Change Management, Provisioning, Auditing, More for Heterogeneous DBs
GridApp's flagship product is Clarity (also called GridApp Clarity by the vendor), which is targeted primarily to DBAs and provides a centralized and automated platform from which multiple database management tasks can be performed across heterogeneous databases; including MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, and DB2. The unified command console is accessible via a Web-based GUI, command line, or an API; and provides the automated ability to provision new DBs, inventory and manage the configurations of existing DBs, audit DB actions (including configuration changes), and maintain DBs, including software upgrade and patch management tools.
The Clarity architecture consists of the central Clarity Engine, which communicates and interacts with individual agent components that are themselves deployed on the DB server. In addition to these primary components, the platform includes a CMDB that is fed from the information collected by the agents, and an ETL and reporting engine that facilitate the examination of the gathered information. The software functions as a management layer to the DB platforms, not residing directly in the data path.
Key functions and capabilities of the platform include:
- The ability to validate DB implementations via automated builds, change management reporting, and comparison to a provided "best practices" library of server configurations for Oracle, Oracle RAC, SQL Server, and clustered SQL Server including such checks as kernel configuration, required OS patches, network parameters, and more.
- Support for the creation and execution of custom scripts for maintenance/management task automation. Called "Clarity Actions," these scripts integrate with the product's security/auditing features so their executions can be tracked; and the vendor provides a pre-built library with scripts for such tasks as server upgrades, data migration tasks, user updates, and more.
- Automated patch management, including the pushing of patches to DBs and validation of successful patches.
- Provisioning, including the ability to define a standard or "Gold" image for deployment and dynamic deployment based on business rules.
- Configuration management tools, including user activity auditing, security controls, licensing compliance (automatic detection of options/features per database, and the ability to assign departmental license quotas by feature), etc.
New in the forthcoming release of GridApp Clarity is support for the management of cloud-based DB deployments (both the Engine and the Agents will support operation in the cloud). Clarity is certified for use with Amazon EC2 and GoGrid, and, according to the vendor, is "... supported on all major cloud platforms."
Clarity is available now; the new version (with new features including cloud DB support and the licensing compliance features described above) is expected to be available by the end of February, 2009.
Visit the GridApp Systems Web site for further information.
