Tivoli takes holistic view of the enterprise

AS IBM CONTINUES to drive its software initiatives around e-business, the tasks associated with managing business process integration are getting more complex. The point man for rising to this challenge within IBM is Robert LeBlanc, general manager for IBM's Tivoli Software. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard and Test Center Director Steve Gillmor, LeBlanc talks about how systems management is evolving into business process management and why this requires a holistic view of the entire enterprise.

InfoWorld: What's your biggest challenge going forward with Tivoli?

LeBlanc: In the last 24 months there have been huge changes in the systems management market that [have] affected all three key players -- Tivoli, BMC, and CA. We've been spending some time refocusing the Tivoli business around four key areas that we feel really encompass what systems management is today and what we believe systems management will turn into in the future, which is really business impact management. It goes beyond just managing systems and managing availability. It really tends to look now as holistic view of applications and seeing how all of this is fitting together in terms of the service levels for a critical business process. We think systems management will move from the realm of being IT-centric to being more business-centric.

InfoWorld: How does IBM approach this space?

LeBlanc: We see the four key areas of systems management, with two areas being more traditional systems management. Configuration is really job scheduling, software distribution, [and] inventory management. The second area is performance and availability, which really is the area of monitoring and trying to understand what is going on in my environment. We see that area moving upscale, in which people are starting now to connect multiple back-end monitoring systems to get a holistic view in order to give customers the ability to be more proactive in their management, rather than reactive. If you look at systems management up to this point in time, it's been very reactive. We think that over time systems management will be more proactive, in which you gather up information and understand business patterns. That's why we call it business impact management.