Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software

IBM Tivoli® Provisioning Manager for Software helps organizations automate the deployment of software to servers, desktops and laptops distributed across different environments and locations—quickly, easily and cost-effectively.

Developed as the natural successor to IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager, Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software provides a new level of release management capabilities, including built-in discovery, inventory, software distribution, patch automation and support for compliance and remediation.

New grid-based architecture and adaptive bandwidth technology help streamline and enhance the entire software deployment process. In fact, IT administrators can manage more resources more effectively with far fewer people, allowing key skilled people to focus on activities that can grow the business, not just maintain it.

In addition, Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software can support either IBM Tivoli Management Framework for existing Tivoli Configuration Manager V4.2.3 implementations or a new SOA environment designed to be more flexible yet easier and less costly to manage.

The result is a powerful, enterprise-wide deployment solution that enables IT professionals to manage the complete software life cycle of a PC or server while helping to lower costs, increase efficiency and improve deployment success rates.

Build on Tivoli Configuration Manager—cost-effectively

Available without charge for entitled Tivoli Configuration Manager customers, Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software fully supports existing Tivoli Configuration Manager V4.2.3 infrastructures built on Tivoli Management Framework. This allows Tivoli Configuration Manager customers to leverage their current investments and gradually upgrade at their own pace.

At the same time, any customer can take full advantage of Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software enhancements, including:

Leverage the full power of Tivoli solutions

Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software is part of the IBM Tivoli provisioning and orchestration family of products. This family is built on common technology, allowing easy integration with other Tivoli products according to the specific technology and business goals of an organization. Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software is fully integrated with the following products:

IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager—for organizations that are ready for a full-scope solution to automate all the steps necessary to configure, deploy and provision servers, operating systems, networks and storage.

IBM Tivoli Release Process Manager—incorporates best practices, such as the IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL® ), helping organizations to plan, schedule and deploy releases efficiently and effectively. Out-of-the-box features include centralized reporting, detailed workflows and easy-to-use templates.

IBM Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB)—an enterprise-ready change and configuration management database and platform to standardize and share information related to release management.

IBM Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator—automatically triggers provisioning, configuration and deployment of a solution into production. The software utilizes existing hardware, software and network devices without rewiring and supports servers, operating systems, storage, middleware, applications and network devices.

Web Replay - a Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator, Tivoli Provisioning Manager, and Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software feature – helps automate highly repetitive, mundane, and error-prone manual tasks, in an effort to free up resources for more high value business projects.

Web Replay works by enabling experts to capture their knowledge and make it available to others. With Web Replay a user can “record” the mouse clicks and actions going through any complex task. Afterwards, any user with the appropriate access can run the task. Operations that may require a whole series of clicks can be condensed down to a single push of a button.

Platform specific requirements for IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Software v 5.1.:

xSeries, 32 bit Intel based servers:

If RHAS 3.0 or RHEL 3.0 is used, the library compat-libstdc++ is required:

pSeries:

If RHAS 3.0 or RHEL 3.0 is used, the library compat-libstdc++ is required:

Recommendation for 1-2 node cluster

RSCT requires that at least one other adapter in the network exists, so that packets can be exchanged between the local and remote adapter. Without such an adapter, a local adapter would be unable to receive any packets. Therefore, there would be no way to confirm that the local adapter is working. Therefore we recommend to add machine names to file /usr/sbin/cluster/netmon.cf on each cluster node. These machines should be routers or any machines that are external to the configuration, but are reachable from one of the networks being monitored by the subsystem. Any entry in this file is used as a target for a probing packet when RSCT is attempting to determine the health of a local adapter. The format of the file is as follows:

machine name or IP address 1
machine name or IP address 2

Where the IP addresses are in dotted decimal format. If the file does not exist, it should be created. To remove this recovery action, remove the entries added to the file, delete the file, or rename the file.

Page last updated on December 19, 2007.