Open Systems Research Solstice Profilfe

OVERVIEW

SunNet Manager, Sun's basic network management product, fits into the category of support services for that distributed environment. It provides basic SNMP management services to workgroups. The product is in widespread use, and has won support from a broad range of ISVs, as well as from end-users. It remains Sun's basic management platform, which the company continues to support and enhance. However, while SunNet Manager has proven itself an effective domain manager, capable of meeting the management requirements of the vast majority of users, the product by itself does not scale to support the multi-domain management requirements characteristic of very large environments, nor does it adequately meet the needs of users with significant telco management requirements.

To address these issues, Sun took steps in 1994--through a combination of partnering and internal development--to lay a technological foundation for an integrated, enterprise approach to network and systems management. Sun introduced Cooperative Consoles, which extends SSNM's reach to support multiple domains, and continued to expand its network of ISV solution providers. Most importantly, Sun licensed an object framework and other industry-leading technology from NetLabs that will provide the foundation for a flexible, object-oriented, distributed management environment, allowing managers to manage anything on the network from any point on the network. Formerly known as Project ENCOMPASS, this advanced management platform provides a migration path for Sun's largest and most demanding users.

In the beginning of 1995, Sun introduced Solstice, the company's unified enterprise management strategy. The result of significant work behind the scenes, Solstice coordinates the company's technology, marketing, support, and ISV partnering efforts into a single, comprehensive strategy and integrated suite of products for enterprise network and systems management. With Solstice, Sun has provided these managers with a concrete suite of products and a workable strategic vision for meeting present and future management needs. Sun's customers have traditionally shown strong loyalty to the platform. Thus it is probable that, if the functionality promised by Solstice is delivered as promised within the coming months, Sun will be in a position to defend its market-share lead in enterprise management against strong competition from IBM and HP.

PRODUCTS: Solstice Core Applications

Solstice core applications include the management platform products and a range of highly integrated management applications--developed by Sun and ISV partners--providing functionality in key management areas, including system administration, backup and storage management, security, and data management.

Solstice SunNet Manager:

Solstice SunNet Manager (SSNM) is Sun's SNMP-based platform product for network management. With an installed base of over 15,000, it is currently the most prevalent platform, offering managers a set of tools for resource management including bundled agents for automated management. The product provides applications for analyzing resource performance, identifying and resolving faults, configuration management, and simplifying and automating management tasks. It has a large number of third-party applications that run off the platform, addressing most key areas of systems and network management.

The product consists of three main components:

User Tools: A number of "tools" are provided by SSNM for management. The SunNet Manager Console provides central, GUI-based management; the Topology Map Display provides a view into the network, and managers can navigate through hierarchical views. The Discover Tool automatically populates the management database by automatically discovering IP and SNMP-addressable network elements. Other tools include Request Management, which allows managers to define and launch tools (requests) to gather management data; Auto-Management, which allows managers to automatically start pre-defined requests; the Browser Tool, which allows managers to retrieve, organize, and view management data in a variety of report formats; and the Grapher Tool, which allows managers to visually represent information in a variety of 2D and 3D displays.

Distributed Management Architecture: SSNM employs a distributed architecture, which distributes the processing load around the network close to the elements being managed. This architecture uses RPCs for communication, and two types of agents: direct management agents, and proxy agents. Proxy agents allow management applications to manage heterogeneous protocols, and to keep polling local to minimize bandwidth use. Agents are able to filter traps to allow concise reporting to the central console. Via gateways, SSNM can manage DECnet devices, SNA networks, and OSI stacks.

Application Programming Interfaces: SSNM provides three APIs for vendors and users to customize SSNM. These include the Manager Services API, which provides extended communication services based on ONC RPC; the Agent Services API, which provides an intermediary protocol to allow management of multiple protocols; and the Database/Topology map Services API, which lets developers modify and customize the database and topology display.

Solstice Cooperative Consoles

An add-on product for Solstice SunNet Manager, Solstice Cooperative Consoles provides selective replication of management domains, so that managers can take over the functions of remote SSNM managed domains, using the same network topology maps and event history data. The product allows managers to specify which data should be accessible by the remote operator, and which should not.

Solstice Enterprise Manager

Solstice Enterprise Manager is Sun's next-generation management platform, designed to meet the needs of very large environments and users with special telco management needs. The product provides managers with an object-based, cooperative management environment capable of supporting heterogeneous systems and a variety of network architectures. A partnership with NetLabs provided Sun with NetLabs' DiMONS 3G technology, an object-oriented framework for management widely considered to be the leading technology for true distributed management. Like IBM's licensing of HP's core technology several years ago, this partnership has given Sun's management effort a significant boost.

Solstice Enterprise Manager is based on an object-oriented architecture in which cooperative components--applications, libraries, and databases--work together, communicating with one another across the network to enable centralized management from anywhere on the network, and local management to minimize network resource use. The solution leverages a common repository of management information accessible by distributed management applications and agents. It provides a single interface to management applications, insulating them from the complexity of underlying protocols. The architecture consists of two components: A Management Information Server (MIS), a repository of management data and management functions; and Management Protocol Adapters (MPAs), which provide communications to and from Enterprise Manager from various protocols.

Core applications of Solstice Enterprise Manager include a control panel, autodiscovery of both SNMP and CMIP devices on IP and OSI networks, an object viewer and editor, various tools for managing and manipulating objects, a request editor for developing automated scripts and applications, and logging and reporting applications. These applications can be run remotely from the MIS, reducing network overhead and reducing staff and training requirements at remote sites. The MIS provides an extensive set of management functions, including object, event, state, log, security, accounting, relationship, and distribution management, workload monitoring, and an alarm reporter. MISs can be distributed and operate cooperatively. Finally, through distributed proxy agents, Solstice Enterprise Manager collects information locally and sends only filtered information, decreasing network traffic and allowing management by exception.

Solstice Admintools

For systems administration, SunSoft provides Solstice Admintools, a distributed systems administration environment that ships with the Solaris product. The product stores configuration information in the network name services, so a user can manage anything on the network from any point, taking advantage of the distributed information. Solstice PC Admin provides similar functionality to PC workgroups running in conjunction with Solaris servers.

Solstice AutoClient

For software management, Solstice AutoClient offers a unique solution to the problem of maintaining consistent software across enterprise desktops. The application enables desktops to "pull" software as required from the server to the local disk. Processing occurs locally, and changes are written back to the server. This eliminates the need to back up and ensure consistency of software across hundreds or thousands of client desktops. It also enables the desktop to be completely replaced in a matter of minutes, rather than requiring hours to retrieve a lost desktop from backups.

Other Solstice Core Applications

Solstice Backup, based on technology licensed from Legato Systems, Inc., provides networked, heterogeneous backup and restore, with support for more than 20 client platforms. Solstice DiskSuite provides disk mirroring and support for management of very large files. Solstice Firewall-1, based on technology from Checkpoint, provides secure access to the Internet, sending SNMP traps to Solstice platforms if violations occur.

DIFFERENTIATORS

True Object-Based Distributed Management Technology: The agreement to license NetLabs provides Sun with the most powerful technology available for object-based management. The technology provides a standard object-management framework which allows managers to define scaleable collections of objects, and treat them as meta-objects, enabling rules-based management of large networks. With this technology integrated into the Solstice strategy for enterprise management, Sun offers a migration path for users with more advanced management needs.

ISV Applications Shipping: Sun's platform still has the highest number of ISV applications currently shipping. These applications are from leading management vendors including Legato for storage management, EcoSystems for systems management, and Concord Communications for network protocol analysis. The product's large installed base--recently increased through the agreement with NetLabs--ensures that ISVs will continue to find it a valuable environment for future development projects.

Low Price: Sun's management products have been priced significantly lower than competing products.

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

Sun's strategy is based on providing three levels of functionality to meet the management needs of all Sun customers, from small to very large installations. At the single-domain level, the company offers its SunNet Manager platform, providing basic SNMP management. SunNet Manager will remain Sun's basic management platform for all but its largest customers, and those with special telco management requirements. At the next level, Sun's Cooperative Consoles provides a management extension to allow multiple SSNM consoles to share a common information repository, enabling cooperative management of multiple domains. Finally, for true multi-domain enterprise management, Sun provides Solstice Enterprise Manager, its object-oriented, distributed management platform.

In developing its Solstice strategy, Sun has observed that the current method of managing systems and networks involves a hybrid approach, in which management platforms, element managers, telnet shells, and other custom and third-party tools are used, often creating confusion and preventing effective management, especially in very large environments. Sun has identified the following as key characteristics of a true cooperative enterprise management system:

Improved Basic Tools: The solution should support multiple protocols, hardware platforms, and operating systems, and should extend central management functionality out to distributed desktops. The core applications provided by the management platform must be improved to process and display information more effectively, to make management more intuitive, and to reduce the need for configuration and customization.

Multi-User and Secure: The solution must allow collaboration among operators with differing areas of expertise, and to provide simultaneous, coordinated execution of management tasks that span different management groups in the enterprise. This will involve more effective data sharing across the management solution, and effective security to protect the integrity of the management data.

Richer, Distributed Repository: The solution requires a data repository offering access to configuration, state, and performance information from a wide range of resources, in a standard form. Sun's approach to this involves the use of object-oriented technology (in Solstice Enterprise Manager) to hide underlying network, system, operating system complexities from the managers developing on and operating the system.

Sun's strategy includes continued partnering with ISVs to deliver added functionality to the Solstice product family. According to Sun, over 150 partners are currently developing products for the platform, with over 300 products currently available. The partnership with NetLabs included cross-platform compatibility, automatically increasing the market for ISVs writing to the Sun platform. The company hopes that this, combined with its market share and evident commitment to the product, will entice more ISVs to develop on the Sun platform. In addition, the company has joint marketing and OEM agreements with a number of companies.

As part of its Solstice Strategy, Sun recently introduced a classification program to help users choose among its internally-developed and third-party management products. Solstice Core Products include the platforms and highly integrated applications for meeting basic management requirements. Solstice Partner Applications include any management applications available from ISVs that work in the Solaris environment. Solstice Compatible Applications are applications which Sun certifies as providing integration with standard Solstice interfaces. Finally Solstice Solutions are applications Sun has singled out, based on technical evaluations and user satisfaction surveys, as providing best-of-breed functionality. Vendors of Solstice Solutions products work with Sun to ensure compatibility with Solaris, Solstice core products, and complementary ISV applications.

Sun's strategy also involves support for emerging industry standards. In particular, SunSoft is a charter member of the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF), which developed the Desktop Management Interface (DMI) standard for management of distributed desktops. SunSoft plans to provide an SNMP mapping to DMI in 1995, which will become standard in Solaris in 1996.

COMPANY

SunSoft is a business unit of Sun Microsystems. The company distributes its products through an indirect channel encompassing Resellers, Distributors, and Systems Integrators worldwide.

Address:

SunSoft Enterprise Management Products Division 2550 Garcia Avenue Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 (800) SUN-SOFT (512) 345-2412

Principals:

Ed Zander, President, SunSoft Denis Yaro, Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Management Business Unit Derek Oppen, Director of Business Development and Strategic Marketing Stan Baldwin, Director of Market Development Brian Biles, Group Marketing Manager Carol Gray, Group Marketing Manager Suresh Bazaj, Director of Engineering (Mountain View location) Eric Corwin, Director Engineering (Colorado Springs location)

Reprinted with permission from Open Systems Research (OSR). Open Systems Research, based in New York, monitors trends in enterprise information systems from the perspective of senior IS managers. It publishes the CIO Bulletin!, which reports on effective survival strategies for CIOs, and the Network Systems Managers' Best Practices Report (BPR), which provides detailed reports on key topics in distributed systems management. BPR also provides coverage of important conferences, as well as columns from experts in the field, interviews, and editorials. For more information, fax 718-694-0505 or email to jonbines@panix.com.

Jon Bines (jonbines@panix.com)
NSM Best Practices Rept.
342 Dean St, Brooklyn NY 11217
Phone/Fax 718-694-0505

To purchase Solstice SunNet Manager, in the U.S., call 1-800-SUN-SOFT.

Outside the U.S., please call +1-415-960-3200 for the location of the SunSoft office closest to you.