Symantec verffentlicht neue Generation von Client und Server Management

premiumpresse.de: Symantec verffentlicht neue Generation von Client und Server Management

Die Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 und die Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0 von Symantec wurden auf der ManageFusion Konferenz in Las Vegas vorgestellt und sind ab sofort erhltlich. Beide Lsungen bieten eine bessere Darstellung der IT-Anlagen, eine vereinfachte Bedienbarkeit im tglichen Gebrauch sowie eine verbesserte Produktivitt fr den Endverbraucher. Der Kunde erkennt so leichter entscheidende Einsparmglichkeiten und kann einen grsseren Nutzen aus seinen bestehenden IT-Investitionen ziehen. Rotronic informiert ber die neue Altiris Lsung 7.0 am 13. Mai 2009 im Holiday Inn in Zrich-Oerlikon.

Die momentan schwierige wirtschaftliche Lage hat das Bewusstsein fr Kostenreduzierung deutlich geschrft. Auch unsere Kunden suchen nach neuen Mglichkeiten, Einsparpotenziale umzusetzen, die wachsende Komplexitt der Verwaltung von Endgerten zu reduzieren und gleichzeitig die Sicherheit zu erhhen, sagt Boris Samsel, Endpoint Management Spezialist bei Symantec. Die Client Management Suite 7.0 und die Server Management Suite 7.0 bieten die ntige Automatisierung und Integration von einer zentralen Konsole aus, um unseren Kunden dabei zu helfen, ihren Zeitaufwand zu reduzieren, ihre Sicherheit zu erhhen und ihre Betriebskosten zu senken.

Die Client Management Suite 7.0 und die Server Management Suite 7.0 teilen sich die Symantec Management Konsole und erlauben Administratoren somit alle Ablufe von einem einzigen Punkt aus zu managen. Kunden knnen die Symantec Management Konsole nutzen, um zustzliche Funktionen von Symantec zu verwalten, wie Sicherheit, Data Loss Prevention, Backup und Wiederherstellung von Daten und Systemen. Ausserdem knnen beide Suiten in krzester Zeit installiert und konfiguriert werden, whrend Windows, UNIX, VMware, Linux und Mac besser untersttzt werden.

Symantec wurde krzlich im Leaders Quadranten von Gartners Magic Quadrant fr PC Lifecycle Configuration Management positioniert. Gemss dem Report ist die Positionierung im Leaders Quadranten ein Ergebnis einer erfolgreichen Vervollstndigung von Vision und Leistungsfhigkeit. Der Report hebt hervor, dass die Anbieter im Leaders Quadranten ber einzigartige Charakteristiken verfgen, die sie fr zuknftige Markterfolge prdestinieren.

Four-phase deployment boosts HealthAlliance service

Computerworld > Four-phase deployment boosts HealthAlliance service

HealthAlliance, the shared services
operation of the Counties-Manukau and Waitemata district health boards,
has deployed service management software to boost its ICT delivery.
The organisation, founded in 2000, was
seeking to control technology costs, boost service delivery and comply
with regulatory requirements around its particular service areas,
including ICT, payroll, HR, finance and other management services. Also
on the agenda were hardware tracking and software licence management.



CIO Phil Brimacombe and service delivery
team leader Alistair Mascarenhas say the HealthAlliance faced various
challenges. The helpdesk was drowning in requests and the number of PCs
was growing. HealthAlliance also found it didn’t have a handle on its
software licensing. Whatever solution was deployed, it also needed to
be able to deliver significant custom reporting capabilities.



HealthAlliance, which serves 12,000
employees and services 6,500 PCs (growing at around 500 a year) and 900
applications, provides ICT services for four hospitals, 70 community
and mental health sites and 130 dental school sites and also community
health services. More than a million people fall within the
organisation’s coverage area.



Nine hundred applications probably seems
a huge number, but as Brimacombe points out, every new piece of
biomedical equipment now comes with software.



To answer its service and management
challenges, HealthAlliance deployed various Symantec technologies in
four phases, starting with the Altiris Service and Asset Management
Suite followed by IT Analytics. The third phase saw Workflow delivered
and finally came Altiris Helpdesk.



Symantec acquired Altiris in early 2007.



A Symantec-sponsored study by US-based
consultancy Alchemy Solutions into the project, shows significant
productivity gains being achieved from the investments. Alchemy found
labour productivity gains around PC replacement activity of US$154,000
(NZ$264,000), heldesk labour productivity gains of US$859,000 (NZ$1.47
million) and gains in reporting of US$78,000 ($NZ134,000).



It also detected gains in service quality
measured through conformance with service level agreements (SLAs).
Compliance with the helpdesk SLA rose from 55% in July 2008 to 93% by
November.



Alchemy says in its report that the gains allowed HealthAlliance to reallocate IT staff to more business-critical initiatives.



Brimacombe says Symantec paid the
organisation so much attention in its case study because it was one of
the first implementations in Australasia of Altiris’s Workflow product.
He says Alchemy was very good at working with HealthAlliance on what
was to be published about the project.



“We tried to strike a balance between what was optimal and reasonable,” he says about the Alchemy paper.



Brimacombe says the demand to do more
with less is huge. He says being able to redeploy workers to higher
value work means not having to employ contractors and being able to
absorb costs within current budgets.



“What we’re trying to do is to build
information technology that enables clinicians to deliver improved
quality care through the use of information,” he says.



Boosting service levels and reaping
productivity gains were considered important not just in themselves,
but also to allow progress on strategic programmes such as electronic
health records development.



Also, the organisation wanted to deploy
ITIL (IT infrastructure libraries) to improve service delivery. Altiris
is based on ITIL, says Brimacombe.



“The helpdesk system used at the time didn’t allow us to move on,” he says.



The project was implemented on time and on budget between June 2007 and June 2008 by Bay Dynamics.

Altiris, symantec

VMware Unveils the Industry’s First Operating System for Building the Internal Cloud—VMware vSphere™ 4

Via VMware Company News >>

Next Generation Virtualization Platform Helps Enable Enterprises and Service Providers to Deliver Efficient, Flexible and Reliable IT as a Service

PALO ALTO, CA, April 21, 2009 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced VMware vSphere™ 4, the industry’s first operating system for building the internal cloud, enabling the delivery of efficient, flexible and reliable IT as a service. With a wide range of groundbreaking new capabilities, VMware vSphere 4 brings cloud computing to enterprises in an evolutionary, non-disruptive way – delivering uncompromising control with greater efficiency while preserving customer choice. 

As the complexity of IT environments has continued to increase over time, customers’ share of IT budgets are increasingly spent on simply trying to “keep the lights on.” With the promise of cloud computing, customers are eager to achieve the benefits, but struggle to see the path to getting there.  Leveraging VMware vSphere 4, customers can take pragmatic steps to achieve cloud computing within their own IT environments.  With these “internal” clouds, IT departments can dramatically simplify how computing is delivered in order to help decrease its cost and increase its flexibility, enabling IT to respond more rapidly to changing business requirements.

VMware vSphere 4 will aggregate and holistically manage large pools of infrastructure – processors, storage and networking – as a seamless, flexible and dynamic operating environment.  Any application – an existing enterprise application or a next-generation application – runs more efficiently and with guaranteed service levels on VMware vSphere 4.  For enterprises, VMware vSphere 4 will bring the power of cloud computing to the datacenter, slashing IT costs while dramatically increasing IT responsiveness.  For hosting service providers, VMware vSphere 4 will enable a more economic and efficient path to delivering cloud services that are compatible with customers’ internal cloud infrastructures.  Over time, VMware will support dynamic federation between internal and external clouds, enabling “private” cloud environments that span multiple datacenters and/or cloud providers.
 
“Since pioneering virtualization for x86 systems 10 years ago, VMware has delivered an impressive list of ‘industry-firsts’ – the first hypervisor, the first VMotion™ capability now synonymous with VMware, and the first platform for pooling servers, storage and network, allowing customers to decrease the capital and operating cost of computing by up to 60-70 percent,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer, VMware. “VMware vSphere 4 is the next evolution along this path of innovation.  By giving IT organizations a non-disruptive path to cloud computing, we will be leading our customers on a journey that delivers value every step of the way, delivering up to an additional 30 percent cost reduction today while enabling IT to provide reliable and adaptable IT services.”

FICO, the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology to the world’s top banks and credit card issuers, commented on how VMware vSphere 4 will improve the efficiency of its business.

“As a critical player in the global financial services ecosystem, we require flexibility and standards to stretch the limits of our IT resources and adjust to the unknown,” said Christopher Rence, CIO, FICO.  “With VMware vSphere as the foundation of our cloud computing initiative, we’re now in a better position to deliver a unified platform that enables the world’s top financial services institutions to make effective and confident decisions at all stages of the customer lifecycle.”

VMware vSphere 4 Delivers Unprecedented Efficiency, Control and Choice
VMware vSphere 4 extends the previous generation VMware platform – VMware Infrastructure 3 – along three dimensions: it delivers the efficiency and performance required to run business critical applications in large scale environments, it provides uncompromised control over application service levels, and it preserves customer choice of hardware, OS, application architecture and on-premise vs. off-premise application hosting. 

Efficiency. One of the primary benefits customers are seeking with cloud computing is decreasing the cost of IT services, freeing up budget to focus on delivering new capabilities that strategically differentiate the enterprise. VMware vSphere 4 enables transformative capital and operational expenditure cost savings over and above what was possible with the previous generation VMware Infrastructure 3:

• About 30 percent increase in consolidation ratios, further decreasing infrastructure cost per application.¹
• Up to 50 percent storage savings with VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning, which minimizes storage overprovisioning by enabling virtual machines to consume storage only as needed. Accrued across all VMware vSphere customers, these storage savings would free up enough storage to save up to 50 times the number of pictures currently on Facebook. ²
• Up to 20 percent additional power and cooling savings with VMware Distributed Power Management which uses VMware VMotion to automatically place all virtual machines on as few physical servers as possible without compromising service levels, and power down physical servers that are not needed. The power savings with VMware Distributed Power Management across all VMware vSphere 4 customers over one year could power a country the size of Denmark for 10 days.³

TradeBeam, a leading provider of global on-demand supply-chain management solutions, has used the beta version of VMware vSphere and expects it to increase the company’s competitive advantage.

“Cloud computing is the future for us, and VMware vSphere 4 is the ideal platform to build our internal cloud,” said Nasser Mirzai, IT director at TradeBeam.  “In our business, every sale requires a proof of concept which can become lengthy and expensive by using dedicated infrastructure. With an internal cloud built on VMware vSphere 4, we will be able to provide that infrastructure as a user friendly service to our sales teams and prospects. They will be able to request the infrastructure they need through a simple web portal and get it on-demand with guaranteed service levels and lower costs. That means getting the prospect up and running in one day instead of two weeks; the lead stays hot and we can increase our conversion rate while decreasing the cost of sales.”  

Performance and Scalability for the 100 Percent Virtualized Internal Cloud
VMware vSphere 4 delivers significant performance and scalability improvements over the previous generation VMware Infrastructure 3 to enable even the most resource intensive applications, such as large databases and Microsoft Exchange, to be deployed on internal clouds. With these performance and scalability improvements, VMware vSphere 4 will enable the 100 percent virtualized internal cloud.

• VMware vSphere 4 delivers more powerful virtual machines with up to:  
  • 2x the number of virtual processors per virtual machine (from 4 to 8)
  • 2.5x more virtual NICs per virtual machine (from 4 to 10)
  • 4x more memory per virtual machine (from 64 GB to 255GB)
  • 3x increase in network throughput (from 9 Gb/s to 30Gb/s)
  • 3x increase in the maximum recorded I/O operations per second (to over 300,000)
  • New maximum recorded number of transactions per second -  8,900 which is 5x the total payment traffic of the VISA network worldwide⁴
• Targeted performance improvements for specific applications:
  • Estimated 50 percent improved performance for application development workloads
  • Estimated 30 percent improved performance for Citrix XenApp

BayScribe, a leading provider of dictation services, supporting more than 50,000 physicians nationwide and facilitating more than 500,000 transcribed reports each month, commented on enhanced application performance with VMware vSphere 4.

“We have been using the VMware vSphere 4 beta, and even with the beta code, we have observed greatly accelerated application performance compared to VMware Infrastructure 3," said Steve Bonney, vice president of business development at BayScribe. “As a result, we are now planning to run the production database for our primary revenue generating application in a virtual machine on vSphere so that we can also take advantage of the availability, security and scalability features built in VMware vSphere 4.” 

• VMware vSphere 4 brings the capability to aggregate large number of virtual machines and large amounts of physical infrastructure into a single logical resource pool or “compute plant” on a cloud scale in order to  create “the mainframe of the 21st century.”  VMware vSphere 4 can pool together up to:
  • 32 physical servers with up to 2048 processor cores
  • 1,280 virtual machines
  • 32 TB of RAM
  • 16 petabytes of storage
  • 8,000 network ports

Control. VMware vSphere 4 enables efficient operational control of these very powerful “compute plants” with new large scale management features such as VMware Host Profiles and VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch that allow easy standardization of server security, storage and network settings; automating configuration  management and reducing errors due to misconfiguration. For an environment of 100 virtualized hosts, these new management features can save an estimated 25 weeks or half year of system administrator time, thus significantly reducing operating cost. 

VMware vSphere 4 brings uncompromised control over application service levels – enabling the right levels of availability, security and scalability to all applications independent of the OS or application architecture. All these new application service level capabilities can be delivered with one-mouse-click configuration simplicity, for set-it-and-forget it management simplicity, further reducing datacenter operating costs.

• Zero downtime, zero data loss protection against hardware failures with VMware Fault Tolerance, without the cost and complexity of alternative solutions.
• Minimized planned downtime due to storage maintenance and migrations with VMware Storage VMotion, available with a new administrator interface, which provides live migration of virtual machine disk files across heterogeneous networked storage types.
• Quick, simple, integrated, and cost effective disk-based backup and recovery for all applications with VMware Data Recovery.
• Easier and stricter security compliance with VMware vShield Zones which simplifies application security by helping to enforce corporate security policies at the application-level within logical zones in a shared environment, while still maintaining trust and network segmentation of users and sensitive data.
• Easier application service level management with VMware vApp, which is an industry standard way to encapsulate all virtual machine components of an application and describe their compute and memory resource requirements.

Southwestern Energy Company, an integrated energy company primarily focused on the exploration for and production of natural gas, is using VMware Fault Tolerance.

“VMware Fault Tolerance is extremely useful,” said Larry C. Miller Jr., senior systems administrator at Southwestern Energy. “This is a welcome addition to our arsenal of high availability technologies because it makes previously very high-end, expensive and complex functionality truly accessible. VMware Fault Tolerance can be turned on and off with a mouse click and while protecting applications against hardware failure.”

Choice. With VMware vSphere 4, customers retain flexibility of choice, remaining independent of hardware, OS, application stack, and service providers.  For example, VMware vSphere 4 offers the broadest choice of guest operating systems over any other virtualization solution on the market today. This means customers can support their existing applications and feel confident about future applications, while retaining the flexibility to deploy within internal or external clouds.

“The days of the traditional monolithic operating system are numbered,” said Chris Wolf, senior analyst with Burton Group. “Server platforms are now being purposed-built for virtualized workloads, and many of the roles associated with the traditional OS are transitioning to virtualized internal and external cloud-based infrastructures. Organizations looking to gain the operational and financial benefits of cloud-based IT can do so today by deploying purpose-built cloud infrastructure software that streamlines internal data center operations, while providing a gateway to future external cloud expansion.”

Qualcomm, a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services, commented on the flexibility that VMware vSphere 4 can provide for its business.

“VMware has provided us with cost savings and efficiencies for a number of years,” says Paul Poppleton, IT architect, Qualcomm. “With VMware vSphere 4, we can leverage our virtualization implementations to get greater economies through an internal cloud strategy. As a leader in virtualization, VMware is positioned to help us continue to automate and streamline our infrastructure to best serve our business needs, on or off premise.” 

VMware vSphere 4 Pricing Starts at $166 per Processor⁵
VMware vSphere 4 is expected to be generally available later in Q2 2009 and will be available in six editions meeting the requirements, use cases and budgets of customers of all sizes. In the current tough economic climate, VMware vSphere 4 offers unbeatable value to customers with up to 30 percent higher consolidation ratios, up to 50 percent storage savings, and up to 20 percent power savings over the previous generation of VMware Infrastructure 3. 

• VMware vSphere 4 Essentials, priced at $995 for three physical servers, or $166 per processor, provides an all-in-one virtualization solution for the small office IT environment. VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus, priced at $2,995 for three physical servers, or $499 per processor, adds high availability and data protection capabilities that are otherwise out of reach for the small office IT environment. VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus is the only virtualization offering that provides integrated, built-in availability, data protection, patch management, and customizable alerts and reports at this price point.
• For datacenter deployments requiring the ability to scale and grow, VMware vSphere 4 provides four editions for four distinct use cases:
  • VMware vSphere 4 Standard priced at $795 per processor provides significant server consolidation ROI with new cost saving capabilities including thin provisioning for up to 50 percent lower storage costs and performance optimizations for up to 30 percent higher consolidation ratios than the previous generation of VMware software.
  • VMware vSphere 4 Advanced priced at $2,245 per processor provides application availability and protection.  Live migration with VMware VMotion, and the addition of VMware Fault Tolerance for continuous availability, VMware Data Recovery for backup, and VMware vShield Zones for security uniquely deliver Always on IT in one integrated package.
  • VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise priced at $2,875 per processor adds automated resource management with VMware DRS and VMware Storage VMotion.
  • VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus priced at $3,495 per processor includes the full range of VMware vSphere 4 features for transforming datacenters into internal cloud computing environments including VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch and VMware Host Profiles for simplifying the operational management of large deployments.
• Special Upgrade Promotions for Existing VMware Infrastructure Customers. Existing VMware Infrastructure 3 customers with valid support and subscription contracts are automatically entitled to VMware vSphere 4 editions. (For more information, visit the VMware vSphere 4 upgrade center at: http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere-upgrade-center.) VMware is offering limited time promotions for existing VMware Infrastructure 3 customers wishing to upgrade to VMware vSphere 4 editions over and above what they are entitled to under their support and subscription contracts:
  • VMware Infrastructure 3 Standard to VMware vSphere 4 Advanced: At less than 50 percent of the upgrade list price, customers can add key features such as live migration with VMware VMotion, continuous availability, network security zoning, and data protection.  Suggested US list price: $745 per processor
  • VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise to VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus: At less than 50 percent of the upgrade list price, customers can add key features such as dynamic resource allocation, power management, live migration, the distributed switch, and host configuration controls.  Suggested US list price: $295 per processor

For more information on VMware vSphere 4, please visit: http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere.
For more information on the VMware vSphere 4 pricing, please visit:  http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere/buy.

Read the complete article on VMware Company News >>

VMware, vSphere, Cloud, OS,

Client und Server Management mit Altiris

Client und Server Management mit Altiris: Branchennews

Symantec hat die sofortige Verfügbarkeit von Version 7.0 der Altiris-Software Client Management Suite und Server Management Suite bekanntgegeben. Die Lösungen helfen bei der Automatisierung von Prozesssteuerungen, bieten umfangreiche Monitoring-Funktionen und unterstützen Administratoren dabei, dass alle Daten und Geschäftsabläufe möglichst reibungslos funktionieren.
Die neuen Altiris Endpoint Management Suiten wurden von Symantec anlässlich der Konferenz ManageFusion in Las Vegas vorgestellt. Beide Pakete, also die Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 und die Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0 basieren auf Symantecs Management-Plattform und helfen IT-Verantwortlichen dabei, dass Clients und Server im Unternehmensnetz geschützt, einfach zu managen und automatisiert kontrollierbar sind.

Zu den neuen Funktionen der Client Management Suite 7.0 gehören ein intelligentes Software-Management zur Applikations-Verwaltung. Das IT-Lifecycle-Management unterstützt neben Windows- und Linux-PCs nun auch Mac-Rechner dank eines neuen nativen Mac OS X-Agenten. Weiter kann mit dem Power Management der Standby-Modus von Desktops und Laptops zentral gesteuert werden.

Die Server Management Suite 7.0 eignet sich zur Feststellung, Verwaltung und Überwachung von Server-Infrastrukturen über eine Vielzahl an Plattformen. Unterstützt werden Herstellerangaben zufolge sowohl physische als auch virtuelle Server. Zu den neuen Funktionen gehören ein integriertes Performance Monitoring, mit dem Vorfälle, die sich auf die Server-Verfügbarkeit auswirken können, identifiziert und so schnell behoben werden können.

Mit dem Event Management lässt sich der gesamte Serverbetrieb überwachen, operative Vorfälle sammeln, speichern und auswerten. Neue Planungs- und Change Management-Funktionen bieten darüber hinaus eine Übersicht über alle Veränderungen, außerdem kann ein Wartungsfenster implementiert werden, wenn zugelassene Veränderungen auftreten.Beide Management Suiten können über die Symantec Management Konsole verwaltet werden, zusätzlich lassen sich über die Konsole optional auch weitere Funktionen und Lösungen von Symantec verwalten – exemplarisch nennt der Hersteller Sicherheit, Data Loss Prevention oder Backup und Wiederherstellung von Daten und Systemen.

Via Searchdatacenter.de

Altiris 7, CMS, SMS, Management

Symantec Corp. Announces Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0

Symantec Corp. Announces Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0

Symantec Corp. recently announced Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 and Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0. Both suites offer better visibility into IT assets, simplified day-to-day manageability and improved end-user productivity, helping customers realize significant cost savings and value out of their existing IT investments.

By using Symantec's integrated endpoint management solutions across a broad range of client and server systems – physical or virtual – customers can ensure that their valuable information resources are protected completely, managed easily and controlled automatically. Client Management Suite 7.0 and Server Management Suite 7.0 automate manual management tasks, ensure business productivity tools and data are functioning properly, and help ensure license compliance. Both suites are built on the Symantec Management Platform, driving best practice process automation and providing modular and extensible integration across Symantec's product portfolio and third-party solutions.

"As the current economic slowdown has placed a greater emphasis on cost reductions, our customers are looking for better ways to cut expenses and reduce the growing complexity of managing endpoints while improving security," said Francis deSouza, senior vice president, Enterprise Security Group, Symantec. "Client Management Suite 7.0 and Server Management Suite 7.0 provide the necessary automation and integration from a central location to help our customers reduce the time it takes to manage their assets, improve security and reduce operational costs."

Client Management Suite 7.0

Client Management Suite 7.0 gives customers a comprehensive solution for better control of their IT environment by streamlining efforts associated with deploying, managing, securing and troubleshooting client systems. New features in Client Management Suite 7.0 include:

• Intelligent software management helps organizations tackle the complexity of managing hundreds of enterprise and home grown software packages by auditing and categorizing known applications into a software catalog, automatically distributing software with all of the required components and performing periodic enforcement checks to ensure configuration remains intact.
• Increased platform coverage enables IT client administrators to extend their PC lifecycle management control across Windows, Linux and Mac and includes a new native OS X agent with an integrated software request portal.
• Integrated power management promotes energy conservation by establishing centralized policies that control desktop and laptop power modes. Integrated support for Intel vPro technology allows administrators to power on systems just long enough for routine off-hour tasks, such as installing software updates and patches.
• Advanced systems management technologies – such as imaging, remote control, and application virtualization and packaging – leveraged from industry-leading Symantec products including Symantec Ghost, Symantec pcAnywhere, Symantec Workspace Virtualization, and Wise packaging technology help customers with increased functionality and advanced capabilities.

"Symantec's comprehensive endpoint management solutions help us to do more with less by taking the guesswork out of managing more than 10,000 desktops and 1,000 servers," said Dave Durkee, systems engineer, Meijer, a grocery retailer that operates 185 supercenters throughout the eastern United States. "For example, the automation capabilities of Client Management Suite and Server Management Suite have improved our patch management process, putting our endpoints at near 100 percent compliance. With Symantec's integrated approach, we have all the tools we need from one vendor to help us keep our endpoints updated, allowing us to focus on other important IT issues."

Server Management Suite 7.0

Server Management Suite 7.0 provides the essential capabilities to discover, provision, manage and monitor server infrastructures across a range of platforms – regardless of whether the server is physical or virtual. This allows IT administrators to increase the availability of servers and critical business systems. New features in Server Management Suite 7.0 include:

• Integrated performance monitoring allows IT administrators to quickly identify and resolve issues impacting the availability of distributed IT servers. This new feature provides an easy to use set of tools to intelligently monitor key performance attributes and rapidly diagnose issues with a historical data workbench.
• Consolidated event management enables organizations to collect, store and analyze performance and operational events as well as respond to critical issues. The event console normalizes a broad scope of event data and correlates the impact of incidents based on the criticality to business. There are dozens of remediation tasks available for immediate problem resolution.
• New scheduling and change management features help IT administrators to improve day-to-day management by giving them a view of all change activities and allowing them to easily implement maintenance windows when allowed changes can occur.

Customers can also leverage Design and Pilot Services for both suites offered through Symantec Consulting Services. These services will help to rapidly configure and deploy the Symantec Management Platform in a production environment delivering a best-in-class implementation from trained Symantec experts. Symantec's experienced consultants will review the environment, assess applicable IT and business requirements, design and configure the solution, and pilot in production. Symantec also offers customers a full range of technical support and education offerings.

Client Management Suite 7.0 and Server Management Suite 7.0 share the Symantec Management Console allowing administrators to manage operations from a single point. Customers can take advantage of the Symantec Management Console to integrate the management of additional functions that Symantec provides, including security, data loss prevention, and backup and recovery of data and systems. In addition, both suites can be installed and configured in less time while providing better support for Windows, UNIX, VMware, Linux and Mac.

As part of its endpoint control integration strategy, Symantec has integrated the security and management of endpoints to help customers ensure that all information – in motion and at rest – is protected across endpoints, networks and on storage devices. To deliver on this vision, Symantec has already leveraged the modularity and extensibility of the platform to integrate technologies from some of its key products, including Symantec Endpoint Protection, Backup Exec, Backup Exec System Recovery and Symantec Data Loss Prevention for Endpoint. By implementing a unified solution, organizations can simplify the implementation and operations of their IT strategy while reducing costs with a single vendor.

Recently, Symantec was positioned in the Leaders quadrant in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for PC Lifecycle Configuration Management . According to the report: "Positioning in the Leaders Quadrant is the result of successful completeness of vision and ability to execute." The report also states that the vendors in the Leaders Quadrant have "unique characteristics that position them favorably for future market success."

For inclusion in the Magic Quadrant for PC Life Cycle Configuration Management, 2008, vendor solutions were required to include the following functions in their management suites: inventory, software distribution, patch management, and OS deployment. Vendors also needed to have at least four of these capabilities in their suites: remote control, software usage monitoring, application virtualization, application streaming, security configuration management, application packaging, data and settings migration and policy management (for example, configuration control).

Licensing and Availability

Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 and Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0 from Symantec are now available and can be purchased directly from Symantec or through Symantec's worldwide network of value-added authorized resellers, distributors and systems integrators. For more information, please visit http://www.symantec.com/business/client-management-suite and http://www.symantec.com/business/server-management-suite.

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted December 29, 2008, by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

SOURCE: Symantec Corp.

symanrtec, Altiris, Altiris Client management

Symantec's last ManageFusion conference was full of high points

Symantec's last ManageFusion conference was full of high points - Network World

I’ve recently returned from my third trip to a Symantec ManageFusion conference. I figure it’s important for me to keep tabs on what the world’s fourth largest software company is doing. Let me share my trip report with you. There’s a lot of interesting progress and news coming out of this conference.

First and foremost, Symantec COO Enrique Salem announced that Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 and Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0 are both generally available now. Symantec has been talking about these products for more than a year. The release was delayed a few times “until we got it right,” according to Salem. He says they’ve been using the products internally on more than 7,000 client devices as well as on the company’s servers for many months and they are confident in the products’ capabilities.

One of the beta testers, the Meijer supercenter retailer, has been using Altiris 7.0 on more than 10,500 desktops and 1,000 servers. Dave Durkee, a technology specialist in the IT department at Meijer, gives Altiris 7.0 glowing remarks. He says the extensive workflow automation built into the management products gives him the ability to “do more with less” – a common phrase repeated throughout ManageFusion. Durkee also praises the improved handling of software inventory in the client suite. This makes it easier for his harried team to do application metering and to make updates to installed applications.

To learn more about the Altiris 7.0 products, read the availability announcement from Symantec and Kathleen Lau’s summary of what’s new in the products.

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Symantec, Altiris, Managefusion, Client Management

Dell and Altiris Alliance

Dell and Altiris Alliance

Standards Based Systems Management

Dell and Altiris, now part of Symantec, two best-in-class companies, have combined their expertise to deliver a comprehensive server and client management solution for efficiency minded IT organizations. Through an extended partnership, Dell and Altiris will co-build the next generation of Dell OpenManage applications based on the Altiris foundation. Going forward, Dell hardware will be the easiest to manage in the industry. In addition, Altiris was one of the founding partners of the Certified Partner Program, along with Microsoft and Novell. As of April 6, 2007, Symantec acquired Altiris, which now gives the company a systems management platform. Symantec and Altiris share a common vision for the endpoint computing environment – to protect and manage the tens of millions of connected desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and servers that create the fabric of today’s global IT infrastructure.

Centralized, Automated Systems Management

Dell and Altiris: Making Dell Servers and PCs the Easiest and Most Cost-Effective You Can Own

Altiris, Dell