The data center must evolve to tackle the twin challenges of supporting the business while managing costs. What will it look like? This issue offers a glimpse, as well as our first peek at the Tivoli® Service Management Center for System z and the latest System z hardware, operating system and storage releases announced at SHARE. Also IBM VP John Kogel lets us in on recent and upcoming Tivoli releases for service delivery, performance and cost control. And don’t miss our other contributors, including two Tivoli OMEGAMON® situation experts who deliver best practices for automated alerts.

– Michael O’Neill, Managing Editor

Features and product updates

		The future runs on System z: Get the IBM news from SHARE At SHARE last month, IBM revealed a vision for data center transformation that can help IT respond to business demands. In addition, the company announced System z hardware, software and storage solutions planned for this year. Read more
		The CCR2 Interview: Mike Kott talks about Tivoli Service Management Center for System z Tivoli process automation and service management solutions are coming to System z. Get the scoop on this IBM announcement and how you can take advantage of the System z platform as a highly reliable hub for efficient end-to-end IT management. Read more
		Best practices for creating useful Tivoli OMEGAMON XE situation alerts IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON XE solutions offer powerful integrated situation alert and automation capabilities built around the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. Ed Woods introduces the concept of situations and recommends best practices to make them meaningful, actionable, useful and cost effective. Read more
		Resource impact and optimization for Tivoli situation event processing The Tivoli Monitoring framework lets you perform extensive situation event processing across thousands of monitored systems. Clyde Foster explains how to avoid situation processing pitfalls that could impact resource performance. Read more
		Asset discovery and management for SOA All application modernization, from the addition of a Web user interface to rearchitecting for Web service implementation, starts with understanding and managing your existing assets. Michelle Cordes explains how IBM Rational® solutions can make this step easier and more efficient. Read more

In the news

IBM Provisioning Manager 5.1.1 delivers improved power and ease of use for data center automation. Read the Tivoli Beat

System z on IBM TV. Marlin Maddy talks about mainframe cost misconceptions and other topics. Tune in

Case study: Barclays strengthens service delivery with intelligent workload automation. Read more

Improve data center energy management to enhance business resilience. Read about Service Management in Action

When Infrastructure Attacks! Check out these videos and find out how Tivoli can help IT management and workplace shenanigans learn to live in harmony, and mastery of IT abnormalities can be within your reach. Watch the Tivoli Survival Guide