New IBM Software Bolsters Mainframe as Service Management Hub for Businesses

Market Wire, February, 2008

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today extended its multi-million dollar commitment to simplify the mainframe by announcing a new, integrated set of software offerings that provides a process automation and Service Management infrastructure to make better use of the mainframe's vast power for tackling business challenges.

The new IBM Tivoli Service Management Center for System z, part of the IBM Service Management portfolio, automates the management of complex IT disciplines and allows policy driven processes such as incident and problem management, change and release, discovery and business service management to be seamlessly managed from either mainframe or distributed computing environments. In so doing, it extends service management and process automation benefits across enterprise assets and the datacenter, better equipping clients to address business mandates -- from explicitly tying IT performance to business goals, reducing IT costs, meeting security, regulatory and compliance requirements and improving customer satisfaction.

The offering combines industry standard process automation best practices, based on the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), with internally developed software, including IBM Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database , IBM Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager , IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager , IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager and IBM Tivoli Enterprise Portal. The integration between these products is designed to eliminate "silos" of applications and deliver a combined view into business applications and the overall data center.

Customers stand to benefit from a single, integrated view of critical applications hosted on their mainframes, discovering, controlling and showing the linkages between IT assets and business applications, then enabling them to monitor the overall service delivery provided by IT in support of business objectives. Clients may customize this view to support various functions including, among others, application mapping, relationship discovery, business services, services requests, finance, security, IT production, support and operational control.

"The IBM Tivoli Service Management Center, when used in conjunction with our new z10 platform or existing mainframes, will give clients a new, integrated environment that provides greater visibility, automation and control into discovery, incident and problem management in one common service management infrastructure across their businesses," said Chris O'Connor, vice president, strategy and market management, IBM Tivoli. "The primary value of this new offering is the ability to develop role-based processes and views to proactively manage technology and business objectives and implement improved service management across a business of any size and scope."

The newly integrated portfolio of offerings takes advantage of autonomic capabilities and provides improved functionality to support various challenges faced by data center and facility management leaders. Some of the benefits include:

    Business Service Management -- Integrating IBM Tivoli Business Service
    Manager and IBM Tivoli Application Discovery and Dependency Manager to
    provide end-to-end discovery of processes, availability, management,
    status and control when an application is added, becomes unavailable
    or is violating a service level agreement.

    Financial Management -- Aligning IT with business goals, justifying IT
    expenses and understanding the cost of shared resources. It also
    includes integrating IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager with IBM
    Tivoli Decision Support software to provide cost allocation based on
    IT resource use. In addition, organizations can effectively manage
    their IT asset lifecycle to lower cost and reduce license compliance
    exposure across their enterprises through Tivoli Asset Management for
    IT, Tivoli License Compliance Manager for z/OS and Tivoli License
    Compliance Manager.

    Security Management -- Providing security visibility and reporting
    capabilities across multiple technology platforms as new compliance
    standards, acquisitions, business expansion and technologies are
    introduced. The Tivoli Service Management Center for System z can
    provide one view into security, audit and compliance management
    software such as IBM Tivoli zSecure, IBM Tivoli Compliance Insight
    Manager, IBM Tivoli Identity Manager, IBM Tivoli Access Manager and
    IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager.

    Operations and Support -- Delivering optimal performance and service
    level agreement adherence through a comprehensive view of mainframe
    operations by integrating IBM Tivoli Enterprise Portal with IBM Tivoli
    NetView, IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON, IBM Tivoli Composite Application
    Manager, IBM Tivoli System Automation and IBM Tivoli Workload
    Scheduler. Benefits include increased visibility, expert advice and
    automation support of system performance, network performance and
    critical business applications.

    Operations and Support -- The ability to detect, report and resolve
    operations and support incidents is paramount to ensuring optimal
    compliance with service level agreements and performance. The IBM
    Tivoli Service Management Center for System z includes focused
    visibility, expert advice and automation support of system
    performance, network performance, incident and problem management,
    discovery, and critical business applications through a comprehensive
    view of mainframe operations by the integration of IBM Tivoli
    Enterprise Portal with IBM Tivoli NetView, IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON, IBM
    Tivoli Composite Application Manager, IBM Tivoli System Automation and
    IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler.