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Monday October 17, 05:46 AM

ASG Plans Lightweight Systems Framework for BSM

ComputerWire Staff

ASG Inc, a privately held applications, performance and operations management software vendor, has said it is nearing the end of a two-year R&D effort to finalize a "lightweight" infrastructure framework for the coupling of composite solutions across its and other vendors products.

The so-called Unified Management Architecture builds on the use of the companys Rochade system, which provides the necessary framework to build custom meta data repositories.

ASG-UMA is said to simplify the sharing of data and services between multiple ASG, third-party, and bespoke components, by combining information from them into a consolidated, federated configuration status repository that is based on the Rochade metadata product.

ASG has more than 100 separate systems management products of its own, and has made over 30 acquisitions since it was founded in 1986. In the first few months of 2005, it bought Cypress Corp for its output and enterprise content management portfolio, and network management vendor Chevin Ltd for its end-to-end user response software, and before that it acquired Dirig Software and its J2EE performance management tools.

John Connor, CTO and senior VP of business development at ASG, said the company hopes to strengthen its business by shifting its market position from selling software toolsets to one where it is able to offer solutions based on application composites fashioned around UMA and the Rochade. The system has relevance for initiatives like SOA and EAI, or business intelligence projects where data is loaded into our repository and solutions are built around Rochade, he said.

The Naples, Florida-based company has estimated revenues in excess of $200m and is likely to continue to grow through acquisition. There are eight or nine potential acquisitions cooking, Connor said, with one of a small listed company expected to close into the new year.

ASG-UMA technology will be embedded in various ASG products, which will be branded "ASG-UMA Ready" and will start to roll out during the first quarter of 2006.

The first UMA-compliant set will provide business service management functions using a combination of existing ASG products of the Sentry network management system, the TrackBird asset management suite, and Impact service desk product.