Infrastructure Management Software Blog : EMA

Enabling Enterprise BlackBerry Management

pspielvogel — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:46:00 GMT

We have conducted several webinars with analyst firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). I am very excited that Steve Brasen, Principal Analyst, has agreed to provide a “guest post” to our blog about “Enabling Enterprise BlackBerry Management”.
- Peter Spielvogel

So, what’s the big deal about managing mobile devices at the enterprise level? Isn’t it the same as managing desktop systems? Well, yes and no – but mostly no. At a high level, desktops, laptops and mobile devices all have similar requirements for support services in areas including provisioning and security along with incident, asset and configuration management. But the management practices necessary to meet these requirements are very different for mobile devices. Due to the portable nature of mobile devices, their smaller size provides less computing power than desktop systems and their unique user interfaces require specialized drivers and applications. Additionally, since mobile devices perform their functions remotely, there are additional management concerns around connectivity and security.

Certainly all these challenges are applicable to any mobile device type, but the recent and significant increase in the business adoption of BlackBerry devices has focused attention on providing solutions for centralized, enterprise-wide mobile management for that particular platform. Research in Motion (RIM) has already stepped up to the plate by offering its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) solution. BES enables centralized remote management of BlackBerry devices and acts as a secure conduit for accessing messaging services, such as email and file sharing applications. In EMA’s recently published Impact Brief, “HP and RIM Join Forces to Enable Holistic Enterprise BlackBerry Management,” it is revealed how back-end systems, such as mail servers and databases, also need to be administered from a single common management platform.

We are only beginning to see how mobile technologies will transform the way businesses operate in the near future, but clearly the foundations of managing a mobile workforce are being laid today and are building on established best practices and vetted technologies to simplify and enhance enterprise wide administration.

Steve Brasen
Principal Analyst
Enterprise Management Associates

BlackBerry Management Webinar (Empowering a Mobile Workforce)

pspielvogel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:52:00 GMT

We have written about the challenges of managing Black Berry Enterprise Server environments, mostly because of all the disparate elements that must work together properly to ensure that people receive their email. For a user to successfully send or receive a message, the following applications must interact smoothly: BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory, and Microsoft SQL Server.

You can imagine the challenge of troubleshooting performance problems if you do not have a single console from which to manage faults and performance data. When the CEO is calling about his or her email, I would certainly want an easy way to determine when the service will be back online.

If you manage BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, you will certainly want to attend this.

One lucky attendee will win a BlackBerry (actual device will depend on your coverage area)!

Title: Empowering a Mobile Workforce: A Holistic Approach to Managing your BlackBerry Ecosystem
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Time: 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern / Check Your Time Zone
Additional Speakers:
- Pierluigi Buonicore, Product Manager, Research in Motion (RIM)
- Jonathan Evans, Product Marketing, Research in Motion (RIM)
- Jon Haworth,Product Marketing Manager, HP

Behind every executive’s BlackBerry is a complex IT infrastructure for delivering messages and mission-critical mobile applications. So, when performance or availability issues occur, the Operations Team has no time to waste in identifying the cause of the problem and fixing it. Using a single event monitoring console improves visibility across the BlackBerry ecosystem and streamlines communications among your subject matter expert teams - enabling faster problem resolution and less downtime.

In this one-hour webinar EMA VP Dennis Drogseth, Research in Motion (RIM) Product Manager Pierluigi Buonicore, Jonathan Evans from RIM Product Marketing, and HP Product Marketing Manager Jon Haworth will explore solutions that will enable a holistic support environment for managing BlackBerry resources across the enterprise. Topics of discussion will include how to:

Identify the most common challenges to enterprise BlackBerry management
Utilize best practices, such as ITIL, to increase the supportability of mobile devices
Enable prompt problem identification and improved time to resolution
Evaluate new solutions that will enable a common interface for managing enterprise BlackBerry support services

This is a can’t-miss event for any organization supporting BlackBerry devices or looking to empower their mobile workforce.
Register now (and have a chance to win a BlackBerry).

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn.

Free Webinar: 5 Tips to Reduce Incident Resolution Costs

pspielvogel — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:22:00 GMT

On Tuesday July 28, I will be participating in an EMA webinar with researcher and Vice President Dennis Drogseth. The official title “What is New in the Not-so-New Area of Event Management: Five Tips to Reduce Incident Resolution Costs” is very telling. Many people believe that there is nothing new in managing IT infrastructure. The reality is that some of HP’s biggest R&D investments have been in this area.

Displaying disparate events may not be rocket science, but correlating events from different IT domains to determine which is the cause and which are the symptoms certainly is. This is exactly the premise of OMi, which uses topology-based event correlation (TBEC) to consolidate event storms into actionable information.

Here’s the webinar abstract:

Event management may not be the next new thing but it is quietly making dramatic advances that can save your company both time and money. These new approaches rely on understanding up-to-date service dependencies to accelerate problem resolution.

During the 45 minute webinar, we will answer the following questions.

Why should you reconsider your event and performance management strategy?
What is the impact of ITIL v3 and the concept of an operations bridge on your people, processes, and tools?
What innovations can help you more cost-effectively manage events?

We will also leave time at the end to address your questions.

For Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Consolidated Event Management Podcast

pspielvogel — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:26:00 GMT

My colleague and consolidated event management guru Jon Haworth has recorded a podcast with Dennis Drogseth of EMA about the benefits of consolidated IT event management. During this 15 minute podcast, Dennis and Jon discuss:

Benefits of an integrated approach to IT Operations
Key groups, titles, organizations, roles, initiatives, etc. needed to drive an integrated approach to managing Operations
The key underlying technologies
Where event consolidation fits

Listen to the Consolidated Event Management podcast (registration required)

At Software Universe, many of my conversations with customers focused on how then can use Operations Manager to consolidate events from across their organization.

For Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel