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Change management provider Novadigm Inc. is delving into the utility computing space with a series of enhancements planned for its Radia Server Management software that will streamline configuration changes across servers.
The forthcoming tools from the company are aimed at data center operators looking to boost uptime, improve reliability and make IT operations more efficient, officials said.
Unlike past versions of the software suite, the enhancements to Radia Server Management will automate the synchronization and orchestration of change management activities, which typically require a lot of manual “operator involvement and careful sequencing of steps,” said Joseph Fitzgerald, chief technology officer for Novadigm, in Mahwah, N.J.
As a result, an administrator could take down one of five WebSphere servers, all of which rely on load balancing, for maintenance without disabling any transactions that may have begun, Fitzgerald said.
Among the other Radia enhancements are a series of templates for commonly used applications that allow users to systematically provision the server applications without having to learn the intricacies of each installation and configuration. The customizable templates work with The Apache Software Foundations Web server; Microsoft Corp.s Internet Information Services, Active Directory and SQL Server; BEA Systems Inc.s WebLogic; IBM WebSphere; Sun Microsystems Inc.s Sun ONE Directory Server; and Oracle Corp. applications on Windows, Unix and Linux.
Novadigm is also extending the suites platform support across operating systems, blade servers and load balancers. New native operating system installers supported include Hewlett-Packard Co.s HP-UX Ignite, Microsofts Automated Deployment Services and Suns Solaris JumpStart. Radia Server Management also supports Intel Corp.-based blade servers from IBM, HP and Dell Inc., and it is integrated with load balancers from F5 Networks Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.
Radia Server Management, made up of Radia Application Manager for Servers, Radia Operating System Manager for Servers, Radia Patch Manager for Servers and Radia Inventory Manager for Servers, was also enhanced to better analyze, track and report on configuration, officials said.
The new version, which will not have a new version number, is due next quarter. Pricing will start at $75 per managed server.