Posts from — November 2006

Is there such a product or capability in a product that could do enterprise wide scheduling and calendaring? What I’m interested in is not related to people, meeting, conference room scheduling, but more along the lines of enterprise planning, BI, etc. where one could input into such a solution that ‘between the hours of 12pm and 2pm’ are the most critical hours of the day for this business service, application, transaction. Or something that could be the repository for killer business impact information based on BI type data feeds, etc. Or something that bleeds into service catalog/IT cost & usage that could track costs/impacts/revenues for use of business and IT services during a certain period, from a certain location, etc.?

Not sure if this is an SLA type tool as SLA’s and OLA’s may not always necessarily be involved. Something more along the lines of an uber-business-intelligence knowledgebase that’s business service, application, process, transaction, flow, etc. aware.

Just curious…

• MySQL Looks To Make Database Administrators’ Jobs Easier - Windows News by InformationWeek
  MySQL, the supplier of the open source database with the same name, this week started shipping a new enterprise version of its MySQL Server 5.0 database that eases the workload of database administrators. The new version comes with an expert advisory serv
  (tags: MySQL monitoring Dashboards OSS)
• Inelegant » 42 Uses for RSS/Atom Feeds
  42 Uses for RSS/Atom Feeds Syndication feeds (RSS/Atom) can be used to follow your favourite blogs and news sites. Here are 42 other uses for feeds:
  (tags: web2.0 RSS feeds)
• IBM Buys Another OSS Firm
  IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM - message board) is set to further stake its claim as a major supplier of telecom software and services on Tuesday with the acquisition of wireless performance management specialist Vallent Corp. , Light Reading has learned. The move
  (tags: IBM Tivoli M&A Valent networkmanagement monitoring wireless)
• Dell to Simplify Approach to Systems Management
  Dell announced on Nov. 28 a number of initiatives aimed at streamlining the process of managing and administering an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. ADVERTISEMENT One part of this announcement involves the Round Rock, Texas, company extending its relation
  (tags: systemsmanagement nomoreagents)

I’d been seeing interesting Google hits land on my blog for this for months now. This helps fill out some gaps in network quality and performance management and monitoirng in service provider networks, specifically wireless and radio access networks. This will be part of the Netcool pillar under the Tivoli brand.

From the PR: (link here)

“Vallent is a leading supplier of network performance monitoring and service management software for wireless service providers worldwide. Vallent’s software helps service providers manage the performance of their network infrastructure through monitoring and reporting problem areas such as dropped calls and traffic bottlenecks. It also helps operators improve wireless service quality and identify network problems before they impact a customer’s experience.

The combination of Vallent’s software and IBM’s comprehensive management capabilities will enable service providers to deliver and manage end-to-end high quality services across wireline, wireless, IP and converged fixed/mobile network infrastructures. Adding Vallent to IBM Tivoli Software’s Netcool portfolio creates a broad set of service assurance capabilities spanning fault, network performance and service quality management over a wide array of technologies and third-party equipment and applications. Vallent will augment IBM’s ability to help communications service providers manage their networks as they deploy innovative new services while migrating from legacy to next generation infrastructures.”

• Evident Software
  Solutions Overview

  Evident Software provides solutions that help enterprise IT managers identify and eliminate inefficiencies in their infrastructures, bring supply and demand of IT resources into equilibrium, and price services based on actual usa

  (tags: ITAM usagemgmt demandmgmt chargeback asset-management asset-service-utilization)

• IBM Unveils Flurry of New Service Products - Outsourcing News by InformationWeek
  IBM on Tuesday introduced a range of combined software and services offerings designed to help businesses automate monitoring IT asset performance and service agreements. IBM says it will price the offerings more like software products than services, star
  (tags: IBM Tivoli Process_Managers ITSM CCMDB)
• IBM IT Service Management – Self Assessment Tools
  Taking this assessment is your first step in realizing the following benefits from an integrated, services oriented approach to ITSM: Effectively and efficiently deliver IT services. Quantifiable process performance Extract greater value of existing inves
  (tags: IBM Tivoli ITSM Tools)
• IT-Director.com - Partnership Announcements Highlight The Busine
  Cape Clear announced its partnership with Systar, a Business Activity Monitoring provider (Nov 14th 2006) and with Workday (Nov 6th 2006), a provider of web-based hosted HR and ERP applications i.e. providing Software as a Service (SaaS). The combination
  (tags: Systar Business-Activity-Monitoring BAM SOA CapeClear)

• ZipTie
  ZipTie is a framework for Network Inventory Management. The software is free to download, use, and distribute.

  **Does/will it do discovery of network topology, relationships, ciruits, interfaces, protocol configurations, etc….

  (tags: AlterPoint configurationmanagement networkmanagement OSS)
• Cisco vs. OpenView and Tivoli? - Network World
  Cisco one day would like to be known as much for IT infrastructure management as it is for routers and switches - at least that’s the general industry belief, even if the company hasn’t said so outright.
  (tags: Cisco networkmanagement systemsmanagement appmgmt service_management)
• Microsoft Muscles into Enterprise Management
  Microsoft will try to move up from the kids’ table at the enterprise management feast when it launches the private beta of its new Service Desk offering Nov. 14 and announces its participation in the Configuration Management Database Federation Working Gr
  (tags: Microsoft service_desk CMDB Federation)
• Service Modeling Language
  The Service Modeling Language (SML) specification is used to model complex IT services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. SML is based on a profile on XML Schema and Schematron. SML was created by the SML wo
  (tags: SML)

I worked up a pretty slick demo for a client this week who expressed an interest in Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) as part of their Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and Websphere MQ/Message Broker/ESB evaluations. I’ve had many thoughts on this topic from my past, but the work on this demo and discussions with the client affirmed that leveraging the Tivoli Netcool/RAD platform and enabling technolgies/products as an entry point into Business Service Management (BSM) or Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is viable. Maybe it’s just the way my brain works, but bringing a Service Oriented Architecture and associated services to life with the Tivoli Netcool/RAD Business Service Management (BSM) / Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) solution was really quite easy.

I continue to be amazed by the depth of assets and resources that we have here at IBM. The things that I’m seeing come from our Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) efforts are incredible enablers for creation of the Business Service Management (BSM) and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) practice. The BSM, BAM, BPM, B-I-N-G-O acronym soup of technologies, products and concepts will benefit greatly should the concepts of service orientation take hold in the mainstream and we can make it easy for clients to grasp these concepts, give them straight forward and easy ways to change from the legacy ways of enterprise and service provider architecture and design, and support them with solutions that help them manage, monitor and leverage these investments for the betterment of their business goals and objectives.

Lots of exciting times in the future for sure!

Found this today (this AM) that NetQoS is putting out. Looks like a good resource on many good topics near and dear to me.

http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/