On November 15, 2011, Lanamark announced Lanamark Suite 2012. The new release provides agent-less, Services-Oriented Analytics for IT solution providers delivering desktop and data center solutions across physical and virtual infrastructure. Here is a summary of new features:
Multipoint Data Access
From a services delivery perspective, it is always more efficient for IT solution providers to analyze collected IT asset data on their premises. Going on-site is more expensive and hosting data elsewhere (e.g. Lanamark or VMware) is not always an option. The key value of this technology is that it enables all data access models:
Asset Intelligence
Have you ever looked at raw data returned by an operating system? It isn't pretty! Duplicate vendor names (e.g. HP and Hewlett-Packard), trademark symbols and device drivers pretending to be applications are just the beginning. There is no context about hardware or software assets and no consistency because vendors report data in their own ways.
With Lanamark Suite, raw data is history. Raw IT asset data is normalized and then enriched with additional business context. For example, each machine is classified as a desktop, a laptop, a server or a virtual machine.A machine with four processors becomes a machine with one processor that is quad-core. A server now has other useful properties such as age, warranty, power consumption, form factor and rack units. Device drivers and services that pretend to be applications are classified as such and can be filtered out. Raw application processes are mapped to application packages so that application usage (not just installations) can be determined.
Segments and Business Groups
For small IT environments, it is appropriate to analyze individual IT assets or look at aggregate metrics across the entire environment. However, this is not an option for larger environments with hundreds of servers and thousands of users. The new version enables IT solution providers to create custom segments and then assign users and machines into business groups within each segment. For example, segments for locations, business units, departments and user classes may be needed. Within departments, it may be necessary to group users by function (e.g. Sales, Marketing, Finance) and for locations, it may be valuable to split users and machines by geography. After users and machines have been split into business groups within each segment, then it's possible to perform analysis and reporting at the segment level. For example, aggregate CPU or memory usage across time with a split by department may be valuable in a high-level analysis .
Dependency Mapping
Analyzing applications, users and machines is valuable but understanding the relationships among them is critical. For example, it may be necessary to only see machines used by users in Finance. How can this be accomplished? First, a departmental segmentation needs to be created with a Finance business group. Users may then be assigned into the Finance group based on information integrated from Active Directory. Finally, user-machine dependencies can be analyzed to see which machines Finance users were actually using during the course of data collection. Dependency mapping helps answers questions such as:
Support for HP-UX, IBM AIX and Oracle Solaris has now been added. Unlike most tools that can either look at desktop or data center assets, Lanamark Suite enables IT solution providers to look at both asset types. Why is this valuable? Installing one tool for analyzing desktops and users, a second tool for looking at servers and a third tool for profiling virtual infrastructure, creates more sales and services overhead. It would be necessary to get approvals from a client to deploy three different tools, allocate time and infrastructure resources to deploy them and then consolidate results from three different interfaces. And this does not include the overhead of providing training and support to team members from three different vendors.
With Lanamark Suite, there is only one data collector for discovering and profiling applications, users, desktops, servers and virtual infrastructure. Data collection is agent-less, so there is no need to waste time going through lengthy security reviews or worry about clients pointing their finger for blanketing their environment with agents. Installation is quick and painless - no complex software deployments, no resource-intensive virtual appliances and definitely no time-consuming distribution of agents to target systems. Once the data is collected, there is one interface, one reporting engine and one place to look at all the data.
Thank You
Many thanks to all customers and partners who pushed the boundaries of innovation at Lanamark and provided ongoing product feedback, reviews and field validation. If you'd like to learn more, visit our corporate website, give us a call or ask for a webinar.
Multipoint Data Access
From a services delivery perspective, it is always more efficient for IT solution providers to analyze collected IT asset data on their premises. Going on-site is more expensive and hosting data elsewhere (e.g. Lanamark or VMware) is not always an option. The key value of this technology is that it enables all data access models:
- Enterprise: if data needs to be analyzed on client premises due to corporate, network or security policies
- Solution Provider: when data can be streamed to a public or private cloud managed by the IT solution provider
- Lanamark: if the solution provider prefers to have Lanamark host the data and downloads it for analysis
Asset Intelligence
Have you ever looked at raw data returned by an operating system? It isn't pretty! Duplicate vendor names (e.g. HP and Hewlett-Packard), trademark symbols and device drivers pretending to be applications are just the beginning. There is no context about hardware or software assets and no consistency because vendors report data in their own ways.
With Lanamark Suite, raw data is history. Raw IT asset data is normalized and then enriched with additional business context. For example, each machine is classified as a desktop, a laptop, a server or a virtual machine.A machine with four processors becomes a machine with one processor that is quad-core. A server now has other useful properties such as age, warranty, power consumption, form factor and rack units. Device drivers and services that pretend to be applications are classified as such and can be filtered out. Raw application processes are mapped to application packages so that application usage (not just installations) can be determined.
Segments and Business Groups
For small IT environments, it is appropriate to analyze individual IT assets or look at aggregate metrics across the entire environment. However, this is not an option for larger environments with hundreds of servers and thousands of users. The new version enables IT solution providers to create custom segments and then assign users and machines into business groups within each segment. For example, segments for locations, business units, departments and user classes may be needed. Within departments, it may be necessary to group users by function (e.g. Sales, Marketing, Finance) and for locations, it may be valuable to split users and machines by geography. After users and machines have been split into business groups within each segment, then it's possible to perform analysis and reporting at the segment level. For example, aggregate CPU or memory usage across time with a split by department may be valuable in a high-level analysis .
Dependency Mapping
Analyzing applications, users and machines is valuable but understanding the relationships among them is critical. For example, it may be necessary to only see machines used by users in Finance. How can this be accomplished? First, a departmental segmentation needs to be created with a Finance business group. Users may then be assigned into the Finance group based on information integrated from Active Directory. Finally, user-machine dependencies can be analyzed to see which machines Finance users were actually using during the course of data collection. Dependency mapping helps answers questions such as:
- Which users are using a particular group of machines
- Which machines have a particular set of applications installed
- Which software applications does a particular group of users have access to
Support for HP-UX, IBM AIX and Oracle Solaris has now been added. Unlike most tools that can either look at desktop or data center assets, Lanamark Suite enables IT solution providers to look at both asset types. Why is this valuable? Installing one tool for analyzing desktops and users, a second tool for looking at servers and a third tool for profiling virtual infrastructure, creates more sales and services overhead. It would be necessary to get approvals from a client to deploy three different tools, allocate time and infrastructure resources to deploy them and then consolidate results from three different interfaces. And this does not include the overhead of providing training and support to team members from three different vendors.
With Lanamark Suite, there is only one data collector for discovering and profiling applications, users, desktops, servers and virtual infrastructure. Data collection is agent-less, so there is no need to waste time going through lengthy security reviews or worry about clients pointing their finger for blanketing their environment with agents. Installation is quick and painless - no complex software deployments, no resource-intensive virtual appliances and definitely no time-consuming distribution of agents to target systems. Once the data is collected, there is one interface, one reporting engine and one place to look at all the data.
Thank You
Many thanks to all customers and partners who pushed the boundaries of innovation at Lanamark and provided ongoing product feedback, reviews and field validation. If you'd like to learn more, visit our corporate website, give us a call or ask for a webinar.
