Cendura Corp. is preparing the next major release of its Cohesion change, configuration and compliance management software for users who need a tool that employs both agent-based and agentless discovery.
“There are some things you just cant get done with agentless technology in terms of collecting deep, application-level detail. Its just easier to collect if you have an agent on the server,” said Jasmine Noel, an analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates, in New York.
Cendura, which competes with the likes of Relicore Inc. and Collation Inc. in the automated application dependency discovery and mapping space, has a list of blue-chip clients that includes VeriSign Inc., HSBC Holdings plc., Intuit Inc. and Homestore Inc.
The Mountain View, Calif., companys users need configuration information but also want a high-level view of their assets to determine where to put agents, a Cendura spokesperson said.
Cohesion 3.5s automated agentless host discovery capability allows the tool to find loaded applications and obtain some level of relationship information, such as which servers are part of which clusters and which servers are configured for backup failover.
Version 3.5, due next month, includes a revamped user interface with a new dependency and application visualization map that links related elements. The UI also has new dashboards for inventory, change detection and rules compliance.
Users at HSBC Holdings, who are piloting Cohesion on 5,000 workstations, say they believe the product can reduce the number of change-related problems by 20 percent.
“Change control in moving from test to QA [quality assurance] to production is always burning us. It is the biggest problem were having right now, and half of our problems are in the application because of complexity,” said Jim Tomaszek, crisis manager in the Quality Delivery organization of HSBC, in Wood Dale, Ill.
Cendura will also launch a Rapid Onsite Installation Program to provide proof of concept for clients.
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