Systems management wares debut at LinuxWorld

Systems management newcomers this week stormed LinuxWorld with software designed to manage the open source operating system.

FiveRuns, a start-up that has adopted a software-as-a-service business model, will make available the first commercial version of its FiveRuns Systems Management product, which monitors systems running Apache, JBoss, Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, MySQL, Sun Solaris and Tomcat. The company kicked off a beta program earlier this year, in which 1,500 potential customers downloaded the software, and invited 300 active testers into the program.

“FiveRuns has a really good user interface, in which they keep things very clean and intuitive, which is very appealing to [small and midsize businesses] without the expertise or budget for one of the Big Four management vendors [BMC Software, CA, HP and IBM],” says Gary Chen, an analyst at Yankee Group.

FiveRuns requires customers to register on the FiveRuns Web site before they download client software to their desktop. The software autodiscovers the environment and prompts customers to determine what they’d like FiveRuns to manage.

Customers gain access with a user ID and password to data repository and processing systems hosted by FiveRuns. The setup is quick and easy, but reflects the simplistic nature of the management software, Chen says. “One area that FiveRuns is lacking in is some of the management functionality. [The software] monitors and tracks events, but it doesn’t really offer the capability to do things to the system, like restarting servers or applications,” he says.

Nevertheless, at $60 per server, per month regardless of the number of CPUs or applications running on the server, the price may be right for customers who want to offload the task of monitoring. “This business model for systems management is really taking off with SMB customers,” Chen says, adding that FiveRuns competes with Hyperic, Open Country and SourceLabs.

Separately Open Country unveiled additional platform support in the latest revision of its systems management software, OCM Manager 3.1.

Open Country says its agent-based desktop and server management application, which focuses on Linux systems, provides systems administrators a diverse set of capabilities for heterogeneous Linux deployments. For instance, the software manages most popular Linux platforms, including Mandrake, Red Hat, Sun and SUSE. With this release, OCM Manager manages Novell and Debian Linux installations. The company has added language support in French and Portuguese.

OCM Manager is used to configure, manage and provision Linux PCs, database servers, blade servers and appliances. The software requires a 1MB software agent and a management PC, which can be Linux- or Windows-based. The software is a small application designed to address small IT shops or target specific needs within larger IT organizations, industry analysts say. Open Country, like FiveRuns, doesn’t compete directly with BMC, CA, HP and IBM, but provides Linux-specific management features that could complement the their suites.

“If you are an IT manager, and you are trying to buy a high-end systems management tool that you are going to use to manage a big network, then you’ll most likely pick something else,” says Amy Wohl, an independent information industry analyst. “Open Country provides an application you use to manage some pieces of your network or certain functions, or you can use [it] to handle a class of devices or projects.”

OCM 3.1 is available. The company offers various pricing packages. For subscription buyers, the enterprise starter pack costs $500 per year for five machines, or $800 per year for nine machines. To manage 100 systems and purchase a perpetual license and appliance costs $40,000.