Compuware Corp. this week hopes to simplify tool administration with the introduction of Web consoles that span multiple tools in their respective management suites.
Compuware plans to ship this week Version 8.5 of its Vantage suite of network, system and client management software with a common Web interface. The rollout will come close on the heels of rival BMC Software Inc.s release of Patrol Central Operator-Web Edition earlier this month.
The new VantageView Web console works across the Farmington Hills, Mich., vendors NetworkVantage, ServerVantage and ClientVantage performance monitoring and reporting tools. Compuware, not unlike BMC with its Patrol family, created the suite out of point tools the company has acquired over time and has worked over several releases to integrate.
The common Web console holds the promise of simplified tool administration, said one Vantage user working with the existing version. “Well be able to train everyone on the same interface,” said Bill Oliver, director of IS operations at Health Alliance Plan, a health maintenance organization in Detroit.
But beyond that, “the Web interface is really all about showing off the benefits of the integration theyve been building over time,” said Jasmine Noel, principal of JNoel Associates, a Boston-based consulting company.
Like the Patrol Web console from BMC, VantageView can be customized for each user type. “A [database administrator] will have all the server monitoring facilities that let you monitor database systems [with ServerVantage],” said Steven Dykstra, product manager at Compuware. “The operations manager may only be interested in ClientVantage end-user, service-level reporting and infrastructure trend reports that show utilization of parts of the network infrastructure.”
“That is important because those different functional disciplines have different skill sets,” said Frank Petersmark, CIO at Amerisure Insurance Co., also in Farmington Hills. “You can tune things and target areas you want monitored and tune the level of responses.
“You might want an operator at Level 1 to respond in a certain way, and someone at Level 3 you would want to have something more powerful,” Petersmark said.
The Web console can be used to perform tool administration tasks for ServerVantage in the new release. That extension allows remote administrators to configure ServerVantage across a WAN or other LAN segments, instead of requiring that the console be on the same LAN segment as ServerVantage.
ServerVantage in the latest release can also scale to manage a larger number of agents per single server agent manager.
“We went from managing in the low hundreds [of servers] to the low thousands. You dont need as many dedicated machines, and you dont have to administer as many dedicated machines,” said Dykstra.
Vantage Suite 8.5 is available now and starts at $19,000.