BMC Software Inc. this week will incorporate fault management into its Visualis network performance modeling tool.
Patrol Visualis Fault Manager, a component of Patrol Visualis 1.3, uses the same map to show performance data actively gathered through polling of network resources as well as reactive availability information.
“In the same tool, you can look at the performance of the infrastructure, have maps that show availability, do trap forwarding, alert management—in the same maps that show performance,” said Gerry Roy, director of product management for BMCs Patrol network management group, in Austin, Texas.
“Thats the nice concept with this software. You can represent the whole network as a map, and it can show which pieces are going down a lot,” said beta tester Arkadi Chekhtman, network specialist at Canada Life Assurance Co., in Toronto. Such visualization is especially useful for less technical help desk operators.
“You want them to look at things graphically. You dont want them to have to learn four or five different tools,” Chekhtman said.
BMCs Roy asserted that the move mirrors a trend toward consolidating different management disciplines within a single tool.
Gartner Inc. analyst Ray Paquet, in Lowell, Mass., agrees that there is “a massive trend toward consolidation—period.”
“The clients want to deal with fewer vendors. If they can get more functionality in a single product to do that, then right now they are doing it,” Paquet said.
BMC, based in Houston, also provides integration in Visualis 1.3 with the Patrol Dashboard graphical interface for real-time status. In addition, the tool can forward events to the Patrol Enterprise Manager console, which can correlate multiple events coming from databases, applications and the network, according to officials.