Breaking News - Storage:
VERITAS Extends Capabilities Of Server Provisioning Software
VERITAS Software Corp extended the capabilities of VERITAS OpForce distributed
server provisioning software to include software application discovery and
configuration. VERITAS OpForce Enterprise Edition 4.0 enables IT
administrators to simultaneously discover, provision, configure and track
distributed servers and applications throughout their lifecycle across
multi-tiered heterogeneous data centers to help significantly reduce the time,
cost and complexity traditionally associated with these tasks. Distributed
server provisioning and application configuration management are key to
VERITAS' strategy to enable utility computing, allowing customers to increase
server utilization, improve server infrastructure flexibility and help lower
the overall cost and complexity of managing their IT operations.
VERITAS OpForce Enterprise Edition 4.0 software allows administrators to
automatically detect and manage dissimilar server configurations. In addition,
through new point-in-time snapshot and reprovisioning capabilities, OpForce
software helps ensure regulatory compliance of heterogeneous servers across
the enterprise.
VERITAS OpForce software now enables system administrators to deploy and
provision BEA WebLogic Servers in a matter of minutes, as opposed to hours,
making it significantly faster and easier to provision resources in BEA
WebLogic Server environments and greatly reducing the potential for
configuration errors.
"Since expanding our relationship and alliance in April of this year, the BEA
and VERITAS teams have been working diligently toward integration of our
product sets to help customers to move toward a utility computing model where
the provisioning of enterprise applications can be largely automated," said
Benjamin Renaud, deputy CTO of BEA Systems. "We are pleased with VERITAS'
advancements with OpForce software and look forward to providing our customers
with the right provisioning tools designed to help simplify and automate the
process of deploying, provisioning and managing WebLogic Server in their
business operations."
According to a June 2004 META Group study, automation technology is key to
improving the productivity of administrative staff, enabling companies to do
more with the same level of resources. Server provisioning is further
augmented with VERITAS OpForce 4.0 software by providing customers with new
discovery and configuration management capabilities for their multi-tier
datacenter environments. These two new capabilities help streamline server
provisioning, prevent server configuration errors and further align IT with
the changing needs of the business.
"Using VERITAS OpForce software, LogicaCMG has been able to succinctly deploy
updates and software packages for our worldwide customer base, a task which
previously took several hours and required our engineers to go on-site at each
given location but can now be accomplished within minutes," said Roel Dekker,
vice president of Business Unit Mobile Internet at LogicaCMG. "By year end, we
expect to have hundreds of servers deployed with configuration management and
maintained with OpForce 4.0 software, resulting in higher levels of
operational excellence."
New features of VERITAS OpForce 4.0 include:
- Application Discovery: OpForce software discovers and inventories
prepackaged and custom applications, making the IT administrator more aware
and knowledgeable about applications running on each server.
- Application Provisioning and Configuration Management: Through the creation
of application software packages and one or many associated configuration
models, OpForce software enables administrators to greatly simplify
deployment, configuration and ongoing management of distributed applications
across heterogeneous servers.
- Change Management: OpForce software provides consistency and lessens the
potential of server performance problems by quickly discovering, analyzing and
reporting differences between any number of provisioned servers. This
innovative feature makes it possible for administrators to detect and correct
server configuration drifts and helps to ensure compliance.
- Remote Operating System Installation: In addition to image-based
installations, OpForce software can now conduct a fresh, remote, unattended
install of the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced
Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and Red Hat Linux
Advanced Server 3.0 -- onto any managed server, making the datacenter more
efficient, dynamic and reliable.
- Universal Portable Snapshots: OpForce software builds on top of Microsoft
Sysprep technology to create a universal and portable golden Windows server
snapshot that can be matched with any server to be provisioned. This unique
capability further automates the provisioning of dissimilar servers and
provides flexibility when faced with configuration and hardware changes that
would otherwise force the recreation of images.
- Enhanced Integration: OpForce now extends support for VERITAS Storage
Foundation software. Now administrators can automatically provision bare-metal
Sun Solaris and IBM AIX servers with fully configured VERITAS Storage
Foundation software in addition to operating systems, patches and
applications, effectively tying together storage and server management.
- Enhanced Networking Support: OpForce software now includes enhanced support
for network personalization on servers including network interface card (NIC)
teaming, Infiniband host channel adaptor (HCA) support and simple network
management protocol (SNMP) trap detection for event driven operations to
further enable utility computing.
"Our customers currently rely on OpForce software to automate server
provisioning to simplify their operations and enable improved server
utilization," said Kris Hagerman, executive vice president of the Storage and
Server Management Group at VERITAS Software. "Now with OpForce 4.0 software IT
can take advantage of the new capabilities that include application discovery
and provisioning to more efficiently manage the data center and reduce
operational costs."
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