LANDesk Software Inc. is enhancing its server management software to address the issues of system availability and security.

The Salt Lake City, Utah, company on Tuesday rolled out Server Manager 8.5, which includes greater monitoring and remote management, as well as an improved dashboard designed for easier use.

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LANDesk officials said that in talking with customers last year, the key concerns were ensuring little or no downtime to the servers and keeping the data in them safe.

"In 2004, we spent a lot of time in developing a unique server management offering to take to the market," said Steve Workman, director of product management for LANDesk. "What we've focused on is server configuration and security. It's got to be up and running, and it's got to be secure."

New features include on-demand management agents that lie dormant until they're needed. The agents offer a variety of management tasks, such as stopping and starting services and gathering data, and don't take resources when they're not needed.

In addition, Server Manager 8.5 also offers support for IPMI [Intelligent Platform Management Interface] 2.0, which enables users to remotely bring up out-of-band servers and to gather data about those servers, including temperature, chassis status and intrusion detection.

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Real-time monitoring of such information as fan speed, temperature and voltage of the systems, as well as the applications and operating systems, give users a clear and up-to-date view of their servers, and on-demand system vulnerability assessment enables customers to address potential problems. Patch management capabilities also are offered.

The enhanced dashboard can be displayed anywhere on the screen and can be used to manage an enterprise's desktop environment at the same time, Workman said.

Available immediately, Server Manager 8.5 starts at $299 per server. It supports Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, as well as Linux and Unix, he said. It can be used by itself, or as a complementary product to management platforms from the top system OEMs.

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