Automating Software Maintenance in an HP Environment

Introduction
Software maintenance is a key part of a system life cycle. The costs associated with maintaining
system software images add overhead for businesses and individuals that own systems. Software
maintenance solutions save time and money, enabling system users to focus on their competencies
and relieving them of the need to develop expertise in maintaining information systems.
This document presents an overview of the HP strategy for software maintenance and a set of tools
developed by HP that can help minimize the costs associated with software maintenance.
Overview
Todays distributed enterprise networks are some of the most complex ever constructed. As companies
deploy more business-critical applications, these networks continue to expand rapidly, becoming
more sophisticated and requiring systems that support the latest technological innovations. In this fast-
changing environment, any loss of availability translates into a loss of time and money, and
manageability has become the leading success criterion for today’s highly competitive businesses.
HP systems provide maximum uptime with minimal maintenance. HP has developed advanced system
management technologies such as HP Systems Insight Manager, HP Version Control Repository
Manager, and HP Version Control Agent. The tight integration of these advanced technologies
reduces system management efforts, enabling administrators to work issues, resolve problems, and
install system software from remote locations by means of a standard web browser.
HP Systems Insight Manager
HP Systems Insight Manager is a web-based system management application that combines the
strengths of Insight Manager 7, HP Toptools, and HP Servicecontrol Manager to deliver a single tool
for managing HP ProLiant, HP Integrity, and HP 9000 systems running Microsoft® Windows®, Linux,
and HP-UX. The core HP Systems Insight Manager software delivers the essential capabilities required
to manage all HP server platforms.
When integrated with the Version Control Agent and the Version Control Repository Manager, HP
Systems Insight Manager provides a proactive, easy-to-use, automated, and cost-effective solution for
managing distributed systems and updating software on the managed systems remotely.
HP Systems Insight Manager transforms management of standards-based, distributed computing
environments. By enabling browser access to its components, HP Systems Insight Manager provides
efficient management of HP and third-party systems and groups of systems using Simple Network
Management Protocol (SNMP), Desktop Management Interface (DMI), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP), automatically consolidating and integrating the management data and displaying the
information on demand. With HP Systems Insight Manager, you can monitor and manage groups of
systems, clients, clusters, and networking products anywhere, at any time, from a standard web
browser.
HP Systems Insight Manager is available on the HP Management CD 7.20 or later, and on the web
at
http://www.hp.com/servers/manage.
HP System Management Homepage
The HP System Management Homepage is an intuitive web-based interface that consolidates and
simplifies the management of individual ProLiant and Integrity systems running Microsoft Windows or
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