With TPM, IBM now competes with HP This eliminates the need for a bank to reserve extra servers or network space With peering, software is
For IBM , the virtualization pipeline continues to flow fat
and steady.
The systems vendor today trotted out virtualization software that lets
companies install software on tens of thousands of laptops, desktop PCs,
wireless devices and servers.
Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM), which the company fashioned after it absorbed Rembo Technology in May, helps clients whittle down the time it takes to
upgrade systems by hours or days.
Such automation tools are high on CIOs’ wish lists because they can save time
and effort for their IT staffs. , Opsware
and Altiris
in the lucrative software automation space.
The software senses when the network can handle upgrades and triggers them
when there is enough bandwidth to get the job done without affecting
the systems, IBM said in a statement.
The product also performs automatic compliance checks to make sure that
security patches are updated and deployed across the network.
With corporate employees numbering in the hundreds to thousands at medium- to
large-sized businesses, IT admins and their staffs don’t have time to
blanket every machine in the company for manual maintenance, such as application
upgrades and security patches.
This is why software that automates such tasks has become so bankable; IBM
is capitalizing on that need with TPM.
For example, a company could use TPM to sense when there is enough network
bandwidth available to deploy an e-mail software upgrade without having to
worry about allocating extra servers, scheduling software changes when
network traffic is slow, or monitoring network traffic.
While the core technology of Rembo’s assets has been preserved, TPM now
includes two new virtualization utilities: adaptive bandwidth control and
peering.
Adaptive bandwidth control gives important business operations priority but
allows IT tasks, such as antivirus updates, to be handled whenever network
space is available.
for administrative tasks.
Peering, as the name suggests, is a grid computing-based approach to
distributing software across networks all over the world, allowing files to
be downloaded from a local server or desktop.
delivered to users at a faster clip without impinging network traffic or
taxing servers.
TPM, which will be available later this month, is integrated with the IBM
Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database so that both
technologies can share information about the status of IT services.
IBM’s Rembo The ‘Rambo’ of Provisioning
