* RES' Wisdom change mgmt. service for Windows
I don’t think anyone could argue against the idea that we could all use a little more wisdom. So the folks at Real Enterprise Solutions, known to their friends as “RES,” have decided to sell you some.
“Wisdom” https://www.res.nl/res/wisdom.html is the name of its new point-and-click change management service for Windows. It brings together software and hardware inventory, deployment, patch management, hotfixes and complete reporting of the Windows enterprise all orchestrated from one central console.
RES has been around since 1999 and is best known for PowerFuse, its central management console for Windows. The company’s mission, it says, is “to manage and maintain Windows desktops and to make organizations of all sizes more efficient while lowering overall IT costs.” That’s a mission statement we can all support – and understand.
With Wisdom, you can quickly and easily automate the routine tasks necessary to maintaining Windows, such as deploying software, installing Microsoft updates, applying hotfixes, modifying registry settings, changing service parameters, changing computer name properties, monitoring event logs, monitoring disk space and more using PC-based agents controlled from a central console. Wisdom’s Instant Reports functionality is a management feature that allows administrators to easily query a report based on total computer hardware or software inventory, file contents, disk space history, and/or application inventory.
Wisdom does require that you run SQL Server, which it uses to store all of its data and packages, but no special database knowledge is required. It’s also directory-enabled, but Active Directory-independent so that it will work across various platforms and domains. And, for those of you looking to, perhaps, recycle older machines, the central console will run on Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, or Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition. All of those systems, including Windows XP Tablet PC, are also supported as clients. Other mobile platforms are planned for future releases.
Wisdom is licensed per deployed agent and free 30-day evaluations (https://www.res.nl/res/eval.php?FID=62) are available for download.
Wisdom isn’t for every network, but not everyone can handle “wisdom,” either. Still, you should check it out to see if it’s right for you.
