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Marimba Inc. next week will lay out a series of enhancements and packaging changes to its server change management suite intended to help streamline server consolidation activities across a range of platforms.
In the third generation of its Server Management suite, Marimba strengthened its integration with Citrix Metaframe and Microsoft Windows Terminal Services through a new adapter that plugs into the suite.
“Marimba lets you seamlessly manage the applications on those servers without disrupting end users,” said Kia Behnia, chief technology officer at Marimba, in Mountain View, Calif. “When an administrator wants to deploy a new service pack, the server management product can detect users on the server, send notification to them to ask them to log off, then log them off or wait for them to exit, and then automate the update. That reduces cost through automation and improves quality of service by ensuring uptime during changes.”
Marimba previously offered only a separately priced option for Windows Terminal Services or Metaframe that required its own console.
Marimba will also announce it has joined the Citrix Business Alliance as a Premier member and will conduct joint marketing activities with Citrix.
At the same time, Marimba integrated its separate Inventory and browser-based Report Center reporting tool into the suite. The integrated inventory and reporting allows administrators to check server system resources and use reports to locate servers that are out of compliance with corporate software standards.
The suite will support application deployment to .Net servers shortly after .Net is released later in the quarter.
New Windows 2000 Advanced Server support in the suite allows adimistrators to package and deploy applications to those servers. Marimba also strengthened its Linux support in the new-generation release.
Compared with new competitors such as Moonlight Systems Inc. and Opsware Inc., Marimba “goes very deep in software distribution and inventory,” said Behnia. “Theyve tried to broaden their message to include operating system provisioning on server management,” he added.
The new release is due next week.
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