Prudential abandons single-suite solution

Prudential Assurance has abandoned the dream of a single suite of enterprise-wide management software for its estimated 14,000 desktops, writes Gavin Clarke.

The insurance giant will control software distribution through tools that do not plug into its existing systems management console from Tivoli. Instead, Prudential will install Novadigm's Enterprise Desktop Manager (EDM) for software distribution and management, and ditch Tivoli's own module.

Prudential joins a growing band of organisations that are rejecting systems management frameworks in favour of point systems such as EDM.

The Inland Revenue, Barclays Bank and Sun Life Canada's UK operations have all rejected frameworks. Each had either used or evaluated software from vendors Tivoli and Computer Associates. Prudential said it will continue to use Tivoli's TME10 3.2 for user administration and event management.

Tom Scholtz, senior programme director at analyst Meta Group, said managing systems through a single framework is unrealistic. 'There have been horror stories surrounding installation of frameworks and people are now looking at point solutions. The medium to long-term trend is to a consistent interface rather than a single interface,' he said.

In a prepared statement, Prudential said it had no intention of managing EDM though the existing Tivoli framework. Prudential said that it adopted EDM because there were limitations in TME10 3.2's ability to manage and provide information on PCs across the company.

Prudential added that TME10 3.2 had required too much support from IT staff.

But a Tivoli spokesman said that scalability and management issues have been improved in the latest version of TME10, Enterprise Manager 3.6.