Download Visionael tracks assets for network vulnerability

Network Solutions
End-to-end offerings aiming to bolster your network’s performance
24 Network World Canada November 25, 2005 www.ITworldcanada.com
Visionael tracks assets
for network vulnerability
BY MARK ELS
Managing the distributed complexities of
an ever-changing enterprise network carries inherent risks, both personally to the
CIO or network administrator, as well as
to the new technology being implemented
should that critical first installation fail.
The implementation of voice over IP
(VoIP), for example, might fail because
the network manager doesn’t know what’s
on the network and which devices are unlikely to support the application. When he
rolls out a new application, he needs to understand what the network looks like.
“Network asset and configuration management is a high priority with projects
such as application management, security, data centre consolidation and VoIP,”
said Vincent Lui, senior analyst, network
management at IDC.
Key drivers for enterprise spending in
this area, says Lui, are business processes, automation and regulatory compliance. Businesses want immediate return
on investment and simple deployment,
without having to alter their existing infrastructures. “The automation, discovery and management of network assets can
minimize mean time to failure and repair,
as well as bring visibility to inventory almost
instantly,” he said.
One vendor that is re-entering the Canadian market is Visionael Corp. of Palo
Alto, Calif. Christopher Thompson, vicepresident of product management and
marketing, says network spending is on the
upswing in Canada and some features in
BI tool can hurry hospital data
ly available to Ontario hospitals. HRRC
develops methods and reports on hospiOntario hospitals have access to a new tal performance in Ontario using the balsoftware tool that could help them slash anced scorecard format. The software enathe time it takes to trend performance in- bles hospital staff to calculate financial and
dicators from eight months to minutes.
clinical performance indicators.
Traditional methods used by hospitals
The software was developed by the
Hospital Report Research Collaborative to obtain performance data have been time
(HRRC) at the University of Toronto’s consuming, Brown says. The new tool was
Department of the Health Policy, Man- developed to more efficiently report on
agement and Evaluation. The perform- the performance of Ontario hospitals to
ance and quality improvement reporting the Ontario Ministry of Health and Longtool is based on technology from business Term Care (MoH).
“Traditionally, hospitals create large
intelligence (BI) product vendor SAS Infiles of either financial data or clinical
stitute in Cary, N.C.
data, (including) a variety of
“Performance indicator information is general ledger and transactiona year or a year-and-a-half old. That’s al summaries,” said Brown. On
a quarterly or an annual basis,
kind of hard to run a business on.”
hospitals then send the data out
Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, principal investigator, HRRC
to firms that collect such inforDr. Adalsteinn Brown, principal in- mation, including provincial agencies.
vestigator for HRRC, says the Wizard for
This data is then “cleaned” and procHospital Report Indicator tool is currentSee BI, page 25
Briefs...
BY RYAN B.PATRICK
Visionael’s Network Resource
Manager (NRM) 7.3 software
upgrade were designed for a
Canadian customer.
Thompson has noticed
changes in the way networks
are being used to drive businesses to compete, as well as changes in the en- and documents the topology in a visual modterprise market, primarily driven by VoIP, el. “Companies can then understand how
storage area networks (SANs) and 10GigE their networks operate and how devices are
(10Gbps Ethernet). Network transforma- connected. And that becomes a foundation
tion, says Thompson, is being driven by the for change management,” said Thompson.
replacement of infrastructure that is now “Once we’ve established what a network
seven to eight years old. “The
looks like, we can put in place
cost to enterprise businesses to “Infrastructure
a multi-step plan to get to our
support their legacy networks upgrades
eventual end-result.”
is very high,” he said. “On top
Thompson says many users
for VoIP and
import their CAD diagrams
of that, you’ve got companies
into Visionael and overlay the
talking about voice over IP and wireless LAN
infrastructure on top of it, so
10GigE. Those types of technol- adoption are
ogies cause companies to have to on the uptake.” they can see the floor of their
building and locate the devices
re-architect their networks.”
Vincent Lui,
on the network. “That way, if
“The adoption of network senior analyst, IDC
there’s a vulnerability or servasset management products is
being triggered by network issues encoun- ice issue on the network, a quick report
tered after an IP-based implementation can identify visually exactly where the afsuch as site-to-site VoIP,” said Darin Stahl, fected device is located.”
research lead at Info-Tech Research Group
The product incorporates a number of
different components. The discovery tool
in London, Ont.
IDC’s Lui said the most activity by places a probe on the network. The probe
medium to large enterprises adopting IP- uses simple network management protobased environments was in upgrading and col (SNTP), along with a number of othconsolidating data centre infrastructure er discovery tactics, to scan the network.
from remote offices. “VoIP infrastructure Once the device is identified, it’s ready for
upgrades and wireless LAN adoption are the J-walk, which is a query of the device
also high on the uptake,” said Lui. “And to see how it’s configured.
virtual private LAN services are being imThe information taken from this netplemented by enterprises with multiple work audit is fed into the core product,
branch offices or regional headquarters.”
NRM, which houses a database of devices
As large enterprises, government or- encountered in the network, as well as how
ganizations and telecommunication serv- these devices are configured and connected.
ice providers increasingly move towards an A user can then use NRM’s Visionael StuIP-based environment, the risks created by dio tool to review a current network design
network change can be reduced by identi- or plan changes to that design.
fying the devices that live on the network
The ability to demonstrate that a company’s infrastructure can support its busiand documenting the system’s design.
The Visionael NRM software automati- ness processes is a core requirement for
cally discovers what the network looks like Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
058842
IBM taps VMware, Citrix for blade PCs
NetPro adds group policy management
Aruba tightens remote security
IBM has announced partnerships with Citrix and
EMC’s VMware subsidiary to provide customers with
the means to manage desktop PCs from a secure,
centralized location. With its Virtualized Hosted
Client Infrastructure, IBM joins ClearCube and HP in
the market that goes beyond traditional thin-client
computing by moving the core of a PC to blade
servers hosted in a data centre or computer room,
providing what proponents say is better PC security
and easier manageability. IBM executives say the
company’s new hosted-PC offering will link to any
client device over Ethernet using standard protocols.
NetPro recently bolstered its security and compliance
suite for Microsoft’s Active Directory with software
that lets users delegate who can set and change
policies used to manage desktops and servers.
NetPro’s ChangeManager is a workflow-based
change management system for the group policy
objects (GPO) of Active Directory and is designed to
let companies build workflow and approval processes
around management of GPOs. The use of group
policy is catching on because users are starting to
get the infrastructure pieces in place, including Win
2000 or XP Professional on the desktop.
Aruba last month rolled out wireless hardware and
software that aims to improve mobility and security
for remote workers. The AP-41 creates a connection
between a remote location and the company network
and VoIP services. The pocket-sized AP-65 fashions
a secure wireless hot spot. Once the access points
are plugged into an Internet connection, they create a
secure IPSec tunnel to an Aruba controller in the data
centre. Aruba also has updated its mobility software
to include secure VPN connections. The feature lets
remote and branch-office users be continuously
connected to headquarters via secure VPN tunnels.