AmberPoint Inc. has integrated its flagship software product, Management Foundation, with IBM Corp.’s Tivoli Systems Inc., AmberPoint announced this week.
As part of an update to its product, AmberPoint’s Web services management software will work with Tivoli’s system management products. The upgrade is expected to be available to customers by the end of the month, said Ed Horst, vice-president of marketing at AmberPoint in an interview on Wednesday.
For example, users of Tivoli software will now benefit from AmberPoint’s ability to use both Java and Microsoft Corp.’s .Net technology, which gives its Web services management software greater flexibility, the Oakland, Calif., company said in a statement.
“A lot of our customers also have Tivoli which is what gave us the impetus to connect with it,” Horst said. “We plan to integrate with other network management systems, but those plans aren’t imminent. Tivoli is the first such integration.”
Although Tivoli is the first network management system Management Foundation has been integrated with, AmberPoint has done work with other companies such as Netegrity Inc. to bring security features to Management Foundation, Horst said.
AmberPoint, which was launched in 2001 and changed its name from Edgility Software in May, includes Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (MetLife) and the energy company, TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., among its clients, according to the company’s Web site.
The company has recently been facing competition from larger players looking to enter the Web services management market, including IBM/Tivoli, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Computer Associates International Inc. and BMC Software Inc.
“Management Foundation is used by customers who have Web services in their mixture; generally enterprise customers with more than one Web service to manage, Horst said.
The price for Management Foundation runs from between US$25,000 and “somewhere in the six figures,” depending on the software and service package a customer chooses, Horst said.
AmberPoint has worked with IBM in the past, providing management, tracking and security features for IBM’s WebSphere.
