Product previews

webMethodsSews New Fabric
webMethods last week unzipped version 6.5 of its Fabric integration suite. New to Fabric are functions that advance the company’s BAM (business activity monitoring), BPM, and SOA wares. The new version includes rapid assembly of applications and processes, and an “analyst mode” that enables users to design business processes. Predictive monitoring improvements enable exceptions to be anticipated by comparing current activity to historical patterns. The new interface, My webMethods, presents metrics according to user role, which the company claims will boost productivity by making it easier for users to find information. webMethods also enhanced its Web services management, broker capabilities, and predictive quality of service monitoring to improve the SOA framework and help customers take advantage of Web services on a large scale.
Fabric 6.5, webMethods

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BMC Patrols Windows Servers with New Version
BMC Software on Monday plans to announce its BMC Software Advantage for Microsoft Windows Servers. The package includes the latest revision of Patrol for Microsoft Windows Servers 3.1, which adds automated monitoring and management to help IT achieve better system performance and availability. BMC also added a wizard UI for selecting services to monitor, and included Patrol Configuration for Active Directory Domain Controllers, file and print servers, and DNS servers.
Patrol for Microsoft Windows Servers 3.1, BMC

McAfee Desktop Firewall Version 8.5 Ready for Action
McAfee last week announced Version 8.5 of McAfee Desktop Firewall, which includes multilayered protection through inbound and outbound traffic monitoring, policy enforcement and reporting, select intrusion-prevention capabilities, and application monitoring. The new version allows administrators to control access for travelers or remote users through policies which apply a predefined rule set based on connection criteria. Pricing for the firewall begins at $21.25 per node.
McAfee Desktop Firewall 8.5, McAfee

Softricity Extends Provisioning
Softricity last week introduced application-provisioning software designed to allow desktops access to Windows applications, either locally or remotely, through an on-demand model. Called ZeroTouch, the software can be used to delegate policy-based provisioning and contains a workflow capability to control the authorization chain-of-command for allocation applications. Softricity expects ZeroTouch to be generally available by the end of the second quarter. Pricing will be made known at that time.
ZeroTouch, Softricity