DoradoWorks.com - Dorado Software

Imperial Online Optimizes Their Next Generation Data Center

2009-09-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

- Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced the successful deployment of its Redcell product suite at Imperial Online, one of South Africa's largest service providers, providing comprehensive Internet, Hosting and Managed Services. The implementation was achieved through a strategic partnership with Solution Blox, the Dorado Software-Certified Solution Provider for Africa (EMEA region).

Imperial Online was experiencing the same rapid growth common among today's next-generation service providers - even more fierce in the emerging African market. In order to maintain the expected high level of service to their customers, it was determined that the existing disparate infrastructure management platforms would require significant consolidation and feature enhancement. Dorado Software's RedcellTM Suite was chosen as a result of a focused selection and cost analysis process comparing the best-of-breed management software solutions. Driving factors in the selection of Redcell was its modular offering - individual products can be purchased separately - yet the combination of server and network monitoring is contained in a single platform. In addition, the cost of the Redcell solution was a fraction of most typical service provider management solutions.

"Redcell has provided our organization with the rich IT environment visibility and management that we have been looking for - all from a single console." said Andries Coetzee, General Manager of Imperial Online, "It helps us meet customer demands by maximizing our high-value, high availability services in a cost-effective way."

Upon deployment, the most immediate benefit was the consolidation of over a dozen monitoring and management products into a single product: Redcell. This single, integrated platform spanning multiple layers, domains, networks and services created immediate benefits including streamlined infrastructure management, reduced operational costs, increased network availability, freed up valuable technical staff time, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Besides the ability to manage the entire data center and network infrastructure from a single console, operational efficiencies also include consolidated reporting. A challenge in competing platforms and historically a painstaking and time-consuming task, Redcell now automatically creates and distributes key environment reports to all stakeholders.

"Now, with Redcell's extensive reporting capabilities, my staff can focus on customer-facing value additions rather than stitching together performance and statistic reports from disparate tools." remarked Sias Basson, Operations Director at Imperial Online, "I have a more visible and uniformly managed network AND data center with the reporting to prove it."

Business opportunities from the Redcell deployment include the ability to monitor and manage customer networks from the Redcell console. With the inherent cross-device functionality and recently developed multi-tenant capabilities within Redcell, customer network and MPLS management provides Imperial Online's customers with additional value-add services.

"My ability to forecast network and data center needs, gain visibility into our Telco's activities and provide comprehensive lights-out management of critical infrastructure is made possible by the Redcell product suite." commented Philip Wege, Network and Security Team Leader for Imperial Online, " I am more confident than ever that our environment can easily meet and exceed our customer's demands."

By leveraging Redcell's inherent asset lifecycle and environment management capabilities, Imperial Online is on the leading edge of providing best-in-class services to their clients. In addition, successful collaboration and project management between Dorado Software, Imperial Online and Solution Blox made for a smooth and successful platform deployment.

World-Wide Medical Technology Leader Uses Dorado Software's Redcell

2009-08-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Dorado Software a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced that Greatbatch, Inc. (NYSE: GB) a world leader in developing critical technologies used in medical devices and industrial applications, is using their integrated Redcell enterprise products to automate IT operations and reduce operational expenses of their global and rapidly expanding network.

"We were looking for a single tool for IT asset configuration, remediation and monitoring, and Redcell had everything that we were looking for already integrated, and we liked the price," said Dave Nebral, Network/Telecom Manager at Greatbatch, "We were also impressed with Redcell's proactive capabilities. Upon installation, Redcell immediately began adding value to our network operations."

Although the immediate appeal was Redcell's key functionality for resource management including monitoring, inventory, configuration and performance management, Greatbatch quickly realized that Redcell will increase operational efficiencies. Redcell will be used to deploy and manage their Cisco networking devices over their world-wide locations.

Another deciding factor for Greatbatch to use Redcell was the scalability and extensibility of the solution. Since all Redcell products are integrated and share the same platform, Greatbatc's investment in Redcell lets them upgrade functionality with new applications and new / additional device or technology support, in addition to managing their inevitable deployment growth. "Many of the solutions we evaluated simply couldn't scale to where we see ourselves in the future, as our network doubled in size last year alone." continues Nebral.

Key features of the Redcell enterprise edition include automated deep discovery, CMDB inventory; performance monitoring of IT devices, interfaces and services; customizable graphical, logical and physical topology; customization of alerts, event correlation and processing; fault & event management via SNMP; Syslog and CIM indications; extensive canned and ad-hoc reporting; task automation; and comprehensive change and configuration management - for multi-domain, multi-vendor and virtualized environments that include vendor equipment from Cisco, Dell, EMC, Extreme, Juniper, HP, Brocade and many others.

The integrated Redcell solution offers a full visibility into the data center which allows for quick problem resolution without the use of multiple point tools. It also offers the power and flexibility to manage devices via a customizable permission-based graphical user interface (GUI). For instance, the connectivity data, when synchronized with asset data in the CMDB, creates a complete picture of the IT infrastructure that can be represented in highly customizable reports or via a topology view.

"Greatbatch was faced with a rapidly growing network with a lot of tools and tribal knowledge to manage it," said Eric Garrison, IT Director at PremCom, a certified reseller of Dorado Software, "Redcell offers them a great opportunity to streamline their IT management operations and increase efficiencies, which is a fantastic accomplishment given their environment is under a myriad of changes."

Dorado Software Announces Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer

2009-07-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Quickly Resolve Bandwidth Issues and Improve Capacity Planning. Dorado Software a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer for complete visibility into IP traffic behavior, usage patterns and network utilization. Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer helps increase network utilization and performance by identifying those users, applications, protocols and conversations that are consuming valuable bandwidth, and presents this information in easy-to-understand graphs and reports. Dorado Software will showcase Redcell Traffic Analyzer in booth 923 at Cisco Live, June 29-July 2, 2209 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

"We are diligently trying to help our customers reduce their operational expenses and make better infrastructure investments," said Thomas Lee, Technical Director at Solution Blox. "Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer helps tighten control of network bandwidth and security to provide better QoS for business critical applications, thus, avoiding unnecessary expensive upgrades. It also lets us accurately analyze the impact of network performance and bandwidth on service deployments, ultimately reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).

When unauthorized or low priority applications dominate the network, managers typically respond by increasing bandwidth capacity. Throwing more bandwidth at this problem does not always solve the issue or prevent it from recurring. The unauthorized applications would only absorb any additional bandwidth while business critical applications suffer from poor response times. This always results in unpredictable bandwidth availability and network instability that compromises application performance. One approach is to set rate limits to control bandwidth usage by certain traffic but this lacks the necessary visibility to distinguish between application types and it adds significant administrative effort and processing overhead to the network infrastructure.

With multi-protocol support for IP Flo, NetFlow v5, NetFlow v9, JFlow and IPFIX, Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer collects and deciphers existing IP traffic flows to determine which applications and/or users are most impacting network and application response times and service levels. It allows better administrative control of unauthorized traffic and protection of valuable bandwidth for critical and demanding business applications.

Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer also provides comprehensive visibility and reporting of network utilization through deep insight of top usage patterns. Redcell Traffic Flow analyzer enables administrators to pinpoint what applications are consuming the most network bandwidth, what conversations are involved and who are the most active users.

Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer integrates into the Redcell unified management solution, which reduces IT cost by removing the need for a separate point solution and frees up valuable resources to work on more critical and strategic tasks due to operation efficiencies. Traffic-related network issues are visualized and understood quickly - resulting in faster resolution of bandwidth issues and better usage data from which to perform future capacity planning.

Dell Certifies Dorado Software As An Isv Partner

2009-05-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

Redcell (TM) Systems Commander Achieves Dell ISV Partner Program Certification

FOLSOM, CA - March 31, 2009 - Dorado Software, a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced that it has been officially recognized as a Certified Dell ISV Partner and a member of the Dell ISV Partner Program. Dell has certified Dorado Software's Redcell Systems Commander, providing integration of Dell OpenManage(TM) hardware update functionality for Dell servers. Redcell customers now have unprecedented visibility and control to efficiently and cost-effectively manage their Dell PowerEdge(TM) Servers and Blade platforms.

Redcell Systems Commander is an agentless standards-based management product that provides advanced monitoring and automated configuration for both physical and virtual computing environments. Redcell System Commander provides maximum value for Dell customers by reducing operational expenses, optimizing server uptime & performance, automating compliance management, and standardizing update and patch management processes.

"The Dell ISV Partner Program is focused on simplifying the management of disparate infrastructure platforms, applications and IT services," said Sally Stevens, vice president Platform Marketing, Dell Product Group. "As an ISV Basic Certified Partner, Dorado Software helps to provide seamless integration of Dell OpenManage systems management functionality within Dorado's Redcell System Commander to enhance the manageability of Dell platforms and optimize Dell Services. Dell has validated this functionality and certifies that the implementation performs to Dell standards. Dorado Software and Dell share a mutual commitment to deliver exceptional value to customers. Together we provide solutions that help transform the way customers deploy, utilize and experience technology."

The Redcell System Commander solution is an integrated add-on product to Redcell OpsCenter - which provides foundation capabilities such as physical and virtual server and network device discovery, physical and virtual connectivity discovery, Configuration Management Database (CMDB) association mapping and advanced monitoring of devices, interfaces and services. It is also seamlessly integrated with other Redcell enterprise products, for comprehensive change and configuration management of networking and storage devices. The integration offers a single 'pane-of-glass' view into the datacenter which allows for quick problem resolution without the use of multiple point tools. It also offers the power and flexibility to manage servers via a customizable permission-based graphical user interface. For instance, the connectivity data, when synchronized with asset data in the CMDB, creates a complete picture of the IT infrastructure that can be represented in highly customizable reports, topology views or reference trees.

"Our core business is consolidating and simplifying the management of disparate IT assets," said Jim Souders, Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Business Unit, Dorado Software. "We are very pleased to have achieved this status with Dell and share the same vision to help Dell customers effectively consolidate their IT operations."

Dorado Software Integrates With Symantec-Managed Datacenters

2009-05-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

Redcell Integration Component for Symantec AltirisTM Solutions Offers Total Visibility & Control for Symantec-Managed Datacenters

FOLSOM, CA - May 6, 2009 - Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of infrastructure management software, today announced the certification and release of the Redcell Integration Component for Symantec AltirisTM solutions. The Redcell Integration Component is an easily installed component that immediately enables users to completely manage their multi-technology datacenter environments, including applications, systems, networking equipment and networked storage – all from within the Symantec Management Console. The component was developed by Symantec partner, Bay Dynamics, and has been certified by a third-party testing facility, AppLabs.

"Our customers continue to look for better ways to cut expenses and reduce the growing complexity of managing their multi-technology IT assets,” said Mark Magee, senior director of product management, Symantec. “The Redcell Integration Component provides necessary network data integration and automation from a central location to help our customers reduce the time it takes to manage all of their datacenter, troubleshoot and reduce operational costs.”

Redcell lets users find, configure and monitor multi-vendor networking and storage environments. Redcell is easy-to-implement, easy-to-use, and easy-to-maintain – providing users with the visibility and control needed to maintain and control a healthy datacenter. Redcell performs automated deep discovery of network and storage assets, along with network connectivity to the rest of the customer datacenter. Unique to the Redcell platform, device configuration actions can be performed ad-hoc or as automated tasks that can be either scheduled or invoked from the centralized management system. Examples of automation tasks include the application of specific configuration and security changes to groups of devices. All configuration actions are stored in the Redcell repository for performing compliance checks and reporting.

“The Redcell Integration Component lets users obtain and leverage detailed network inventory and configuration information within Symantec-managed environments,” says Feris Rifai, managing director, Bay Dynamics, “The Redcell-Symantec integration provides users the combined power of application, systems, networking and storage asset, inventory, configuration and connectivity knowledge – all available from within the Symantec Management Console and CMDB.”

The key benefits of the Redcell Integration Component include:

* Extends and enhances the functionality of Symantec management deployments by integrating and harnessing the network and storage knowledge provided by the Redcell Management Software Suite.
* Provides total visibility to the datacenter environment – view network device details (cards, ports, interfaces) and their associations to the server infrastructure (connectivity) collected by Redcell, all from within the Symantec Management Console.
* Enables the ability to perform important network device configuration operations directly from within the Symantec Management Console, such as file backups & restorations, with full audit control.
* Exposes the health of the datacenter’s network infrastructure & how it relates to application environments

“The Redcell Integration Component is based on the Symantec SDK and uses an open web services approach to integrate the network knowledge of datacenter environments into the Symantec Management Platform. This integration offers the user complete visibility into their application infrastructure environment – ensuring the health and configuration compliance necessary to consistently deploy application services to the end-users", said Mike Grote, vice president of enterprise product management at Dorado Software.

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES ADVANCED RTCP MONITOR FOR AVAYA

2009-04-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Monitors Voice over IP performance across Avaya Communication Manager Networks

FOLSOM, CA - March 31, 2009 -Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com) a leading provider of IT infrastructure management software, today announced the availability of the Redcell 6.1 Advanced RTCP Monitor for Avaya Communication Manager allowing Redcell to monitor Voice over IP (VoIP) performance across Avaya Communication Manager networks. Dorado Software is the developer of Redcell, a product suite that provides uniform access, configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting of multi-vendor IT infrastructure assets, including storage, systems, security and networking devices and services. As a result, companies can simplify troubleshooting and reporting, and proactively monitor their converged VoIP services for increased reliability.

"Redcell's Avaya RTCP Monitor gives us a view into our VoIP infrastructure," said Rhett Barker, Enterprise Account Manager, Quagga, "Combined with Redcell's other advanced monitoring tools and event management, we get a true view of how our VoIP infrastructure is running and can take corrective action to resolve any issues even before they become issues."

Redcell Advanced RTCP Monitor is an essential tool in the management, monitoring and fault isolation of Avaya Communication Manager networks, including monitoring performance and publishing notifications when the quality of an RTCP session crosses marginal or bad quality thresholds, as configured in an RTCP Domain. Correlations make these notifications generate a warning alarm when a session parameter first crosses the marginal threshold, and a critical alarm when the quality crosses the bad threshold.

This Redcell Advanced Monitor uses RTCP domain profiles to specify the Avaya Communication Manager servers that RTCP data is collected from. Each RTCP domain utilizes its own threshold parameters for Jitter, Latency, and Packet Loss allowing settings for both a warning and error level for each threshold parameter. The RTCP domain also allows for the creation of separate domains that can be assigned to Avaya Communication Manager Local Survivable Processors (LSPs), and Enterprise Survivable Servers (ESSs). This is essential as it allows Redcell RTCP to continue monitoring VoIP performance when an LSP and/or a ESS becomes active on the network taking control over VoIP call traffic. The Redcell Advanced RTCP Monitor displays live performance statistics via a session monitor. Each session displays a three dial dashboard showing the current levels for Jitter, Latency, and Packet Loss indicating the session minimum, average, and maximum values. The monitor also includes historical reports that display both summary as well as detailed session statistics.

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES ADVANCED MONITOR FOR CISCO IP SLA

2009-04-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

Quickly & Easily Monitor and Save SLA metrics for Remote Sites

FOLSOM, CA - March 18, 2009 - Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced a Redcell Advanced Monitor for Cisco IP SLA. The Redcell Advanced Monitor for Cisco IP SLA lets you improve control over your customer's service level agreements (SLAs) and quickly troubleshoot network issues with notifications, thresholding on metrics, and flexible reporting.

"The Redcell Advanced Monitor for Cisco IP SLA allows me to quickly view the status of my remote sites' connectivity as well as prove SLA compliance when issues arise," said Jordan Elbaum, Director or IT at Right! Systems. "I am even notified when the remote sites' connection falls below certain SLA levels."

In addition to assisting with compliance, the Redcell Advanced Monitor for Cisco IP SLA gives users an easy method to configure complex SLAs for each unique customer, not cookie-cutter SLAs with just "percentages and packets". This means SLA levels are based on complicated metrics, not just the textbook ones or a single metric. The SLAs are implemented in the monitor as a set of thresholds

This Redcell Advanced Monitor provides several device specific notifications, including high latency high jitter, Low Mean Opinion Score (MOS), and customizable levels on other values available from any Cisco device that is IP SLA-enabled.

In addition, it offers extremely flexible thresholding visibility on metrics. All of the metrics provided by Cisco's IP SLA device are available and exposed in the Redcell Advanced Monitor and administrators can set thresholds on these metrics. A violation of these thresholds will raise an alarm within the Redcell Event Management System which in turn can notify or take other corrective and proactive measures. In addition, administrators can use the values returned from a device in calculations to provide their own, more complex SLA metrics. This ensures that when an SLA level is in jeopardy corrective action is automatically taken or the appropriate parties are notified. Users are given the ability to alarm based on a combination of factors, not just one or individual factors.

Ultimately, one of the most compelling propositions of this tool is to able to configure threshold levels and advanced violation patterns - giving Redcell users more control over their SLAs.

The Monitor is fully integrated with the full suite of Redcell infrastructure and service management products. The result is complete visibility into all of your data, and integration with pro-active performance monitoring and configuration and change management.

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES REDCELL SYSTEMS COMMANDER FOR AUTOMATED MANAGEMENT OF VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENTS

2009-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

Redcell Product Suite Awarded to Carahsoft GSA Schedule

FOLSOM, CA - December 17, 2008 - Dorado Software, a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced a partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corp., a trusted government IT solutions provider. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will hold the GSA Schedule for all Dorado Software Redcell enterprise products and will provide proactive sales and marketing support to drive demand for the products within the public sector marketplace.

"The Redcell enterprise suite is an ideal complement to our solutions for systems management and offers our customers complete visibility across the entire stack of infrastructure products," said Craig P. Abod, president of Carahsoft Technology Corp. "Redcell lets our customers consolidate their IT infrastructure management and automate IT operations, and is extremely cost competitive. We continue to expand our solutions to simplify our customers' management environment, and we are pleased to include Dorado"s Redcell in our capabilities."

Dorado Software�s Redcell� product suite provides uniform access, configuration, and monitoring of multi-vendor IT infrastructure assets, including storage, systems, security and networking devices and services. As a result, companies can automate IT operations, simplify troubleshooting and reporting, and proactively monitor their converged IT infrastructure and services.

"Our customers are looking to maximize their current infrastructure and increase network operational efficiencies while reducing management and software maintenance costs," said Rex White, Vice President of Channel Sales at Dorado Software. "We are very pleased to be working with the experts in the public sector marketplace. Carahsoft's GSA schedule and technology offerings, including Symantec and Altiris, complement Redcell's offerings and make this a natural partnership. We look forward to working with Carahsoft to help government agencies reduce operational and management costs."

DORADO SOFTWARE’S REDCELL CONSOLIDATED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION SUPPORTS BOEING NETWORK SYSTEM

2008-11-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

FOLSOM, CA - October 28, 2008 -Dorado Software, a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced that Boeing Advanced Systems is integrating the Redcell™ enterprise edition product suite to manage a high-speed electrical network that connects The Boeing Laboratory Network and real-time flight simulation centers throughout the United States. The solution will help automate this network operation and reduce management costs.

"The customer was looking to increase their network operational efficiencies, while reducing management and software maintenance costs. They selected Redcell to monitor and manage all of their networking devices,” says Shane Eliason, Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Dorado Software. “Redcell offered them a consolidated management product with, easy-to-use graphical user interface, at a price anyone can afford.”

The key benefits to consolidating infrastructure resource management are increasing productivity with centralized and heterogeneous monitoring and configuration management, reducing manual configuration errors and software maintenance and training costs and automating IT operations.

Gartner research vice president, Debra Curtis, recommends that network managers adopt automation to ensure consistency, reduce human error, comply with configuration policies, and lay the foundation for the real-time infrastructure where IT resource levels will be dynamically adjusted to business priorities and SLAs.

To reduce errors and increase productivity, the Boeing Laboratory Network will automate its manual configuration processes with Redcell’s Group Operations (which has one-to-many capabilities). Examples include: automating inventory and change reporting; applying configuration and security changes to groups of systems, updating switch/router OS/Firmware and server OS/driver patches, managing passwords, and many other operations.

Redcell provides The Boeing Laboratory Network a single unified view for configuration management, health and performance monitoring, compliance identification and auditing, troubleshooting, and software patching of its multi-vendor network environment which includes equipment from Cisco and Juniper. Some key functions that Redcell delivers are deep system discovery, inventory management and reporting, device configuration, health management, remote access and control, software patching & provisioning, and topology views.

DORADO SOFTWARE EXPANDS DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL IN NORTH AMERICA

2008-10-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

Distribution through Ingram Micro will smooth order process for US customers and resellers

FOLSOM, CA - October 21, 2008 - Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced that they have an agreement with Global Marketing Partners Inc. (GMP) establishing access to technology solution providers in North America through Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM), the world's largest technology distributor.

As part of the agreement with GMP, Dorado Software will distribute enterprise editions of its Redcell suite of infrastructure management products through Ingram Micro for North America.

The Dorado Software products to be distributed under this agreement include the latest Redcell 6.1 enterprise integrated portfolio: Redcell OpsCenter, Redcell Network Commander, Redcell System Commander, and Redcell Storage Commander. Redcell OpsCenter is the foundation product in the portfolio that consolidates IT resource management and monitoring of converging IT technologies. The advanced add-on solutions include Redcell Network Commander for managing compliance and change management of configuration files, and firmware management; Redcell System Commander for operating systems and patch management of both physical and virtual systems; and Redcell Storage Commander for the configuration and monitoring of storage devices and appliances.

The integrated Redcell product line offers a scalable and affordable solution for small to large organizations who are seeking a single view to manage their converging IT infrastructures. From a single view, administrators can view the health and performance monitoring, compliance identification and auditing, troubleshooting, and software patching of their multi-vendor network, server, storage, and printer environment which includes equipment from Cisco, Dell, and many others.

"Our customers are responding to the ability to monitor all of their data network devices and servers from one platform," says Ken McCoy, Trusted Data Solutions. "We are excited to have improved access to the Redcell product line."

"This is a very exciting opportunity as it gives us the chance to distribute our products through a well established and successful distributor, which will enable us to gain mass penetration into the North American market and present resellers and clients a smooth process for handling their purchase of Redcell products," said Rex White, Vice President of Channel and Alliances at Dorado Software.

To Purchase Dorado Products Visit http://www.doradoworks.com

Dorado Software Seeks To Provide A One-Stop Interface For Enterprise Network Management

2008-10-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today’s corporate networks handle much more than they did 10 years ago. They’re used for sending PDFs, photos, and other large files; for IP telephony and voicemail; for webcasting and streaming video off of Web sites; and for transmitting ecommerce transactions. As the technologies that networks must support have grown in number and complexity, so have the configuration and management typical corporate networks require.

That’s the problem that motivates product development at Dorado Software (www.doradosoftware.com), a Folsom, Calif.,- based developer of network monitoring and management applications.

Dorado’s focus is on simplifying and unifying disparate network technologies under a single interface and making them easier for IT managers and service providers to administer. The company develops a range of monitoring and administrative products aimed at helping network managers in both corporate and service provider organizations.

“There are many interdependencies now on the network, and they have to be managed,” says Dorado CEO Tim Sebring. “What we do is help you configure things the way you want them and then make sure they stay that way. And if [the network configuration] is changed, to identify whether or not that change violates a policy and, if so, put it back into compliance automatically.”

The flagship product in Dorado’s enterprise portfolio is Redcell OpsCenter. Released earlier this year, Redcell OpsCenter is a platform that provides problem discovery; CMDB inventory; and advanced monitoring of devices, interfaces, and services.

Other Redcell products are modular add-ons, made to be plugged into Redcell OpsCenter. The Redcell System Commander, for example, provides monitoring, managing, and troubleshooting for different types of servers and clients. Another Dorado product, Redcell Network Commander, is a configuration automation and management tool aimed at administrators in charge of distributed networks with disparate devices from different vendors. It adds new capabilities to OpsCenter, including version control, color-coded configuration comparison charts, and configuration backup and restore.

While those products are aimed at enterprise IT environments, Dorado also has a line of products targeted at IT service providers, which are based on the same architecture and core technology as the enterprise line. Those products include the Redcell Management Center, Redcell NetConfig, Redcell Inventory Manager, Redcell Change Manager, and Redcell Event Monitor, in addition to several other modules.

All told, the 10-year-old company has 35 different network management or software development tools, most based on the same core architecture. This approach has enabled Dorado to create modular products that work together seamlessly and are easy to update.

“The modular development model we have makes it cheaper for us to build new products,” according to Sebring. “It’s all built on the core technology.”

The goal for Sebring’s management team is to make new technologies easier for end users to implement and use and to turn arcane scripts into visual components in a central network console.

“A lot of these are done in Perl script, so often nobody knows exactly how it works. Also, a lot of vendors routinely change their command line interfaces and operating system parameters, so you have to keep up with those. We try to holistically bring that stuff together, so it’s integrated and unified in one console,” says Sebring.

A Single Interface

The rush to release new features before the competitors do is one major factor in the complexity of many new technologies. It simply takes longer to craft a streamlined interface or workflow on a technology, and vendors often feel they haven’t the time to polish a product and still get it to market before the competition. That means that end users and their resellers are left having to tie up loose ends and iron out bugs.

“Technology vendors try to differentiate themselves, and they sometimes come out with things that are quite difficult to use. Our job is to make those competitive, new features in the product easy to use so the end user can take advantage of them,” explains Sebring.

That is a mission that also helps Dorado’s channel partners who, like the manufacturers, need to differentiate themselves from the competition. According to Sebring, by offering Dorado products as adjuncts to the channel partner’s own hardware and software networking products, a partner is able to provide an easier interface to a complex technology.

“They’re selling a solution to an enterprise or government that may be five or six different technologies, different boxes. We enable them to provide a unified way to deal with all of those multiple technologies, a one-console approach to all those different boxes,” says Sebring.

Third-Party Support

Dorado maintains partnerships with several major vendors, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, Lucent Technologies, and Dell. As these vendors roll out new technologies, Dorado works to update its own products for optimal compatibility with those of its partners.

One emerging technology that Dorado is planning to support in the coming months is virtualization. While virtualization is not currently a big market for the company, Sebring expects it to become a much bigger one as the technology becomes more accepted and deployed in the enterprise.

“We have an 18-month plan to ramp up support of virtualized environments. We have a very unique way of mapping the dependencies between the virtualized environments and real things like security and storage and networking devices,” according to Sebring.

The addition of a module for configuring and managing a virtualized environment is part of an overall roadmap that includes adding modules that expand the features of core areas, such as systems management, security, and storage. The storage component, Redcell Storage Commander, was officially released in September, though it had been generally available prior to that. Redcell Storage Commander is a single-console management product for SANs and supports SAN-based devices, including iSCSI and Fibre Channel.

Sebring believes there will continue to be a strong market for network management as new technologies and end-user demand require higher levels of network performance.

“The network has become more mission-critical,” he notes, “and as things such as unified communications and iSCSI storage and next-generation data centers come into play, the IP infrastructure has got to be not only resilient from the hardware side but also configured and provisioned to meet the needs of the enterprise.”

by Sue Hildreth

To Purchase Dorado Products Visit http://www.doradoworks.com

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES REDCELL STORAGE COMMANDER FOR AUTOMATED MANAGEMENT OF iSCSI AND FIBRE CHANNEL SANS

2008-10-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

Integrated Advanced Storage Management Streamlines Converging Infrastructures

FOLSOM, CA - October 8, 2008 - Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced the release of Redcell Storage Commander, a management product that provides automated configuration and management solution for both iSCSI and Fibre Channel SANs. Redcell Storage Commander is a new addition to the Redcell v6.1 portfolio of comprehensive data center automation solutions for managing servers, storage, networks and software patches that supports both physical and virtualized infrastructure.

Redcell Storage Commander is a fully integrated add-on product to Redcell OpsCenter - the foundation for Redcell's deep discovery, CMDB inventory and advanced monitoring of devices, interfaces and services. It is also fully integrated with all Redcell enterprise products, including Redcell Network Commander for comprehensive change and configuration management. The integration offers a single pane of glass view into the datacenter which allows for quick problem resolution without the use of multiple point tools. It also offers the power and flexibility to manage storage via a customizable permission-based graphical user interface (GUI). For instance, the connectivity data, when synchronized with asset data in the CMDB, creates a complete picture of the IT infrastructure that can be represented in highly customizable reports or via a topology view.

"Redcell Storage Commander, when used in conjunction with Redcell Network Commander, is the only product on the market that provides end-to-end infrastructure visibility and control of both IP and Fibre Channel-based SANs in physical and virtualized environments," said Pradrag Spasic, systems and storage product manager at Dorado Software.

The key benefits of Redcell Storage Commander are to reduce operational expenses, increase storage and interconnect device utilization, enlarge storage and SAN availability, quickly resolve problems, and standardize change and compliance monitoring process.

Redcell Storage Commander's configuration capabilities include zoning, VSANs, storage pools, and storage volumes including masking and mapping. All configuration tasks can be performed either ad-hoc, as scheduled or through event triggered automated actions, which further increases operational efficiency by reducing error risk for day-to-day configuration actions.

To reduce complexity of SAN configuration change management, Redcell Storage Commander includes comprehensive configuration management that automatically retrieves, maintains and restores network device configuration files and firmware, eliminating the inefficiency and errors associated with manual configuration management. Using a simple GUI, network administrators can generate, save, compare, edit and restore configuration files for supported SAN components.

System health monitoring and remote management is supported through both standard (CIM, SNMP) and vendor supplied protocols. Active monitoring of key performance indicators such as interconnect utilization and automated remediation actions can restore desired data protection and performance service levels.

Consistent with all Redcell products, Redcell Storage Commander automates manual configuration processes with group operations-one-to-many capabilities that reduce errors and increase productivity.

To Purchase Dorado Products Visit http://www.doradoworks.com

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES REDCELL ENGINEERING TOOLS TO IDENTIFY NETWORK SECURITY AND PRODUCTIVITY HOLES

2008-09-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Product Offers Users Off-the-Shelf tools for Quick Network and Inventory Assessments

FOLSOM, CA September 24, 2008 Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced the availability of Redcell(TM) 6.1 engineering tools for network consultants and IT administrators to assess the network and identify security and productivity holes in their environment. Redcell Engineering and Redcell Engineering Pro Editions are essential tools to help find issues like non-compliant configurations, lost or under utilized devices, out-of-date operating systems/firmware, end of life (EOL) devices, and poor network design.

Redcell Engineering Edition offers deep device and link discovery, group management, customizable graphical, logical and physical topology, and reporting, including manufacturer end of life reports. RedcellEngineering Edition Pro adds key features such as proactive configuration file scanning, firmware/OS management, diagnostic tools, extensive canned and ad-hoc reporting, and a powerful CLI scripting interface. Both editions support multi-domain, multi-vendor and virtualized environments that include vendor equipment from Cisco, Dell, Extreme, Juniper, HP, 3Com and many others.

Redcell Engineering Editions give our customers keen insight into their infrastructure inventory and how it is being used,says Hilly Sackstein, CEO from Virtual Graffiti, a certified reseller of Dorado Softwares Redcell enterprise products. It has provided us with valuable information to assist our customers to fully exhaust their infrastructure investment, while identifying necessary upgrades.

With Redcell Engineering tools, users can find all networked IT assets, and their subcomponents; understand how they are connected and associated to each other; and current configuration state, asset information, and compliance status. In addition, Redcell Engineering tools allow policy-based remediation to correct non-compliant configurations. Integration of these key management capabilities improve time-to-problem resolution; gain superior asset visibility; and reduce software integration and maintenance costs all resulting in more efficient network management.

To Purchase Dorado Products Visit http://www.doradoworks.com

Media Alert

2008-09-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

Media Alert: Dorado Software To Speak On Key Network Management Considerations For Virtualized Environments

Read more at DoradoSoftware.com

Redcell(TM) OpsCenter -- Product of the Week

2008-09-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Processor Magazine
Easy Automation -- Dorado Software's Redcell OpsCenter Focuses On Ease Of Use

Read more at Doradosoftware.com.

DORADO SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES REDCELL (TM) OPSCENTER FOR AUTOMATED, CONVERGED NETWORK, SYSTEMS AND STORAGE MANAGEMENT

2008-08-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

Integrated management product converges IT operations allowing companies to quickly and efficiently monitor work centers

FOLSOM, CA –August 11, 2008–Dorado Software (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of IT infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced the release of Redcell OpsCenter, the first in a portfolio of new Redcell 6.1 enterprise products for network, systems, and storage management with an aggressive pricing structure, to scale from small and mid-sized businesses to large organizations. Redcell OpsCenter offers network, system, and storage administrators consolidated IT resource management and monitoring of traditional and virtualized multi-vendor, multi-technology networked environments.

"These are exciting times at Dorado Software. They have strengthened their enterprise IT portfolio with software products that are easy-to-use, scalable and affordable," says former Veritas executive and Dorado Software board member, Paul Sallaberry. "The sound product developments in Redcell 6.1 allow the IT infrastructure to effectively scale from SMB to the enterprise."

"Redcell OpsCenter is what we consider a foundation product for our Redcell 6.1 enterprise offerings. It consolidates traditional management silos so administrators have more operational functionality at their fingertips, in a single pane of glass,“ stated Mike Grote, vice president of product management at Dorado Software.

Increases Functionality
From Redcell OpCenter’s “QuickView” screen, users can find all networked IT assets, and their subcomponents; understand how they are connected and associated to each other; and see all aspects of a resource’s health, availability, performance, current configuration state, asset information, and compliance status. In addition, Redcell OpsCenter’s proactive monitoring notifies users of the health, availability, and performance of the infrastructure and automates policy-based remediation. Integration of these key IT management capabilities help enterprise customers to increase productivity; improve time-to-problem resolution; gain superior asset visibility, availability and utilization; and reduce software integration and maintenance costs – all resulting in operational cost savings.

For instance, with Redcell Opscenter, multiple vendor and technology devices can be proactively monitored in a single platform allowing administrators to identify the root cause of problems within minutes, versus hours, or days. Its multi-technology coverage includes routers, switches, wireless gear, security appliances, servers, PCs, storage devices and networked printers.

“Redcell OpsCenter addresses operational challenges driven by converging technology solutions such as unified communications, fiber channel and iSCSI-based SANs, virtualization and next generation datacenters. Network, storage, system, and security administrators can leverage its comprehensive infrastructure management capabilities, from one console with customizable views. In addition, the solution offers to reduce the complexity of problem solving and operational management across disparate technologies,” said Grote.

Redcell OpsCenter’s modularity allows it to be leveraged within one administrative workgroup or across multiple workgroups. By integrating administrative domains, Redcell OpsCenter provides end-to-end visibility and operational control, allowing converged IT solutions to work effectively, in addition to fostering teamwork between administrators and operators alike.

"Redcell OpsCenter can increase productivity while reducing administration costs by automating key operational tasks and intelligently monitoring services and devices," says Hillel Sackstien, Founder & CEO Virtual Graffiti, a leading hybrid systems integrator, and Dorado Software reseller. "It's vital to have a product that can do this in a multi-domain environment - which is typical of our customers."

Key features of Redcell OpsCenter include:

* Automated deep discovery
* Full CMDB inventory
* Customizable graphical, logical and physical topology
* Fault & event management via SNMP; Syslog and CIM indications
* Active performance management for IT devices and services
* Extensive canned and ad-hoc reporting
* Task automation and free-form device configuration for multi-domain, multi-vendor and virtualized environments that include vendor equipment from Aruba, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Extreme, Juniper, HP, 3Com and many others.

Additional Enterprise Products are Easily Integrated
Because Redcell is a truly integrated suite of products, adding new products is easy. For instance, as IT departments invest in new, disruptive technologies from manufacturers or increase scale, additional Redcell modules can be easily added to effectively address operational requirements by a simple license key, or downloading and installing a Redcell device driver.

Availability
Redcell OpsCenter is targeted at operators and administrators in SMB to enterprise operation centers. Redcell OpsCenter starts under $3000 and is generally available. Register for trial software on the Dorado Software’s website at http://www.doradosoftware.com/trials.

Centralized Management Software

2008-08-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

Dorado Software Helps SMEs Get Rapid IT Growth Under Control

When the IT infrastructure expands, so, too, should the IT department’s ability to manage that infrastructure. Otherwise, that “infrastructure” becomes little more than a collection of unmanaged, unmonitored systems. To prevent growth from devolving into chaos, IT departments need a standard system for managing inventory, configurations, and change requests. They also need to monitor and troubleshoot disparate applications and hardware.

Such was the situation at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, based in Sacramento, when it merged the IT systems and staff of several departments into one network operations department. The network operations staff at the agency quickly realized it was in need of a centralized management application that could handle the various types of IT assets, system configurations, and application change requests.

“We did not have a tool at the time that could do configuration management, change management, and handle the various levels of administration and work with multiple vendors such as Cisco, HP, Juniper, and others,” explains Lorenzo Shells, network systems engineer for the CDCR.

Because the six departments that merged all had different IT infrastructures, a single-vendor management system was not an option. “We had HP OpenView, which did HP well but nothing else. We bought CiscoWorks, but that only did Cisco,” explains Shells.

Faced with an IT improvement plan that included the expansion of the network operations staff into a full-fledged NOC (network operations center) in the coming year, the IT managers realized that they needed to invest in a more comprehensive, cross-platform management application to administer the growing collection of systems.

After researching and investigating several management applications, the CDCR selected Redcell from Dorado Software. Redcell is an integrated suite of IT management modules, including configuration management, inventory management, policy management, monitoring, security services management, and change and compliance management. It supports a range of platforms and technologies, including products from Dell, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Juniper, EMC, HP, and others.

Cross-Platform Support, Integration Key Selling Points

That cross-platform support has been the key factor in the CDCR’s decision to purchase the software, but it’s not the only reason it opted for Redcell.

Another characteristic that weighed in Redcell’s favor, says Shells, is the tight integration of its various modules, a trait that some competing products did not share. “We looked at another product that we thought was pretty neat, but it was more like a conglomeration of little tools, not built from the ground up,” he says. “Two or three of the tools seemed to do the same thing,” indicating they likely had been acquired separately rather than developed to work together.

Another factor was the willingness of Dorado’s engineers to come onsite and set up the evaluation. “For evaluation purposes, you need someone to explain how the product does what it is supposed to do. If you leave it to us, the product that is easiest to figure out will probably win, but it may not be the best product,” he says.

The Dorado consultants implemented and explained the evaluation software and let CDCR staff work with it for several weeks. The agency is now beginning to implement several components of Redcell software. The main product it is buying is Redcell Management Essentials, which is designed to provide comprehensive configuration management of multivendor networks. Some of its features are deep device discovery, equipment group management, configuration file backup and restore, proactive configuration file scanning, and reporting.

The organization is also buying a number of add-ons to RME. Those are:

Redcell Inventory Manager. This product provides asset inventory management, a CMDB (configuration management database), template-based inventory reporting, and the ability to export data to CSV, HTML, and PDF formats. It also has an Equipment Discovery Wizard that identifies devices and does deep discovery of links, subinterfaces, software, and firmware.

Redcell Change Manager. Used for change detection, compliance, and reporting, the product’s discovery capability provides an inventory of the network and how it is configured and makes it possible to implement a change approval process and to control access to prevent noncompliant changes.

Redcell Broadscope. This event monitor provides SNMP traps, syslog monitoring, real-time and historical views of events, and a variety of notification options, including email and paging, as well as visual alarms.

Redcell Printer Manager. This lets the IT staff view all of network printers in a single screen and administer them with drag-and-drop management tools. It also monitors printer utilization and service issues and can discover printers on the network.

Upcoming Deployment & Redesign

The deployment of Redcell will take place this spring and summer, at the same time as the CDCR will be finalizing its NOC and hiring additional IT staff. The department currently has 50,000 employees, with approximately 20 network operations employees. When the NOC is up and running, the total will be 30.

It will also coincide with a massive redesign of the organization’s WAN infrastructure, with new switch rollouts and the migration of 22,000 users to the new network. Taken all together, it’s a huge undertaking, as Shells readily concedes, and each part of it will require help from outside consultants.

To handle all of the new development, along with the Redcell implementation and the day-to-day operations, the department is bringing in contractors to help with infrastructure design, IT standards, and the implementation of the various technologies.

When all is done, however, life should be much smoother for both the IT staff and the end users, Shells believes. “We will be able to go to one place to find everything, all of the inventory for XYZ equipment, and can report on it or effect a change on it. If there is a bug in code that needs to be rectified quickly, we can do that quickly,” he says.

That will be very different from the way CDCR IT staff handled changes just a few months ago.

“We first had to find it, validate it, and implement it in the spreadsheet . . . and that’s just for one request,” explains Shells. “For each new request, we had to do the whole thing again.”

It will also make adding and updating IT systems and keeping an inventory of IT assets faster and more accurate.

“We are currently setting up standards for our [asset] refresh plan. To do that, we have to know how much we have, how much of it we want to replace. In the past we had to do it by hand, which means we could only do it on an annual basis or even every three years,” says Shells. “Once we get the Redcell tool in place, we could do it every day.

“This will allow us to get a handle on what’s out there, what we have, what’s in its configuration, and when we want to replace it.”

by Sue Hildreth

TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICT SELECTS DORADO SOFTWARE’S REDCELL TO CONSOLIDATE IT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

2008-02-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

FOLSOM, CA – January 31, 2008 – Dorado Software, a leading provider of infrastructure lifecycle management software, today announced that Weslaco Independent School District (ISD), has selected the Redcell™ enterprise edition product suite to consolidate the IT resource management and monitoring of their heterogeneous environment – including servers, switches, routers, and printers. The Redcell solution was delivered by Quagga, a Dorado Software distribution partner.

“A key factor in our decision to use Redcell was its ability to monitor all of our data network devices and servers from one platform,” says Juan Barrera, Internet Systems Manager at Weslaco ISD. “Redcell presents a single pane of glass of the datacenter and provides our administrators the power and flexibility to manage it with a customizable permission-based graphical user interface (GUI).”

Dorado Software’s enterprise products: Redcell Management Essentials, Redcell Inventory Manager, and Redcell Change Manager, provide Weslaco with a single unified view for health monitoring, compliance identification & auditing, troubleshooting, and software patching of their multi-vendor network, server, and printer environment which includes equipment from Cisco, Dell, and others. Some of the functions that Redcell provides are deep system discovery, inventory management and reporting, device configuration, health management, remote access and control, software patching & provisioning, topology views, and performance monitoring.

To reduce errors and increase productivity, Weslaco will automate their manual configuration processes with Redcell’s Group Operations (which has one-to-many capabilities). Examples include: automating inventory and change reporting; applying configuration and security changes to groups of systems, updating switch/router OS/Firmware and server OS/driver patches, managing passwords, and many other operations.

“Dorado Software offers a robust, scalable, and cost-effective solution to our customers,“ says Ken Apperson, President, Quagga, “In addition, their ability to manage converging infrastructures of voice, data, and video is an ideal fit in our portfolio of Cisco and Avaya solutions.”

Weslaco ISD
Weslaco Independent School District, located in South Central Hidalgo County in Texas, serves a population of nearly 16,439 students with 17 high, middle and elementary schools. With an operating budget of $145 million and about 2,430 employees, WISD is one of the largest employers in the city of Weslaco. For more information, please visit http://www.wisd.us/

DELL SIMPLIFIES DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT

2008-01-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

New Dell OpenManage 5.3, Certified Partner Program Gives Customers More Control, Choice in Enterprise Management

SAN FRANCISCO – Nov. 12, 2007 – Dell OpenManage 5.3, the company’s enhanced systems management solution providing customers with greater, more simplified control of data centers and virtual environments, was announced here today at Oracle OpenWorld. Dell OpenManage 5.3 will be available worldwide next week. For more information visit http://www.dell.com/openmanage.

Dell OpenManage 5.3 provides customers more IT management functionality with less complexity. The enhanced suite of systems management tools reduces the number of consoles necessary for Dell server deployments and updates by one third, via Dell Systems Build and Update Utility 1.0, giving customers fewer tools to manage while providing them with a more holistic view and greater understanding of their IT infrastructures.

OpenManage 5.3 also addresses the pressing power and thermal challenges of modern-day data centers. Standards-based power monitoring and alert capabilities, using OpenManage Server Administrator and IT Assistant tools, provide a variety of power usage information and enable IT managers to make timely, more informed decisions regarding server utilization and reduce overall energy consumption and costs. Unlike competitors, Dell does not charge for basic IT necessities such as power and virtual-machine monitoring, and instead bundles these important features into its core OpenManage solution.

“Dell OpenManage 5.3 was designed to help customers run IT better by being able to do more with less,” said Rick Becker, vice president solutions, Dell Product Group. “With standard IT management functionality provided free of charge, along with more efficient processes, reduced maintenance costs and deployment time, and significantly less complexity, we enable customers to spend less time just ‘keeping the lights on’ and maintaining systems so they can commit more time and resources on the innovation front.”

New Dell OpenManage features also enable:

The industry’s first in-line hard drive firmware update capability, delivering a 99 percent reduction in the time it takes to update without having to take a drive off line;
Management console reduction by one third with a common UI and CLI across Dell Systems Build and Update Utility, bare metal deploy, OS deploy, and platform update servers;
New functionality to reduce both deployment and update time and costs, such as a script generator and custom update policies; and
More control over the level of updates and improved performance through the ability to build and update the repository inside the firewall to mirror Dell Online, without each server going though the corporate firewall every time a platform needs to be updated.

Simplified IT Management Through Dell’s OpenManage Certified Partner Program
Delivering on its promise to simplify IT, Dell continues to expand its OpenManage Certified Partner Program, helping customers reduce the complexity and cost associated with managing heterogeneous IT environments. In the past year, Dell has completed product certification with six systems management solution providers in its OpenManage Certified Partner Program including Altiris, BMC Software, Dorado Software, LANDesk, Microsoft and Novell.

Through its OpenManage Certified Partner Program, Dell provides partners with developer toolkits that enable them to embed components of OpenManage functionality into their systems management applications. Dell then validates and certifies this functionality, assuring customers that a partner’s implementation meets Dell standards. This provides customers with a trustworthy, simplified, and more holistic view of their IT infrastructure by allowing them to manage more from fewer consoles. With seamless integration into the most commonly used systems management consoles, Dell’s OpenManage Certified Partner Program also enables customers to reduce complexity and costs by leveraging the systems management tools they already own.

“We’re giving our customers something our competitors don’t – the flexibility to use the management tools that best fit the needs of their unique IT environments without sacrificing any control,” said Ed Reynolds, director of systems management solutions, Dell Product Group. “Our OpenManage Certified Partner Program makes it possible for customers to deploy, monitor and manage their Dell infrastructure from a systems management console of their choice, leveraging the tools they want to use.”