First, we’re not here today to bash your enterprise network and system management suites. IBM/Tivoli Integrated Service Management, BMC Business Service Management, CA IT Management, HP Business Technology Optimization and others are all powerful tools for managing complex, distributed networks. But what they all have in common is that they rely on the very network they are managing to manage the network.

Think about it. SNMP polling travels back and forth over the network to feed information into these centralized management systems. Until recently, this weakness has just been accepted as the way things work. Troubles with the network often result in “blind” situations that can only be solved by a human logging into devices to determine the problem. This is expensive and time consuming. But that’s just the way things work. Or is it?

Uplogix is addressing this status quo of the network world with a management platform located with — and directly connected to — managed devices, complementing traditional centralized management tools. When you look at all of the things that comprise the domain of Enterprise Systems and Network Management, you come to see that many of the functions must be done or are better done centrally, while at the same time many functions must be done or are better done locally. You can break these local functions out like this:

Configuration Management

• Configuration change tracking | At the device level, with current and previous configs and OS files saved locally for easy restoration
• Network configuration changes | Broad, sweeping changes to the network are implemented at the device level
• Network & Server recovery | Bad configs happen. It’s a fact of life, but when they are made through a local management platform, it’s possible to recover – automatically

Security & Compliance

• Access & Activity Logging | Know who has done what, when and with what impact on a device
• Secure Remote Access | Granular authorization to devices, with the ability to act as a secure gateway, both in- and out-of-band

Performance & Availability

• Real-time device monitoring | When monitoring is made a local activity, rather than a centralized task, it’s possible to not only collect data more frequently, but also at a more detailed level. Combined with local intelligence, it’s possible to go beyond merely monitoring to take actions

Over the next couple of months, we’ll go into more details on each of these features and show how localized management addresses that elephant in the room to reduce network costs and complement your NSM investment.