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BMC Software, which makes mainframe system management software, is extending the reach of its Patrol system down to the desktop, including Linux desktops.
BMCs Patrol for Linux manages Linux on the desktop. Patrol for Unix manages Red Hat or SuSE Linux on servers. The products for managing Linux in distributed systems, including desktops and Intel servers, will be integrated with BMCs management system for Linux on the mainframe, Mainview for Linux Servers, which is due out in the first quarter of next year, said Carl Coken, vice president of Patrol platform solutions.
Patrol for Linux and Patrol for Unix are available for $815. Pricing for Mainview has not been set yet, he said.
Other products, such as Patrol for Internet Services, will support Linux as a Web server; Patrol Perform or Patrol Predict, which provide performance analysis and capacity-planning capabilities, respectively, will also support Linux systems, Coken said.
“Linux is now part of companies mission-critical environment,” and the ability to manage it alongside other systems is being built into the modules of the Patrol product line, he said.
Patrol for Desktops, Patrol for File and Print Servers, and Patrol for Microsoft Windows manage the operating system and provide monitoring features designed to ensure availability.
If the log file on either a Linux or Windows server is growing beyond its assigned memory capacity, Patrol will copy the file to an outside storage device and then delete the file from the server, so that server event may continue to be captured and logged, Coken said.
Patrol for Desktops currently manages Windows NT and Windows 2000. It is designed to monitor Windows desktop activities, including running applications, without impacting the resources of the desktop. A Patrol agent on the desktop sends data on its operation, including temperature, status of error checking and correction memory modules and CPU operation, to the patrol management console at a central site. These management functions will be extended to Unix, Linux and Solaris desktops in the middle of next year, Coken said.
“If the printer service fails, we can restart that automatically,” Coken noted.
Likewise, if a Web server or Windows NT/2000 servers stalls, Patrol will automatically restart those servers. “If the message server fails, well restart it quickly, so that end users see a delay, but dont see any downtime,” he said.