IBM extends Tivoli management to zSeries

Computerworld - IBM today is announcing that Tivoli systems management technology is being extended to its zSeries mainframe management products.
This extension has become necessary partly because some companies are moving back to centralized computing, said Steve Wojtowecz, director of strategy for Tivoli.
Two zSeries users who spoke with Computerworld last week said they hadn't heard about the new products but were interested. "Any new products that bring Tivoli management to zSeries are a step in the right direction," said Jim Haney, vice president of architecture at Whirlpool Corp. in Benton Harbor, Mich.
Jim Kennedy, program manager for enterprise systems management at the Internal Revenue Service, said Tivoli management technology could be valuable to its three computing centers in Detroit, Memphis and Martinsburg, W.Va. The computing centers use zSeries hardware and management software from BMC Software Inc., Computer Associates International Inc. and others. "They are all cobbled together but well managed so far," he said.
IBM announced three products for zSeries data centers. Tivoli Management Portal is a Web-based portal designed to interface with zSeries monitoring tools for a single view into the zSeries operating system, middleware, and network and storage systems. Tivoli Storage Optimizer will aid zSeries storage monitoring by automating routine tasks such as moving storage volumes, IBM said. And Tivoli Performance Modeler will help build models for IT resource capacity planning by enabling users to see the potential effects of changes in hardware or software configurations, said IBM.
Storage Optimizer is priced at $1,150 per "value unit" (IBM's term for a user or group of users acting as a unit), or about $75,000 for the average data center. Performance Modeler is priced at $1,000 per value unit, or about $68,000 for an average data center. There is no charge for Tivoli Management Portal. All three products will ship next month.

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