It's no surprise that the differences between products do not necessarily follow these sizzling handles, but are defined in the depth, breadth and integration of each product. In the centralized world of mainframes this discipline and the tools to perform it have been carefully honed over years of supporting critical business applications. With the movement of critical processes out onto the distributed world of PCs, workstations and servers, the centralized systems management disciplines are being retooled to control this decentralized, traditionally unmanaged computing resource. Add to this the fun of the waiting game as promised new releases, products and architectures are raced to market over the next 12 to 18 months. Building a systems management strategy is an individual, complex balance between what you have, what your needs are, how much you are willing to pay-and your pain threshold.
Many products herald the systems management banner.
Some are so complex they are complete categories unto themselves, such as database, helpdesk, network or storage. Others are so specific as to apply only to point solutions. In the case of the former, we will leave the feature analysis to a separate discussion that will do justice to the complexity of the category. In the case of the latter, we suggest that whatever the specific function needed that the reader look for integration with the larger systems management suites as an important purchase requirement. Just subscribe to our IT Pro Downloads Newsletter, and we'll send you a free, weekly collection of the hottest IT shareware, freeware, and demoware.