EMC expands configuration management for virtualized data centers

Industry analysis by Beth Schultz, plus the latest news headlines.

EMC Monday unveiled a software application that the company says will help enterprise IT managers better track virtual and physical configuration items from the data center into the cloud.

Products of the Week

EMC Ionix Data Center Insight is the newest application in the company’s recently updated Ionix IT management suite. The software works with other EMC products and third-party configuration management databases (CMDB) to pull data from data center components and build a consolidated view of the IT environment. Data Center Insight doesn’t act as a database but rather pulls data from configuration sources to help IT better visualize application and service dependencies across an IT environment such as a data center or private cloud.

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EMC Monday unveiled a software application that the company says will help enterprise IT managers better track virtual and physical configuration items from the data center into the cloud.

Products of the Week

EMC Ionix Data Center Insight is the newest application in the company’s recently updated Ionix IT management suite. The software works with other EMC products and third-party configuration management databases (CMDB) to pull data from data center components and build a consolidated view of the IT environment. Data Center Insight doesn’t act as a database but rather pulls data from configuration sources to help IT better visualize application and service dependencies across an IT environment such as a data center or private cloud.

“This product helps customers leverage what they already have to evolve their CMDB into a more modular, practical system,” says Jeff Abbott, senior product marketing manager for EMC Ionix. “By expanding to incorporate network and storage data, Data Center Insight can collect virtualization and cross-domain information across the data center, helping IT to better plan changes and avoid service outages.”

Using organic and acquired technology (such as that purchased with Infra and Configuresoft), EMC also equipped the software with best practices around establishing a CMDB and advancing it to become an ITIL-approved configuration management system (CMS). The difference is in federation, according to industry watchers. A CMDB to some represents a single, monolithic entity, whereas a CMS pulls data from multiple sources across an environment, without requiring that data to reside in a single repository.

“Forrester has been careful to advise clients on the evolution of the CMDB concept: away from a single, monolithic database and toward a federated set of domain-specific management tools combined with metadata and object models known as a [CMS]. The newer ITIL v3 definition is consistent with this model,” reads a recent Forrester Research report, “Inquiry Spotlight: CMDB And CMS, Q3 2009.” 

The software requires one of several EMC Ionix applications to discover data and begin to populate an updated system in near real-time. Industry watchers say the vendor is providing tools to automate the process and eliminate “guesswork” for enterprise IT managers looking to keep data center information accurate.

“EMC is taking a major step forward in helping customers tackle these challenges head-on, while at the same time enabling far more flexibility in capturing real-time insights versus aging information,” says Dennis Drogseth, vice president at Enterprise Management Associates, in an EMC press release.

EMC Ionix Data Center Insight is available now, with prices starting at $40,000.

Interested in freeware and shareware, open source applications and scaled down versions of commercial software and services? In the coming weeks, Network World will devote an online forum to the topic of free techie stuff, which I will compile and present for your review and potential download. Let me know what you find, what you want to hear more about and what invaluable tools that didn’t cost you a thing at ddubie@nww.com.

Schultz is a longtime IT journalist. You can email her or find her here.