InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 17, 1997
Tivoli Improves TME 10 App Management
Enterprise platform gets database, business-process management additions
The IBM unit last week unveiled TME 10 Database Management, a suite of products that will let customers manage databases through the TME 10 framework. Tivoli is also shipping the Applications Policy Manager, the final component of the company's TME 10 Global Enterprise Manager (GEM) program for end-to-end application management.
On the database side, Tivoli announced management modules for Oracle, Informix, Sybase, IBM, and Microsoft databases. Most of the modules are based on the Enterprise Server Manager products developed by DMBX Ltd., a two-year-old company bought by Tivoli in July. "Tivoli had nothing for database management before," says Kevin
Cunningham, a product manager at Tivoli. "We reference-sold the DMBX products."
The IBM DB2 module was developed from technology from IBM's own mainframe division-technology since brought into Tivoli's product fold. "IBM will still provide its own database; we'll provide the management," Cunningham says. "It's important for us to bridge that gap, from the desktop to the mainframe, for end-to-end database management."
GEM is Tivoli's program for letting customers manage their IT infrastructure from a business-centric perspective. For example, GEM will let an administrator know if there's a problem with the payroll system, rather than simply reporting a network or system failure.
Analysts say Tivoli needed the Applications Policy Management component-a Java-based interface to GEM that lets administrators manage operations from any Java-equipped Web browser-to keep up with its competitors. "CA and HP have been hammering on Tivoli for not having this already," says Rich Ptak, an analyst at D.H. Brown
Associates Inc.
TME 10 GEM "gives the IT staff the tools they need to ensure that critical business applications remain available," says Mike Turner, VP of Tivoli's applications management business unit.
Tivoli also announced that its applications-management specification has been accepted for review by the Desktop Management Task Force as part of the development of the application-management piece of the Common Information Model. The purpose of CIM is to define a standard way to describe management information so different applications on different platforms written by different developers can share that data.
TME 10 Database Management modules are available now, starting at $5,000 per server. With the availability of the Applications Policy Manager, TME 10 GEM is complete and shipping, priced at $250,000.
ivoli Systems Inc. is boosting the capabilities of its TME 10 enterprise-management platform with new products for managing databases and business processes.
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