Boole & Babbage Inc, the San Jose-based mainframe systems management company, said this week it has integrated Microsoft’s COM (Common Object Model) technology with its SpaceView storage management application. The integration will enable SpaceView – traditionally a mainframe systems management product only – to extend its management reach so that users can manage storage resources across the whole enterprise from one central console. Jim Black , senior VP, marketing said storage devices used to have to connect directly to the device whose data it was storing. But nowadays, he said, manufacturers like EMC Corp have introduced storage servers – located anywhere on the network – that can attach to a mainframe or a distributed server system or both. SpaceView works by monitoring those storage devices; checking what storage space is available, allocating that space between departments, archiving data to cheaper forms of storage when it gets too old, and so on. The aim, said Black, is to organize and manage data in such a way that it can be accessed by users within subseconds. To that end, Black said Boole & Babbage built a DCOM component that allows SpaceView, running on Windows NT, to communicate with S/390-based mainframes using either APPC or TCP/IP. SpaceView, in turn, uses DCOM to bring heterogeneous platform information into the Windows NT environment, providing a single point of control from SpaceView Explorer without any other third-party product. Black said that Boole and Babbage had chosen to go with COM not because it was particularly in love with the technology, as such, just that it speeded up our development to no end. He said it gave the company a nice stand for having the client (the management console with the SpaceView software) in one place and the servers (storage devices) in another. COM provides the interconnect between those two and allows them to co-operate without worrying about which platform each one is on, he said. It could be a worldwide network, with offices in New York and Japan, but all you need is one management console to run the entire company’s space resources, Black said, It used to be that whoever was managing the space resources had to be right next to wherever the space was. Black added that a number of clients will implement the software on the internet, which means you could even do it from your car if you had the right level of security.
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