Library (MDL) model 100S. Designed to provide mainframe Virtual Tape Library (VTL) functionality to smaller mainframe shops, the MDL-100S offers self-contained storage and multiple data protection options for what it calls a turnkey solution for mainframe tape replacement.

Posted July 20, 2009

BMC Software announced it is offering its Business Service Management (BSM) set of services and solutions to facilitate "private cloud" development, and that it is leveraging Amazon Web Services to optimize hybrid IT infrastructure deployments via the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Posted July 20, 2009

Novell has announced the addition of physical-to-virtual migration support for Sun Solaris workloads in the latest version of PlateSpin Migrate, a workload management product that enables data center managers to move workloads anywhere to anywhere: between physical, image, virtual and cloud environments.

Posted July 20, 2009

IBM announced enhancements to its information infrastructure portfolio of high-end enterprise storage products designed to help businesses manage the explosive growth in data and information.

Posted July 20, 2009

HP announced that it signed a definitive deal to acquire IBRIX, a provider of enterprise-class file serving software that includes data protection, high-availability features and data management services for extreme scale-out, cloud and high-performance computing deployments.

Posted July 20, 2009

IBM announced second-quarter 2009 net income at $3.1 billion, a 12% increase over $2.8 billion in the second quarter of 2008. Total revenues for the second quarter of 2009 of $23.3 billion decreased 13% (7%, adjusting for currency) from the second quarter of 2008.

Posted July 20, 2009

Enterprise Software has introduced NEON zPrime, a proprietary software product intended to reduce cost of mainframe computing by helping customers take advantage of IBM System z specialty processors.

Posted July 13, 2009

DataDirect Technologies, a mainframe integration provider and operating company of Progress Software Corporation, announced the availability of a web-based calculator designed to measure the total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) for deploying applications on IBM's System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) in combination with DataDirect Shadow integration middleware.

Posted July 13, 2009

FastScale Technology today announced the introduction of FastScale Composer Suite 3.0 Enterprise Edition, a platform for building, optimizing, managing and deploying Windows and Red Hat Linux server software for physical, virtual and cloud-based environments.

Posted July 13, 2009

Symantec Corp. announced the next phase of its deduplication strategy, intended to help organizations reduce data, reduce management complexity and reduce infrastructure requirements. Symantec is moving deduplication closer to information sources by integrating the technology into its information management platforms: NetBackup, Backup Exec and Enterprise Vault, and centrally managing native deduplication as well as third-party deduplication appliances.

Posted July 13, 2009

Software Diversified Services (SDS) has released the latest version of the Vital Signs IP Monitor (VIP) for z/OS mainframe networks. VIP 7.1 provides administrators of z/OS networks with real-time and historical monitoring of TCP/IP and HPR networks.

Posted July 13, 2009

As organizations grow and evolve, they must implement technology changes to accommodate evolving infrastructure needs, often within complex systems running business-critical applications. Along with this, there frequently is an increased demand to reduce the costs of technology by sharing hardware and software resources, a demand many companies try to meet by establishing virtual environments. Virtualization balances the often underutilized physical machines by consolidating them into a single physical host that runs multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) sharing the four core resources—CPU, memory, disks and network cards—of one physical host.

Posted July 13, 2009

Using historically standard analysis techniques related to file placement on disks within the Unisys 2200 environment, it is possible to significantly improve the performance and capacity without significant additional outlays for hardware. Definitions of disk usage and file placement have been identified on a general basis as no longer relevant, as a means of following the "understanding" that modern disks provide sufficient native speed that file placement no longer matters. This is not a valid assumption.

Posted July 13, 2009

Idera, a provider of management and administration software tools for the Microsoft SQL Server database, has introduced SQLsafe 5.0, the latest version of its high performance backup and recovery solution for Microsoft SQL Server databases. SQLsafe 5.0 makes it easy to setup and monitor an entire log shipping environment, with the added advantage of compressing database log backup files, saving a tremendous amount of network bandwidth and disk space.

Posted July 07, 2009

Akorri, Inc., a provider of software for virtual infrastructure performance and capacity management for the virtualized data center, and Datalink, an information storage architect, have entered into an alliance partnership.

Posted July 07, 2009

Software AG, a provider of business infrastructure software, announced it would soon be shipping the latest release of its flagship webMethods platform, webMethods 8.0. The package includes CentraSite ActiveSOA, a unified repository for business and technical services.

Posted July 07, 2009

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