Halcyon Software introduced a trio of new software products at COMMON including a new cross-platform reporting solution that allows for easy report creation, a new version of its spool file manager that indexes files for fast retrieval, and an updated GUI enterprise console manager for IBM i, AIX, and Windows that syncs with a new free iPhone app for system management on the go.
Advanced Reporting Suite
Halcyon’s Advanced Reporting Suite, is a new cross-platform reporting solution that supports the IBM i and Windows platforms. Key benefits of the Advanced Reporting Suite include significantly reducing the time it takes for IT administrators to create customer reports, the ability to tailor reports to meet client’s specific needs, and a dynamic reporting feature which enables IT administrators to easily demonstrate how they are meeting customer service level agreements so that any issues can be quickly identified and resolved.
Donnie MacColl, Technical Services Director at Halcyon, said, “This new solution is designed for larger corporate data centers, IT outsourcing and managed services companies. There are other enterprise wide, high-end solutions on the market but these are viewed as expensive to purchase, require advanced scripting skills and an in-house expert to maintain and produce reports. For example, one of our customers running a large data center had an IT administrator spending two weeks every month creating reports for all of their clients. We saw the need for a more affordable solution that could automate the majority of the report creation process and eliminate the need for IT staff to manually collect the data from multiple systems and numerous sources.”
MacColl continued, “We have also used a unique methodology for managing and reporting on service level agreements, or ‘SLAs’, allowing companies to quickly identify through ‘SLA flags’ which aspects of the service level agreement are not being met. This means that these issues can then be investigated with the minimum of delay. This is important, particularly for IT outsourcing companies who need to demonstrate the value of their services to their clients.”
The new software consists of two components, The Halcyon Data Warehouse, a central data store, and the Halcyon Report Designer that includes a wizard that makes the creation of customized reports very quick and easy.
IT administrators can edit the reports to incorporate their company logo and dynamically report on percentage performance against service level agreements, capacity planning trends and analysis, processor loading, CPU, memory and disk, SAN utilization, performance response times, resource utilization and other factors that could affect service levels.
Key features include a web front-end, and a browser-based client making it quick to deploy and run the reports. The reports can be published to a web portal so that customers have easy and quick access to the information. The software has nine different output formats including PDF, HTML, CSV, XLS and RTF.
The product is shipped with standard reports that can be customized to meet specific requirements.
Online training can also be provided by Halcyon to enable data center administrators to become expert users.
The new Advanced Reporting Suite can be purchased in combination with Halcyon’s monitoring and automation packages for IBM i and Windows. Existing Halcyon customers can upgrade to this technology by purchasing a plug-in module.
A further release of Advanced Reporting Suite will be available Q4 2011, to support the AIX platform. To learn more customers can visit www.halcyonsoftware.com/ar
Spool File Manager 8.0 for IBM i
Halcyon’s Spool File Manager V8.0 is a comprehensive spool file distribution and archiving tool which offers real-time spool file monitoring and filtering. It automatically performs actions on spool files without any need for program changes such as automatically emailing the summary page of a report.
Major Enhancements
The software now has the capability to index files for super fast retrieval of archived spooled files. There are no limits to the number of spooled files that can be stored within an archived file.
The new version of Spool File Manager also contains subset templates to provide multiple views of all stored spooled files, for example, by “department,” “type,” and “user,” or any combination.
Spool File Manager V8.0 also allows spooled files to be exported and stored on IFS (Integrated File System on IBM i) and NFS (Network File Share) such as a Windows server.
Spooled files can also be distributed through email by exporting output to a PDF or HTML or directly from the IBM i.
John Dominic, Halcyon vice president of Sales, says, “Automated report distribution and archiving are extremely critical to our utilities clients, some of whom are generating spool files over one million pages long. We used their feedback in particular to ensure that the latest version of Halcyon Spool File Manager was as efficient and scalable as possible.”
Pricing and Availability
Spool File Manager V8 .0 is available immediately, either as a single utility or as part of Halcyon’s Level 3 or Level 4 monitoring software suites. Pricing is tiered and based on IBM processor groups.
For more information about Spool File Manager visit: http://halcyonsoftware.com/products/spoolfilemanager/index.html
Enterprise Console 8.7 for IBM i, AIX, and Windows
Halcyon’s graphical user interface (GUI) tool Enterprise Console V8.7 allows centralized management of all system alerts from multiple platforms including IBM i, AIX, Windows and Linux.
Enterprise Console V8.7 enables IT managers and network administrators to manage large numbers of servers–no matter how remote–across different sites or countries from a single location. Alerts generated from servers, applications, and SNMP devices, including hubs, routers and switches, can be viewed and managed on a single PC screen.
Through the use of this GUI, all systems and alerts can be color-coded to aid identification on screen–to enable the operator to take appropriate remedial action quickly and according to alert priority.
The Enterprise Console interfaces with all Halcyon’s monitoring suites for IBM i, AIX, Windows and Linux.
New i Phone App
Halcyon's Enterprise Console also can now provide users with a portable view of their whole environment across all platforms. By downloading Halcyon’s free application from the Apple App Store, all system alerts, SNMP traps, devices, and system statuses can be displayed in real-time on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Users can view the mobile version of the Enterprise Console through the Apple devices and have exactly the same functionality as the full version of the software. The key benefit is that IT administrators, or operational staff “on the move” now have access to their enterprises and can quickly manage issues or problems remotely.Other new features include the ability to interface with recognized Open Source systems such as Security Information Event Manager (SIEM), Log Amalgamators, IBM Tivoli , HP OpenView, CA Unicenter, BMC Patrol and any Syslog or SNMP compliant system.
In addition, Enterprise Console V8.7 will now support Netport and enhanced SNMP enabling alert notification to a cell phone for all systems and SNMP compliant network devices.
Technical Services Director MacColl says, “The new enhancements in Enterprise Console V8.7 have been developed as a response to customer requests. We have seen an increasing trend for more solutions to be readily accessible from mobile devices and cell phones, especially from IT support staff who often work remotely and need to constantly improve productivity and efficiency.”
MacColl added, “We are committed to supporting other mobile platforms in the future like Android. This new release confirms Halcyon’s commitment to providing functionality that really contributes to the way companies wish to run their operations.”
Price and Availability
Enterprise Console V8.7 is included with any of Halcyon’s monitoring and automation suites for the IBM i, AIX and Windows platforms. Halcyon’s IBM i software suites are tier priced by IBM processor group.
For more information about the free iPhone app or for an on-line demonstration of Enterprise Console V8.7 visit: http://www.halcyonsoftware.com/products/enterpriseconsole/index.html
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