SilverBack gets into apps management
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Billerica, Mass. - SilverBack Technologies this week will expand beyond network management services into systems and applications management, a move that sets the company's offerings apart from more specialized services.
Customers can now use SilverBack's InfoCare service to monitor not just the performance of routers, switches and other network components, but also servers, such as those running Windows NT or Unix, and applications, including those from Oracle.
SilverBack is one of about 80 registered members of the Management Service Provider Association, of which it is a founder.
"Some [management service providers] specialize in Layer 2 switches; some specialize in networks," says John McConnell, president of McConnell Associates. "But SilverBack can do the work of collecting information from all over the enterprise and make less work for network managers."
InfoCare 2.5, aimed at small and midsize businesses, now also includes access control list (ACL) options and Secure Sockets Layer encryption capabilities that safeguard the connection between the customer and management data SilverBack collects.
The company provides its services by locating an appliance at the customer site that feeds fault, performance, security and other management information via a VPN back to a SilverBack data center, where data analysis is performed. Customers can access reports on that data via a Web portal, plus request services, such as software update distributions.
Customers such as Jeff Nelson of Cleveland Motion Controls says using SilverBack services is less expensive and complicated than rolling out an enterprise management platform from the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Aprisma.
The new systems and application management capabilities make SilverBack's offering even more competitive with management frameworks, the net manager says.
"We've had problems with our [enterprise resource management] applications working with Oracle, but with InfoCare, it's pretty conclusive - it's a client/server problem and not a network bandwidth problem," he says.
SilverBack has 26 customers, some under contract, some in beta testing and some in the proof-of-concept stage.
InfoCare 2.5, depending on the size of the network being managed, costs between $2,000 to $4,000 per month. Installation fee ranges from $1,000 to $3,000.
SilverBack: www.silverbacktech.com
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