Making a case for Data Center Intelligence

By Denise Dubie, NetworkWorld.com, 04/19/06

A start-up company says it has the solution to many IT managers' problem: cross-platform automated change and configuration management software for heterogeneous data centers.

CiRBA -- loosely standing for configuration item request broker architecture -- developed software that the company says can: detect detailed configurations and millions of changes and differences across heterogeneous environments; stores them in a central repository; and enable network managers to analyze empirical data to identify risks, problems, and optimization opportunities.

Company co-founder and CTO Andrew Hillier (an industry veteran who developed technology that ultimately became the foundation for Sun's systems management product, Sun Management Center) says CiRBA's Data Center Intelligence (DCI) product complements existing systems management tools and provides an automated means for collecting and maintaining configuration data.

DCI inventories configurations whereas other systems management tools collect data and events, not always related to changes in configuration. Also DCI collects this information from a slew of systems and devices to help customers -- such as Aetna and TD Financial -- get an accurate account of what they have, if it's properly configured and how it can be optimized. With some competition from the likes of Opsware, Tripwire and Relicore (recently acquired by Symantec), CiRBA says it's software, which users centralized server software and distributed agents and adapters to collect data, will provide data center managers with the information they need to make intelligent decisions.

Available now and priced on a monthly basis, CiRBA's DCI Version 3.0 costs about $10 per CPU -- or any system or device equivalent in the data center (the software will collect data on anything with an IP address).

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