Monday, August 22, 2011

CA Technologies Launches Next-Generation Management for Business ServicesService Assurance Daily: Anything and everything that affects IT performance, from the mundane to the bizarre - Network Performance Blog

By Denise Dubie

CA Technologies Tuesday announced the general availability of software that the company says will enable enterprise IT departments to better manage business services across sophisticated environments using automation, modeling and intelligent correlation technologies to optimize IT service performance, quality and availability in real time.

Read the CA Technologies press release CA Technologies Delivers Next-Generation Service Assurance Product to Help Improve Service Quality and Predictability, and Optimize IT Operations

Read an in-depth take on the news Bridging the "IT Operations-Business Gap"

Watch a humorous video explanation of the technology IT Sandwich: InTernatIonal Lunchwagen

View a slideshow sharing product details and explaining new features CA Service Operations Insight r3.0

CA Service Operations Insight (SOI) 3.0 software promises to help IT managers who are responsible for service quality and performance in traditional as well as next-generation environments, such as those utilizing virtualization and cloud technologies. Part of CA Technologies Service Operations Management product portfolio (#serviceopsmgmt), CA SOI 3.0 (formerly CA Spectrum Service Assurance) offers IT managers several automated methods for building and maintaining real-time models of business services from end-to-end.

“Today’s challenging, dynamically changing business and technical environments are outpacing the abilities of current management tools. IT needs a game changer,” said Mike Sargent, general manager, Service Assurance, CA Technologies, in a statement. “CA Service Operations Insight is a next-generation tool that is precisely designed to address the service quality requirements of real-time, interactive online services that drive many businesses and governments.”

081611SOILaunch.png

Visualizing business services end-to-end in real time: CA Service Operations Insight (SOI) displays real-time cross-domain models of the groups of IT components that support specific business services. The CA SOI Service Console, shown here, integrates information from application, infrastructure and other domain management tools to build, maintain and analyze service models to pinpoint the sources of the severest impact (red dotted line and circles) and other risks (yellow circles) to business services. This helps to speed service problem triage and mean-time-to-repair and to mitigate business risk.

Like its technology predecessor, dubbed business service management (BSM) by the industry, service operations management technologies work to link the business service with the underlying application and infrastructure components supporting it. By doing that, the software is able to manage -- using existing tools in the environment -- those components that support the service, keeping end-user or customer experience top of mind. Yet unlike BSM tools, many of which were dependent on a manually updated configuration management database (CMDB), CA SOI 3.0 automatically updates service models when new components are introduced into the environment. That both reduces the manual efforts of IT managers and also keeps critical data related to business services up-to-date and accurate in real time, making it easier to manage IT service delivery across traditional, virtual and cloud resources.

“The current BSM tools on the market have an approach that is dependent upon the CMDB, so if you need to make a change to the infrastructure you wouldn’t immediately know if you were going to negatively impact business services without first getting permission to make the change,” says David Hayward, senior principal product marketing manager at CA Technologies. “Today’s environments need a process and product geared toward real-time operations that uses automation and intelligence. This reduces the effort to build and maintain accurate, end-to-end service models.”

The software not only helps establish the service models by which to manage application and infrastructure components, but is also works to resolve service quality and performance issues as they occur. The product is also designed to leverage existing domain and IT management products.
“It leverages data collected from all existing IT management tools in the environment: network, systems, virtual, application database, mainframe and more. It can then deliver a true cross-silo, real-time view of what comprises a business service and manage quality and availability,” Hayward explains.

For instance, CA SOI 3.0 can trigger workflows across data center and cloud resources to fix business service quality and availability problems. It also queries and correlates historical and real-time cross-domain events, enabling IT managers to see if all components in the environment are working as expected to support the business service. The software can also provision resources to ensure service quality expectations are met and mitigate the risk of missing service-level agreements (SLA).

Such capabilities are mandatory to effectively manage services across today’s environments, according to industry watchers.
“CA Service Operations Insight offers a cohesive and powerful design for delivering time-sensitive insights into dynamic service-to-applications interdependencies and performance issues in order to mitigate business risks, align resources with business objectives and meet service quality expectations for end-user consumers as well as key business stakeholders,” said Dennis Drogseth, vice president, Enterprise Management Associates, in a statement.

For more details, visit this link.

CA Technologies Launches Next-Generation Management for Business ServicesService Assurance Daily: Anything and everything that affects IT performance, from the mundane to the bizarre - Network Performance Blog

VMworld: ManageEngine Prepares Virtualization Management | MSPmentor

VMworld: ManageEngine Prepares Virtualization Management

ManageEngine LogoManageEngine, which develops network management and application server management software for MSPs, is preparing some surprises for VMworld (Aug. 29 – Sept. 1, 2011). The logical conclusion: ManageEngine is preparing to help MSPs to proactively manage virtualized environments. Raj Sabhlok, president of Zoho Corp. (ManageEngine’s parent) offers some details.
“We believe virtualization will be a big part of our future,” Sabhlok said. “But growth will be stunted if good management is not in place, and we think we have the solutions for the right kind of management.”

To that end, ManagEngine will release a new version of its application management product, allowing MSPs and corporate IT managers to monitor and maintain virtual environments. “We need to offer management of every component in a virtual environment — database, app server, web server, etc.,” Sabhlok added. The new application management product will incorporate support for the VMware V-Fabric Application Server into its Application Management product, which will also be upgraded at VMworld.

ManageEngine’s Application Management product will now include runbook automation — a tool to let clients graphically script-out their workflow in a drag-and-drop environment. “Our application management product has been very popular in the monitoring area,” Sabhlok said. “It’s going to help IT manager no only identify potential negative situations via alert, but also take action in the scriptive workflow environment in a non-programming way that is very easy to set-up. It’s a really cool technology that spans physical, virtual and cloud environments.”

ManageEngine’s third release centers are its site 24×7 product and mobile device management (MDM). Site 24×7 will include what Sabhlok described as “an even more granular end-user experience for outside the firewall that allow clients to track how long it takes each page to load within a prescribed transaction.” The solution will give IT organization feeback as to what end-users are experiencing on their site. “There is pressure on businesses to offer social IT,” he added. “If there is a problem with a server or network, they need to see the problem before it arises. Then you have to be able to take corrective action. We are taking a lot of our social-collaboration tools from Zoho and integrating it into our IT.” ManageEngine also plans to release a self-service password reset function for Site 24×7 during Q3 2011.

Separately, ManageEngine recently upgraded its On-Demand apps. to include Active Directory (AD) integration.

GroundWork Launches Free Monitoring Software for Non-Profits | MSPmentor

GroundWork Launches Free Monitoring Software for Non-Profits


GroundWork Inc. has launched a free monitoring platform that targets network, application and cloud management. But there’s a catch: The free offering, called GroundWork Monitor NPO, is for non-profit organizations and open source projects. There’s also a side story here. GroundWork is striving to help customers use open source and proprietary management tools in tandem. Here’s a closer look at the strategy.
First, the free offer. Organizations must be approved by GroundWork to use GroundWork Monitor NPO for free. The criteria for non-profits includes:
  • Non-profit
  • Non-government
  • Non-academic
  • Non-commercial
  • Non-political
  • Secular
And the criteria for open source use includes:
  • Established code base
  • Publicly available project website
  • Using an approved open source license
Meanwhile, there’s a side story here. GroundWork Inc. used to be called GroundWork Open Source. But the subtle name change shows how GroundWork is striving to appeal to MSPs and enterprise administrators who may prefer proprietary software. According to GroundWork’s company description:
“GroundWork’s approach gives customers the flexibility to use diverse open source and proprietary technologies together under a unified web services portal, allowing users to leverage the advantages of open source while simultaneously preserving existing investments in legacy management tools.”
Still, it seems like GroundWork’s interest in the managed services community has subsided a bit. In September 2010, GroundWork launched an MSP portal and MSP pricing. But that portal ((http://msp.gwos.com) appears to have gone dark, and the URL redirects to GroundWork’s home page.


GroundWork Launches Free Monitoring Software for Non-Profits | MSPmentor

Saturday, August 20, 2011

CenturyLink Rolls Out VoIP Services in Ohio :: Communications Technology

CenturyLink has introduced two new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services for business customers in Ohio.

CenturyLink Hosted VoIP and CenturyLink Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking allow companies to access advanced features that enhance connectivity and mobility in the workplace.

CenturyLink Hosted VoIP:
  • CenturyLink manages the service and provides all future upgrades and maintenance;
  • One connection from a single provider for both voice and data with no need to purchase or manage a premise-based PBX;
  • Full access to advanced IP-based call management features and online management via Web-based portals.
CenturyLink SIP Trunking:
  • Convergence of voice and data traffic on a single connection to lowers costs and the need for IT resources;
  • Ability to keep existing phone system and network infrastructure;
  • Freedom to manage your own PBX while maximizing advanced features.

CenturyLink Rolls Out VoIP Services in Ohio :: Communications Technology