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Unisys officials are bringing greater mobility, application modernizaton and security capabilities to the company’s ClearPath Libra servers through the latest generation of its MCP operating system.
Release 15.0 of ClearPath MCP addresses some of the key trends that are having a wide-ranging impact on data centers, including the growing use of mobile devices in work environments and the continuing rise of service-oriented architectures (SOAs), according to Unisys officials.
At the same time, the company is creating a high-availability option for its midrange ClearPath Libra 4200 system.
“In recent years the definition of ‘mission-critical’ has expanded to include mobility, SOA and a host of other potentially disruptive IT trends that CIOs can turn to advantage if they address them in the right way,” Bill Maclean, vice president of ClearPath portfolio management for Unisys, said in a statement. “We continue to add new capabilities that help ClearPath clients stay ahead of evolving challenges while enjoying the advantages of business continuity and cost efficiency to which they’ve become accustomed.”
Unisys isn’t usually mentioned when talking about top-tier server vendors, but its systems are used in a range of large-scale, mission-critical and high-availability environments, with customers ranging from the U.S. government to financial services firms and large enterprises. The company, which has 23,000 employees, is targeting four growth markets: security, data center transformation, end-user outsourcing and application modernization.
The latest announcements, made July 11, fit in with those efforts.
In the area of application modernization, Unisys officials for the past several years have been adding capabilities into their systems that enable workers with smartphones and tablets to interact with existing applications on the servers. The Libra systems already support devices from Apple and BlackBerry, and those running Google’s Android mobile operating system. Now devices running Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 also are supported.
At the same time, Unisys enhanced its ePortal to support Unisys’ Enterprise Application Environment and Agile Business Suite development platforms, and the company’s ClearPath MCP JProcessor—a specialty partition for Java applications—now supports the latest versions of Java SE 7 and JBoss middleware. All this gives developers more options for creating integrated SOA environments for their key applications.
In the area of data center transformation, Unisys has upgraded its Workload Management for ClearPath MCP software to make it easier for organizations to track MIPS usage for accurate billing, while an enhanced Business Continuity Accelerate is designed to simplify disaster recovery testing. Unisys also released a new version of its Operations Sentinel automated system management solution, which includes a less complex interface to monitor managed devices, such as tablets connected to a company’s intranet.
Release 15.0 of ClearPath MCP includes Locum Safe and Secure from Locum Software, which gives organizations a single point of control for security administration in multi-system environments. In addition, dbaTOOLs AccessLog enables businesses to better analyst database logs entries from a security standpoint.
Unisys’ enhanced Enterprise Database Server automatically logs all database inquiries and updates, enabling auditors to better see who has accessed what resources when, and what they did with those resources.
With the Libra 4200, the high-availability option brings high-end capabilities to a mid-range system, including component-level redundancy, dual processor cells and a fully redundant I/O subsystem. The Libra servers are powered by Intel’s Xeon processors and leverages Unisys’ s-Par partitioning technology to create multiple partitions in a single physical server. One partition will run the ClearPath operating environment, while others can use specialty partitions such as ClearPath ePortal for MCP and ClearPath MCP JProcessor.
The ClearPath Libra 4200 with the high-availability option starts at $800,000.