Data Warehouse Software Focuses on Net Management
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ComputerWorld has reported that users awaiting Cabletron Systems, Inc.'s data warehouse for network management said they have one all-important goal: to extract business-relevant information from a glut of statistics. Cabletron and partners recently outlined plans to provide the first SQL-based management repository that correlates diverse data about networks, servers and applications. It will ship next quarter.

With an open repository in place, users would be able to apply data mining tools to answer tough questions about performance, usage and growth of client/server environments. "We've gotten good at reacting to faults. Now we want to move to the next level fixing problems before users sense them and predicting usage trends," said Dennis Mitchell, a systems vice president at the Capital Markets division of BankAmerica Corp. in San Francisco.

The upcoming Spectrum Data Warehouse promises valuable ways to examine historical data, Mitchell said. For example, he hopes to detect intermittent cabling faults that users may not report, thereby preventing major disruptions on the bank's trading floor.

The increasing complexity and volume of data demands such sophisticated software to manage big networks, said Mark Bouchard, an analyst at Meta Group, Inc. in Westport, Conn. "Cabletron is starting off on the right foot with standard database support and definite applications to sit on top of the warehouse," he said.

Initially, the data warehouse will be able to pull information from Cabletron's Spectrum network manager and its Patrol system; application managers from BMC Software, Inc. in Houston; and NetScout network monitors from NetScout Systems, Inc. in Chelmsford, Mass.

Cabletron will offer a suite of applications to analyze gathered data, and partners will add reporting and data mining tools throughout the year. The partners include Concord Communications, Inc. in Marlboro, Mass., and Optimal Networks Corp. in Palo Alto, Calif. Somewhat similar tools for gathering network data and tracking performance are available from vendors such as InfoVista Corp. in Redwood City, Calif., and SAS Institute, Inc. in Cary, N.C. They don't reach out as broadly to cover all management disciplines, Bouchard said.

Reaching such ambitious goals will depend on Cabletron's ability to deliver promised applications and to gather data from many more sources, Bouchard warned. One user said Cabletron's promised first-phase support "will give me what I want." James Wiedel, director of networking at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said he needs to convert Spectrum network statistics from about 13,500 users to usage profiles for chargeback purposes.