Enterprise Management Solution

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Enterprise Management Challenges / Enterprise Management Disciplines / Management Technologies / II. SunSoft Steps Up - The Solstice Program / The Solstice Core Products Line / Solstice Core Product Management Tools / III. Comparisons / IV. Summary /

I. Introduction

Organizations depend on complex distributed computing environments to carry out their everyday business activities. Continued investments in computer systems and networks are made in an ongoing effort to stay competitive. Enterprise management is an essential discipline: organizations must manage all their computing and communications resources. To this date, enterprise management solutions have not yet been delivered, and a number of challenges remain. This paper touches briefly on the enterprise management problems and their possible solutions before discussing SunSoft's Solstice program: a comprehensive set of platforms and tools that addresses the enterprise management problem.

Enterprise Management Challenges

Some enterprise management problems require better technology - a single management tool or a combination of tools - while others demand organizational responses. We speak constantly with enterprise managers and they tell us that their most pressing problems are:

Cost of Ownership a primary concern. Many studies have demonstrated that administration, operations, and support costs exceed the purchase price of devices and systems over the network life cycle.

Scalability enterprise management solutions must accommodate continued growth, especially in the future when the environment is larger, more complex, and possibly different.

Productivity of the management staff is also a major concern. The management staff must be able to manage larger numbers of resources with the same amount of human effort and time or with even less effort.

Integration one of the key problems, and one of the most difficult since it is a multi-level challenge. The areas include:

• Integrating management information that is spread throughout the enterprise
• Sharing management information among all the management tools
• Integrating information from heterogeneous environments such as SNA, DECnet, IPX and others.
• Managing strategically is yet another challenge. Many network administrators are so overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks that they neglect strategic tasks such as capacity planning, performance optimization and evaluating new technologies.

Enterprise Management Disciplines

A network-based enterprise has many resources to manage including network devices, communications links, computer systems, applications and data. Building an enterprise management solution by focusing on each resource is a hopeless task; an alternative is to build a set of management disciplines that are applied to any resource. These disciplines provide a structure for enterprise management solutions. There are various ways to describe these disciplines, but our model includes:

Event Management. - Fault reports are collected and automatically processed to determine their severity. Some problems are solved with automatic procedures while others are assigned to the appropriate staff. As an example, a large financial services organization has over 1 Million events per month, the management staff could not cope without automated event management.

Performance Management.- Collected information is used to determine real-time performance thresholds. Historical logging and trend analysis are also used for projecting future loads. Modeling tools are employed to find optimum solutions.

Configuration Management. - This involves the proper configurations of all the enterprise resources. Managers want to apply configuration policies to groups of resources and detect unauthorized changes. Inventory management is a related function.

Security Management. - Functions in this area include setting appropriate information in each device or system and using firewalls to protect the enterprise. Automatic logging and responses to security violations are also essential.

Problem Management - This area includes trouble-ticketing systems, help desk tools, historical problem data and measurements of problem solving effectiveness such as the mean time to repair.

Accounting. - Networked resources are a significant investment; assets and inventory must be tracked. Resource usage must be monitored as well.

Software Management. - Current releases of software must be delivered and installed automatically in a large, distributed environment.

Data Management. - Data is the critical asset - it must be backed up for protection. Automatic migration to off-line storage is needed. Data storage systems performance can be improved through striping, mirroring and high-availability features.

Workload Management. - Applications must be assigned to the appropriate processors and tracked so they deliver results when expected. Automatic re-assignment in case of failures keeps the enterprise running.

Planning. - Planning involves forecasting loads, adjusting for growth and incorporating new technologies. Trending data and modeling are key parts of successful planning.

Management Technologies

• Domain management breaks a large enterprise into smaller, more manageable domains. The key characteristic is cooperation, the domain managers work together, sharing information and control.
• A common management repository makes all information available. The CORBA request broker is emerging as a standard for interfacing applications with information in multiple locations. A common data model is required so that all applications share the information in the repository. The model provides the schema whereby managed objects are created, manipulated, and related to each other.

• Distributed intelligence is required to spread the processing loads and place intelligent collectors as close to the source of network and system problems as possible.
• Automation, replacing or supplementing human efforts, addresses many of the problems. Automation replaces staff efforts for event filtering, responding to problems and coordinating processes.
• A set of quality management tools to manage all the resources. individual tools must be integrated and coordinated to deliver the best solutions.

Object-based technology is an important element of robust enterprise management solutions. Object technology offers scalability, modularity, and extensibility. Administrators, for example, can apply management operations or policies in a single operation that affects a set of resources such as all the computer systems in the accounting department.

II. SunSoft Steps Up - The Solstice Program

This comprehensive solution begins with the Solstice Core Products - the SunSoft core competency. Some products such as the Solstice Enterprise Manager are new while others are being re-classified as core products. SunSoft develops essential tools that are tightly integrated with its management platforms.

SunSoft also uses the best management tools that are available and categorizes them to assure that customers can trust their capabilities.

Solstice Compatible Applications have been proven to integrate with the standard Solstice interfaces.

Solstice Partner Applications are an extension of the SunNet Manager Partner Program that spans both systems and network management. The catalog is the most extensive in the industry, offering over 300 applications.

Solstice Solutions are selected from the Partner Applications based on technical evaluations and customer input. SunSoft will recommend these best-of-breed tools to its customers.

The Solstice Core Products Line

Management Platforms

The Solstice SunNet Manager (formerly the SunNet Manager) has been a proven product for many years and remains a leader in terms of installed units. SunNet Manager is a powerful SNMP manager that is targeted for the workgroup or departmental environment. It supports a single user at a management console and has a wide array of management tools. The Solstice SunNet Manager protects current investments in management tools while providing a path to more advanced technology. Future plans, discussed later, will enhance this product substantially.

The recent introduction of Cooperative Consoles provides another level of management coverage and represents a significant technology leap for the Solstice SunNet Manager platform, placing it again in a leadership role among management solutions. Multiple SunNet Manager consoles can share topology and events through Cooperative Consoles interconnections. Security and access control mechanisms filter information as it flows between different consoles.

The Solstice Enterprise Manager (SEM) is SunSoft's new enterprise management platform. The Solstice Enterprise Manager is an advanced multi-user, multi-protocol management platform. Further, it is designed from a truly distributed management perspective-- network management staff can manage anything in the network from anywhere on the network. The major element is known as the MIS-Management Information Server.

The SEM has a powerful set of capabilities including:

• A distributed framework that supports multiple MIS throughout the enterprise. Each MIS exchanges information, forwards alarms, and insures that management coverage extends throughout the enterprise.
• Multi-user support allows customized views as well as access controls for each staff member. An administrator determines exactly what each management staff member sees, the tools that can be used and privileges that are allowed.

An important consideration: the SEM was initially designed for an object-based framework. This is a distinct advantage since SunSoft will not have to re-engineer their products to scale up to new demands in the future. Competing products that were not object based must be literally re-developed, to meet future requirements. This can result in unexpected delays, lower levels of functionality, and a phased introduction of additional features over time.

The SEM also supports remote application execution. The use of the Portable Management Interface separates management tools from the management platform. This is a powerful feature since it places the tools where the staff are located. It also supports highly mobile staff since the tools can be moved through the network if necessary. Management staff can use any appropriate tool from any location and have the power and the flexibility of the Solstice Enterprise Manager at their fingertips.

Heterogeneity

Heterogeneity is the common attribute of all enterprises and SunSoft addresses this issue in several ways. Enterprises must manage more than their SNMP devices. SunSoft provides multiprotocol management to incorporate other environments such as SNA, CMIP and DECnet. Gateways, or proxies, can be added to the SunNet Manager while the Solstice Enterprise Manager supports multiple protocol stacks.

Customers also use a variety of hardware platforms and SunSoft offers a set of solutions. The strategy for Solstice applications is to support the leading volume platforms: the leading RISC and CISC hardware (SPARC, Power PC, and Intel processors) and the leading UNIX and Windows operating environments (Solaris, Windows, and Windows NT); and to manage all objects in a network environment. Customers can choose the environment that is comfortable and familiar without sacrificing functionality.

Openness

SunSoft offers open solutions - they publish Solstice interfaces to facilitate third-party integration. Further, SunSoft supports accepted industry standards such as SNMP and CMIP. It is a founding member of the Management Integration Consortium and the Desktop Management Task Force. Other proprietary architectures such as SNA and DECnet are also supported.

Future Directions

This initial introduction of the Solstice program is only the first step of an on-going process that will continue to strengthen SunSoft's entire enterprise management offering. The line of Solstice products will be unified to provide the best solution across the entire line. For example, application portability is already provided so that applications written for SunNet Manager, Version 2.2.2 or later will also run on the SEM without modifications. SunSoft has moved to protect customer investments and allow them to move to a more sophisticated management platform.

In addition, SunSoft will retrofit the SunNet Manager with some of the advanced technology that is being interdicted in the Solstice Enterprise Manager. Future directions include incorporation of object technology and the ability to communicate and exchange information between the two platforms.

Solstice Core Product Management Tools

Advanced platforms are useless without quality management tools. SunSoft is building a set of superior tools that are tightly integrated with their platforms.

The three thrusts of superior tools can be characterized as automation, replication, and simplification. Automation can be used to automatically configure a new system with the same profile that applies to the other systems in that group. Replication leverages management tasks against as many resources as possible: freeing management staff for more important efforts. Systems managers apply their efforts to a collection of systems rather than one at a time. Simplification eases network administrator burdens by providing powerful graphical user interfaces, effective screen navigation, and other productivity aids.

SunSoft is building on a set of proven systems management applications with solutions targeted for the end user, workgroup, and enterprise. The end-user products are designed to minimize local management work through pre-defined profiles, automatic application registry, serial port management, user account management, and software distribution methods. Much of this configuration information can be set up before the machine actually arrives and is attached to the network. As much as possible, the new Solaris systems are self-installing, including automatic adjustment of different operating system package versions until a consistent system image is created.

Workgroup and enterprise management solutions address larger environments. Sets of clients and servers are managed through the network. Process management is essential - administrators need embedded intelligence to help them oversee complex management activities. Further, the use of smart defaults simplifies initial configuration and gives administrators a base from which to customize their own management operations.

The Core Product tools available give administrators the capabilities needed for solid, productive enterprise management. The Solstice Firewall-1, for example, is a sophisticated IP firewall that protects an enterprise network from external attacks. Violations are signaled to one of the SunSoft management platforms.

Software Management

Solstice AutoClient is an innovative approach to software management since no software, including the operating system is distributed to the client. All software including the system root is loaded from a server, most access is localized and a store-through operation insures that changes are automatically made to the server. This provides another benefit: there is no client back-up required since the data is always permanently stored on the server. AutoClient also provides easy Field Replacement Units. A failed computer is simply replaced with another which loads the appropriate systems image, and continues operation. A failure only interrupts productivity for a matter of a few minutes. Preliminary results indicate significant reductions in resource utilization while improving performance and response for most users.

Solstice Jumpstart uses predefined profiles to automate configuration and installation of software on desktops.

Configuration Management

Configuration management for Solaris and PC environments is available with Solstice Admintools and PC Admin, respectively. Administrators can configure resources and apply profiles to groups of systems.

Data Management

Data Management is a critical area and SunSoft provides a set of tools. Solstice Backup supports backup and restore services for 22 types of heterogeneous clients. Solstice DiskSuite offers disk mirroring and striping for high performance. Journalling allows quick file system restart and recovery. The Solstice High Availability Suite adds failovers and RAID capabilities to the DiskSuite product.

Future Directions

SunSoft is also addressing other issues that their customers have raised. For example, all SunSoft management tools also have a command line interface to supplement the usual graphic interface. Command line interfaces are useful and effective when management staff are traveling or are at home. The command line interface provides full functionality although it is not as simple and straightforward, of course, as a GUI.

III. Comparisons

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett Packard has a strong set of products with its OpenView platform, the Network Node Manager, the Operations Center and the AdminCenter .

The OpenView platform is a single-user product that is available on several types of UNIX systems and Windows. The Network Node Manager is the basic management tool. The Node Manager discovers the topology, handle alarms and connects other management tools to the network map.

The Operations Center and AdminCenter are emerging as the future integration point for ongoing HP efforts. The Operations Center is noted for its user interface and integrated systems management functions, such as backup, storage management, and printer management. The AdminCenter focuses on configuration management. However, at this time the systems management tools are restricted to the UNIX environments, leaving PC management isolated.

Hewlett-Packard lacks many of the essentials for enterprise management including a distributed framework, a common data model, multi-user support and location-independent management tools. A new platform release, code named Tornado is scheduled for mid-1995. It will provide distributed information collection and alarm forwarding; mid-1996 sees the introduction of Synergy which will have some of the properties that Solstice Enterprise Manager has today. There is no indication that today's OpenView tools can work with the re-engineered Synergy product.

IBM

IBM has a family of NetView management platforms that span a workgroup to an enterprise. IBM offers NetView for OS/2 and Windows, NetView for AIX, and NetView for S/370 for the mainframe. Events can be forwarded from the OS/2 or Windows platforms to the AIX or Host NetView platforms.

IBM has the beginnings of an integrated repository with its General Topology Manager (GTM) on the NetView for AIX platform. NetView for S/370 also integrates some management information with RODM - Resource Object Data Manager. Management tools can collect and integrate information from DECnet, SNA, IPX, and TCP/IP networks, providing an integrated and consistent view of multiple architectures and topologies. However, the two schemes are different from each and only integrate a subset of all the management information - GTM handles topology while RODM integrates real-time monitoring information.

At this time there is little integration of all the tools and managed environments. The recent introduction of Karat is designed to provide the missing integration and to offer a full set of systems management tools.

Microsoft

Microsoft has been receiving a great deal of attention with its Microsoft System Management Server. Originally code-named Hermes, the Systems Management Server provides:

• Software and hardware inventory information.
• Scheduling management activities in servers and clients
• Access control from desktops to servers.
• Remote control and operation of desktops and servers from a central administrative site.

Microsoft has worked to make SMS an open client-server management solution by supporting the DMI (Desktop Management Interface defined by Desktop Management Task Force.) In addition, Microsoft is publishing the schema for their SQL server database. The schema is centered on the MIFs used for DMI-compliant products.

A key part of the Microsoft strategy is that systems management is built in to all NT products. Microsoft has provided extensive instrumentation for all clients and servers providing access to system configuration files, system event logs, performance parameters, and other types of management information.

Microsoft carries out most of its systems management activities when clients log into their designated servers. At this point, inventory information is collected from an intelligent agent in each client and compared to previous configurations.

The systems management server is a significant development for Microsoft since it leverages the built-in management instrumentation and agents provided in Microsoft systems as well as extends to other environments such as LAN Manager and NetWare. The open solution is further extended through the support of DMI.

This offering is incomplete since it is mainly focused on PC management. Claims to openness are suspect now that Microsoft has softened its support for DMI. Other vendors are invited to add their system management information, but Microsoft controls the product direction and evolution.. Further, the comprehensive set of tools needed for enterprise management are missing. Microsoft is focusing on PC management rather than enterprise management disciplines.

Other Frameworks

Overall, each framework is immature in some ways, and all need seasoning, scaling, and deployment in the field to shake out the kinks. Most of the frameworks lack important elements, such as key applications, application integration, or distributed capabilities. Legent, Tivoli, Computer Associates and others are still fleshing out their offerings and all lack the capability of extending management disciplines to the networks.

IV. Summary

The introduction of Solstice Core Products delivers a set of management platforms that spans a single-user departmental solution to a multi-user, multiprotocol distributed enterprise platform. The Core Product management tools offer tight integration and essential services. The Solstice Partner Applications and Solstice Solutions offer customers best-of-breed tools that are ready to run on the Solstice platforms. The classifications let customers know what they are buying.

Future directions will strengthen the entire Solstice line as platform technologies are made more uniform and as more tools are added. SunSoft will be a formidable player with its Solstice program.

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Internet: johnmc@mcconnell.com