The Bloor Perspective: Itanium 2, managing LANs and the Info Pro

There are some words that periodically turn up in news articles and vendor marketing material. This is likely to be one of those occasions as last week saw vendor Intel introduce the latest products in its Itanium 2 family of 64 bit processors.

Intel has announced two new Itanium 2 processors optimised for dual processor (DP) systems. The first offers 1.4 GHz performance with 1.5 MB L3 cache and has been optimised for dual processing technical computing systems and high performance clusters. It is expected that these processors will be priced just under the $1,200 mark making it likely that server nodes will hit the streets at less than $7,000.

The second offering is a low voltage 1.0 GHz processor, again with 1.5 Mb L3 cache. This processor is again DP capable and boasts only 62W maximum power consumption, approximately half that of previous Itanium 2 systems, while delivering comparable performance. This processor is targeting high density (blade and rack) deployments, perhaps looking to host entry-level systems at the edge of networks. This processor should sell for less than $750.

It is interesting to note that in the launch material Intel explicitly mentions the potential use of servers built using both of these processors tackling, head on, jobs that have traditionally been undertaken on RISC computers. Intel has the Front-End very much in mind.

The 1.4 GHz processor is claimed to offer better $/Flops than RISC alternatives available in the technical computing space. The low power processor is looking to take Itanium 2 systems into the lower cost arena to offer an alternative to RISC servers that have hitherto occupied niches on the edge of the network.

All of the leading server suppliers, including Dell, HP, IBM and NEC, are certain to announce new offerings based on these new DP systems. Equally, the leading providers of both infrastructure software and application tools will be looking to exploit the extending Itanium 2 environments.

Intel and its partners will continue to ramp up Itanium 2. Indeed it is worthwhile noting that while technical deployments of this technology usually grab the headlines, the commercial use of Itanium is growing steadily.

Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Sun and the other suppliers now need to work on translating their technical differentiators into simple to understand business messages.

*LAN management and security*

There is a massive overlap when managing distributed desktops within the LAN. This has come about because of a changing emphasis within this environment from pure cost-saving towards the provision of identity-based security. Is managing desktops actually about enhancing performance and availability or just about controlling the facilities that are available to the users?

Back in the old days, when Microsoft first brought out LAN Manager and then SMS, the advantage with LAN management products was in reducing downtime and expenses. Everything was built around the concept that allowed the IT helpdesk to connect to remote desktops and fix problems without having to travel.

Products like LANDesk, Microsoft SMS and ZENworks added all sorts of clever features to enable inventory management and software distribution. LAN management was looking a lot like its enterprise equivalents. It was Intel that drove the 'Wired for Management' (WfM) initiatives. This put event monitoring capabilities onto motherboards and added interfaces between desktop hardware and management software. WfM led to a spate of OEM-created management solutions, such as IBM's Netfinity management tools.

However, it was Novell that started the identity-based management approach. At the heart of all that it does is Novell's directory technology. This allows just about anything to have its own identity and individual profile. All of the information relating to a single component is held in one logical record, which makes it very easy to manage. All that is required is for the relationships between resources to be defined and a strong management picture results.

Using this approach has the great advantage of locking down exactly who has access to which applications. Which desktops are capable of executing particular business processes? Secure operation almost falls out of the architecture as a by-product of the management solutions. This lockdown capability was a feature that Microsoft had been working on within the Windows authorisation processing but the advent of its own directory technology changed all that.

The beta release for Microsoft SMS 2003 has been in test for a while and it builds on the Active Directory foundation that is to be found everywhere within the Microsoft infrastructure. This centralised point of management provides strong inventory management, software license metering and much improved staged software distribution. This will all form a part of the Microsoft System Center, which will act as a unified interface for combining SMS 2003, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM 2004) and future products from the Enterprise Management Division.

All of the big LAN management names, including LANDesk, are working on directory-driven management solutions. The big bonus they are getting is that they have a powerful security message to sell.

However, this is no one-way street. As an alternative we see that there are security products that are looking at the possibility of entering the LAN management market. Cybersight, for example, is very good at noticing change within a LAN configuration. Its architecture lends itself to most management capabilities and, already, these are being introduced. Network Associates has all sorts of management capabilities hidden away in its portfolio.

While traditional LAN management tools have not strayed into the detection of unauthorised changes - viruses, trojans and so on. - the opposite is not true. Could the security solutions force their way into a competitive landscape with LANDesk, Microsoft and Novell? We'd like to think that they could.

*Go Info Pro*

Recent research anonymously sponsored by LexisNexis among information professionals has revealed that their role has changed from providers to consultants on information strategy.

The majority stated that their role had shifted from information gatherer to information consultant. They perceived themselves more as trainers of internal clients. Their roles had expanded to design and evaluation of information systems. They were more involved in complex, far reaching research projects. A substantial majority included in their role greater responsibility for managing intellectual property, proprietary information and research.

Information professionals have to gain an understanding of technologies and tools, including reviews of technologies and the services they deliver. They have to demonstrate an understanding of the businesses, for which they work and deliver information and knowledge. However, they perceive their analysis and interpretation skills are under-utilised.

Is this the coming of age of the information professional? Certainly such steps improve or at least assist in the improvement of the quality, value and efficiency of information, which is seen as a significant business asset. It comes at a time when economic pressures mean that information professionals have to justify their role and the value they deliver to the business.

Perhaps, it is another sign that information overload has to be sorted out by someone within the organisation as the end users are clearly unable to cope. Is this not masking the consequences of enterprises and their users having access to vast ranges of information as well as an equal range of access sources?

Maybe this a partial solution to the increasing inability to recognise and determine what information is required fundamentally: how to most effectively isolate, evaluate and use the information available.

Good luck to the information professionals. Given the paucity of their resources, they have a formidable challenge to bring order and rationalisation to the deluge of information flooding enterprises.

Bloor Research is a leading independent analyst organisation in Europe. You can find out more at www.bloor-research.com or by emailing mail@bloor-research.com.