Saber Software Corp has decided to dive into the world of local area network management or, at least, local network administration – the company draws a sharp line between the scope of its LAN administration solutions and more conventional network management. While the latter deals with configuring network devices and the like, the new Saber software concentrates on helping network managers control the usage of the network. In this way, the Dallas, Texas-based company is hoping to avoid the accusation of re-inventing the wheel in a market already well stocked with network management environments. The package, which was first shown at the NetWorld show, but which didn’t ship until December, comes in two quite separate parts – the Real Time LAN Administration Architecture Console, LAA Console/RT, acts as standard front-end, into which can be built agents that carry out specific tasks. Four agents come with the introductory offering – meter application usage, produce hardware inventories, schedule jobs and log events. The software is claimed to work equally well on NetWare, LAN Manager or Banyan Vines networks. While these are useful utilities in their own right, Saber’s real hope is that it can persuade other companies to build agents that slot into its console. This is where the architecture part comes in, since Saber has produced a standard set of services and application programming interfaces for third parties to write to. Rather perversely, Saber has decided not to publish these interfaces, being worried, it says, about the problems of having to support large numbers of developers. Instead, it has invited a few specialist companies to write agents – no names yet, but we should find out who they are before the year is too much older. Later, it is possible that the net will be spread wider, but whether Saber has the influence to persuade a large number of developers to use its system remains to be seen but it does seem an attractive tool; UK price for the LAA starter kit is UKP800.
