Technology Positioning Statement Report

5.1.4 Administration Servers and Utilities

Description: Software and systems to facilitate server management, performance monitoring and maintenance.

Category: 5 - Servers   Subcategory: 1 - General Purpose Servers
Old Category: Systems Management – Systems and Network Management

Vision

RetirementContainmentCurrentTacticalStrategic
  SMS
 
  

Standards

Industry UsageSC Usage
  

Performance Metrics

Functional features, ease of use, batch scheduling, reliability, compatibility with Windows 2000.


Usage and Dependencies

Industry Usage: SNMP is considered the de facto standard for network systems management, specifically for monitoring and notification. Today no single product provides all desired functionality. Single-console management is not available today. DMI standard will provide the framework for single console management. SNPP (Simple Network Paging Protocol) addresses paging. Applix is a leading support center software vendor. Support center software is being extended to provide more operations management capabilities.

For creation and deployment of desktop software images, leading products are Rdeploy, Norton Ghost, PartitionMagic DriveImage, and UltraBac.

The number 1 piece of advice for Giga clients relating to Microsoft Active Directory (AD) deployment is this: Deploy monitoring and management tools early in the project. This especially holds true for tools that monitor replication traffic, but also for tools that help with the migration and general systems management as well as directory modeling utilities. Windows 2000 is lacking in these capabilities, and companies like Aelita, BindView, BMC, FastLane, NetIQ and others have deftly moved in to fill the gaps. Such utilities are a necessity for deploying and managing a corporate directory across a large enterprise.  Top 10 Best Practices for Active Directory Deployment, Jonathan Penn, Giga, January 3, 2001.

SC Usage: HP OpenView, Cisco Works, Sniffer, Compaq Insight Manager, and the network management tools offered by SMS and Windows NT are used for management, security monitoring, and performance analysis functions. These products will be a part of SC's evolving 24x7 support environment. IP addresses are now dynamically allocated with QIP and DHCP. Virtual LANs also provide better control of certain network segments. DOE Property Asset Management System (PAMS) may have an impact on SC strategy.

For desktop deployments, SC uses Rdeploy (Image Blaster).

SC Application Impacts: Inventory system, and indirect support for other applications. Large queries may cause unacceptable time delays for users in some applications. The impact is unknown at present because of a lack of data.

Last Update: Valid Until:
3/15/20014/15/2001

References

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