ControlCircle has tool to manage data centre on the go
Service provisioing and real-time ticketing in your hand.
By Maxwell Cooter | Techworld | Published: 15:46, 10 February 2010
A new mobile tool from Control Circle could improve the way that companies provision their data centres - and spell trouble for CIOs looking for time away from the office.
The company is set to release a mobile phone application for data centre management. Unlike existing tools, however, which provide management information, Max2Go supplies managers with the means to provision new services within the data centre. It also provides real-time trouble ticket information.
The new service is set to be launched at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, initially on the BlackBerry range, then on Windows Mobile and the iPhone in the next quarter and before the end of the year on Symbian and Android.
Damian Milkins, CEO of ControlCircle said that there was a compelling need to provide this sort of information on a mobile device. "We saw mobile as a real focus for us. We see that people want information on the go and have the relevant information presented on screen in a very simplistic manner."
He said that he envisaged a CIO being able sort out trouble tickets on the way to work in the morning or deal with emergency provisioning requirements while being out of the office, on holiday for example. But Milkins said that the real bonus was in the way that services could be provisioned. "You could conduct a security review, move servers or increase storage capacity, for example," he said. He said that in version 2 of the product, companies would also be able to introduce cloud services in the event of an emergency. "For example, if you're data centre was hit by an earthquake, you would be able to set up cloud services from your mobile."
MIlklns said security was a major concern among its customers and that ControlCircle had implemented a two-factor authentication, based on Cryptocard access and Juniper security at the data centre. He also said that Max2Go provided different levels of access for different personnel.
ControlCircle which includes the likes of RightMove and Sega among its customers is offering the service free to its customers, although Milkins said that future versions may incur a charge as the company rolls out new services. He said that ControlCircle was also considering a white label product to offer to other data centre providers.
Milkins said that the company had plans for other mobile services, including a web tool that would provide information on website performance. He added that it was envisaged that this would be a free tool and would be rolled out some time later in the year.
