ACADEMIA

To help companies reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with information technology (IT) and business systems management, Oracle today announced enhanced integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control (Oracle Grid Control) and Oracle Applications Manager. The management solution will help Oracle E-Business Suite customers automate administrative tasks, aggregate performance information, and perform policy-based administration and executive distributed tasks across Oracle infrastructure components. The new integration capabilities are scheduled to be available with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10. For companies to have a truly comprehensive view of their enterprise operations and be able to manage and automatically respond to events, they require systems management capabilities that monitor traditional IT operations, as well as business process, service and workflow health in one location. By integrating the proven IT management and monitoring capabilities of Oracle Grid Control with Oracle Applications Manager's administration capabilities for diagnosing and repairing business applications, companies will be able to direct all system operations through a single, integrated Web portal. "Gartner Research estimates that as much as 70 percent of IT budgets go towards infrastructure and operations costs, and this number will likely grow as information volumes increase, business processes become more complex and enterprises continue to rely heavily on enterprise applications to run their businesses," said Ray Paquet, research analyst, Gartner Research. "Companies need comprehensive management tools that provide monitoring, automation and administration capabilities for the entire technology and applications stack -- enabling companies to not only minimize IT infrastructure complexity and cost, but also ensure the health of everyday business processes." Enterprise Automation: Becoming An Agile Business With Oracle Applications Manager embedded within the Oracle E-Business Suite, companies using Oracle Grid Control will be able to use one console to manage multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems and the underlying application servers and database servers supporting those systems to automatically drill down into critical monitoring and administration business management features. Together, Oracle Grid Control and Oracle Applications Manager are designed to help reduce total cost of ownership and increase operating efficiency by minimizing system downtime and streamlining system maintenance and support. Proactive patch notifications and detailed patch analysis can help companies plan for maintenance activities before problems occur. In addition, diagnostic tools help minimize unplanned outages by identifying potential problems, automating problem resolution and facilitating communication with Oracle Support. Oracle Applications Manager provides diagnostics and troubleshooting, configuration management and other systems management features within the Oracle E-Business Suite. It also allows companies to map systems components to business flows and track the performance and availability of those components. Oracle Grid Control enables administrators to manage complex IT systems running a combination of Oracle and non-Oracle technologies. With a broad set of capabilities, the management software is designed to reduce the cost and complexity of managing business applications across grid computing environments. "Oracle is dedicated to helping its customers manage their enterprises more efficiently and cost effectively -- across both IT operations and business processes," said Cliff Godwin, senior vice president, Applications Technology, Oracle Corp. "By seamlessly integrating Oracle Grid Control with Oracle Applications Manager we are helping companies become more agile by enabling improved operating efficiency and helping ensure business processes and flows are operating at optimal levels." The enhanced integration capabilities will be available with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10, scheduled for availability within 60 days.