Arkhon Technologies Inc, an 18-month-old Cerritos, California-based start-up, is working on a super-systems management architecture that, it says, will knit together the disparate, if not chaotic, pieces of systems management technology that are currently available. It aims to address the problems of enterprise-wide distributed network, systems and applications control and management with a three-tiered approach that includes the server, the client and the middleware. Currently, the user faces a tangle of conflicting standards, incompatible hardware architectures and operating systems, multiple network devices, sub-networks subordinate to differing management philosophies and the task interoperating among protocols. Hoping to smooth out the inconsistencies, Arkhon plans to start by introducing products in the first half of next year that will initially support Sun Microsystems Inc servers as well as the full gamut of clients: Macs, MS-DOS, OS/2, X stations and Windows NT in a TCP/IP network.
Broaden server line
The company intends to broaden its server base with time. Product packaging and pricing remains to be decided, according to company president and chief executive Stan Tomsic, former vice-president of sales at MVS Software Inc. Most likely it will offer a base product coupled with optional add-ons, he said, stressing it will be affordable. Arkhon is promising its technology will supply full data integration under a single Motif-based user interface offering a consistent look-and-feel. Its development system is Visix Software Inc’s Galaxy. Arkhon says its system will provide remote systems and remote applications administration as well as network administration from a single console. It is integrating a Simple Network Management Protocol manager with a protocol analyser, an artificial intelligence engine, the Object Management Group’s Object Request Broker, a trouble-ticketing system, a network design and modelling tool and a data repository. The Arkhon approach, it says, accommodates legacy systems, while incorporating emerging technologies. The company has tied up with 11 vendor partners for pieces it needs including CACI Products Company for modelling, Inference Corp for the artificial intelligence engine, Network Managers Ltd for SNMP management software, Oracle Corp for the database and RSA Data Security Inc for encryption. Arkhon says it is now starting to work with a task force of client partners that will help prioritise the system’s capabilities, edit the interface and test new releases, but it is still looking for client partners for the effort. Arkhon, which estimates it could be doing $5m a year in three years, currently has eight employees and is privately funded with $2m in seed capital. No venture capital money is involved, and the firm is hopeful that its products will generate whatever further funding is necessary.
