SAS Institute Inc has released the second version of its IT Service Vision data warehouse, designed to enable systems management and evaluation services. ITSV 2 comes a year after version 1, and now supports Windows NT, as well as a host of Unix systems. Cary, North Carolina-based SAS is describing its latest offering as a systems management warehouse, and argues that companies using systems management offerings need to be able to mine and analyze their data in a warehouse environment. SAS has jazzed up the new release and reworked the Graphical User Interface front end so it is more Windows focused. ITSV 2 accesses performance data from computers, networks, phone systems and web servers, then warehouses the information before generating reports. The product enables users to integrate data from both the IT and management side of their business, the intention to provide an overall analysis of exactly what is going on. It has been designed to automate the process of information dissemination throughout an organization, presenting fast, efficient reports on system status to all levels of the organization. SAS has also introduced its IT Charge Manager software, designed to monitor and allocate IT resources to enable users to pinpoint and decide how resources should be distributed. According to SAS UK product marketing manager for ITSV, Mike Moroz, the product is used across a spectrum of businesses, with financial institutions and telecommunications companies up there at the top. Moroz is reluctant to divulge specific prices, on the basis that it depends what system the warehouse is running on. He would only say that in the UK the pricing ranges from between 20,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds.
