IBM Opens Up Management Software

In the 5.1 release of its Director systems management software, IBM has eased up on adding new functionality and will instead establish a partner program and publish a software development kit for ISVs to develop plug-ins that make Director easier to use. Other goals for the upgrade are extended openness and better integration with supported hardware and software systems.

In the simplest terms, IBM Director is the plumbing underneath higher level tools, providing a central management console for servers and workstation workgroups. Director can monitor and the health and track changes made to hardware environments, and automatically take action when preordained events occur.

For instance, Director will deploy a hard disk image when a new blade server is installed.

IBM Global Brand Manager for Software and Services, Rob Sauerwalt, told BetaNews that the three watchwords for the release are: openness, integrated and "ease" (of use). Big Blue's definition of openness as it applies to Director is to adopt industry standards such as SIM, SMP and IPMI.

IBM is also striving to be cross-vendor and cross-platform, supporting servers from Dell, HP and even Sun, as well as the Linux, AIX and Windows operating environments with planned support for Solaris. That being said, the openness concept also ties into integration.

"Most administrators want to work from a common interface. Integration is the key to going forward. All is Nirvana," said Sauerwalt. Director 5.1 will discover and configure the hardware environment, handle storage, networking and more advanced tasks like virtualization all from laying beneath those layers.

These layers pass instructions up and down, to and from Director.

Beyond integration, IBM is eating its own conceptual dog food and is applying its hardware mentality to system management. Through its partner program and SDK, IBM has opened the door for ISVs to write extensions for Director. This provides upward integration modules to customers from a volume of vendors without a lot of "hand holding" from IBM.

ADC has already worked on developing storage software that plugs into Director. The effort to make Director easier to use through plug-ins is called "Project Simple."

Director 5.1 will be released to manufacturing during the third quarter of 2005. In the meantime, an interim release, numbered 4.22, will pick up new storage functions. The SDK and partner program will kick off in the June or July timeframe.