IBM Announces Universal Management — Industry’s Most Comprehensive Tools to Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Alliance with Intel Enhances PC Manageability
NEW YORK (April 15, 1998) – – IBM today announced Universal Management, the industry’s most comprehensive suite of systems management tools designed to lower the cost of ownership throughout the PC lifecycle. Universal Management delivers standards-based, non-proprietary support for IBM and non-IBM desktop, server and mobile systems while enabling the integration of IBM’s management tools into the customer’s chosen systems-management environment.
”With Universal Management, IBM is giving customers ultimate flexibility to implement IBM management tools in their multi-vendor environments,” said Judy Smolski, general manager, Customer Integrated Offerings, IBM Personal Systems Group. ”IBM is protecting its customers’ investments in hardware and management software while giving them the ability to lower their cost of ownership and increase the productivity of their operations. No other vendor provides this breadth of manageability and control and backs it with significant development resources.”
The first element of this new initiative is IBM’s Universal Management Agent(a)(UMA), which combines the best of IBM’s award-winning Netfinity Manager(a) with Intel’s LANDesk(b) Client Manager technology to deliver superior manageability. The agent sends vital client information from IBM and non-IBM systems to a variety of enterprise-level management products for analysis, notification and, if necessary, repair.
Universal Management Agent (UMA) is the third major solution, following Wake on LAN(a) and Alert on LAN(a)(1), to be delivered as part of the IBM/Intel Advanced Manageability Alliance, which draws on the industry-leading expertise of each company to reduce the complexity of installing and managing networked PCs.
Perhaps most significant, UMA extends the reach of IBM’s advanced manageability tools. An example is S.M.A.R.T. Reaction(a), which automatically backs up data and alerts systems administrators to an impending hard drive failure. Now, systems administrators can also realize the benefits of these manageability tools on non-IBM systems, regardless of whether they are using Intel’s LANDesk Management Suite(b), Microsoft SMS, Tivoli NetView(b), HP’s OpenView(b) or Computer Associates’ Unicenter(b) TNG(b).
”Easing manageability of today’s complex network environments using standards-based solutions adds tremendous benefits to our customers,” said Tom Bishop, chief technology officer and vice president of Infrastructure Development, Tivoli Systems. ”Universal Management Agent in IBM PC-based computers provides complementary and native Tivoli-Ready capabilities on the spot.”
Technology that helps reduce complexity and cost is what today’s IS managers demand. According to Gartner Group, systems management can reduce desktop total cost of ownership (TCO) — defined as the total cost of acquiring, deploying and supporting a PC throughout its life cycle — by up to 10 percent. For servers and networks, systems management can reduce TCO by up to 20 percent.
Compatibility/Plug-Ins
Universal Management is compatible with a wide range of industry-accepted standards, including Intel’s Wired for Management (WfM), Desktop Management Interface (DMI) 2.0, Wake on LAN, Alert on LAN, CIM, and Web-based Enterprise Management (WbEM) technologies. UMA also includes four levels of security and an HTTP server to deliver unprecedented access to live system information through a Web browser — making any PC running UMA ”Web-wired” for management.
Besides harnessing the power of existing manageability technologies, UMA offers Universal Management Plug-Ins to help customers easily add new manageability capabilities. Universal Management Plug-Ins will provide a convenient way for customers to add new functions to their existing manageability programs without investing in complex upgrades to their manageability software.
Available from IBM and third-party vendors, Universal Management Plug-Ins include tools such as Asset ID, which eases hardware deployment, inventory and security, saving customers time and providing enhanced information about their PCs. Universal Management Plug-Ins have already been developed for such tasks as remotely installing and updating client software (LANClient Control Manager) and server cluster management. Additional Universal Management Plug-Ins can be developed by any hardware vendor or independent software vendor (ISV) using IBM’s or Intel’s software development toolkits.
Source: IBM