DATA MANAGEMENT REVIEW
`Bmokfiald, WI
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`MGNTHLY
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`52333
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`JUN
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`1998
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`EEEEE
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`W92
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`PRESS CLIPPINGS_________________*
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`Due to the length of the following article, only the caption of that
`article appears on this page.
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`SerViceNow V. BMC
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`BMC EXHIBIT 2009
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`IPR2015—01176
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`1
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`

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`greater system management efficiency through automation of
`routine tasks, and the leveraging oftechnical expertise through
`loadable libraries of product—specific expertise.
`ln more complex, enterprise system management environ-
`ments. customers may have already chosen a standard SNMP
`based system management framework, such as HP
`OperationsCenter, to perform the central command console role.
`These customers continue to rely heavily upon the PATROL
`Agent and KM technology by leveraging the Agent’s built—in
`SNMP support. The Agent continues to run autonomously on
`all monitored systems and simply communicates via SNMP to
`the desired console such as HP OperationsCenter or Solstice
`SunNet Manager.
`Enterprise system management customers also take ad-
`vantage of PATROL’s integration with third—party help desk
`systems such as Remedy’s Action Request system (AR). Com-
`bining these technologies, customers automatically capture
`desired PATROL events and convert those directly into AR-
`trouble tickets, helping to further automate the problem detec-
`tion/resolution life cycle.
`STRENGTHS: PATROL processes are all designed to be
`automatically self—tuning so that monitoring activities them-
`selves never become a burden on system resources, and
`PATROL’s detachable agent architecture provides a fully scal-
`able and open solution combined with built—in SNMP support.
`Another strength is that users can immediately leverage expert
`monitoring support for popular applications using “off-the-
`shelf’ KMs from BMC for Oracle. Sybase,
`Informix. Lotus
`Notes, etc.
`
`Probably the biggest single advantage of PATROL is its
`extensibility via an embedded authoring environment based
`on the Patrol Script Language (PSL). Using PSL, PATROL users
`can build custom KMs to “instmment” any application that
`exists in their environment. For instance, Breckenridge has used
`PSL extensively to automate proactive monitoring of perfor-
`mance metrics associated with custom applications including
`complex data replication and data archival servers. PSL can
`also be used to extend PATROL’s visual and audible alarm
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`mechanisms to include E-mail and alpha—numeric paging noti-
`fication schemes.
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`WEAKNESSES: In building custom KMs and applica-
`tion discovery routines, Breckenridge has found cases where
`additional granularity and additional control over the PATROL
`object hierarchy were needed. For instance PATROL does not
`currently support the instantiation of a sub—application within
`a discovered application class, or full objects—within—objects.
`Also, Console level PSL and additional parameter display op-
`tions. such as multi—series graphs, are desirable future features.
`At the time of this writing, it is understood that BMC plans to
`address each of these issues in the next significant upgrade of
`PATROL, due out in the summer of 1996.
`
`lfzhis review was of value to you, please circle Reader Service
`No. 110.
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`as
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`BMC/PATROL
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`Reviewed by David Hermanski ll, president of Breckenridge
`Software Inc, Dallas, Texas.
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`MANUFACTURER: BMC Software lnc.
`
`2101 CityWest Boulevard
`Houston, TX 77042.
`(800) 841-2031. (713) 918-8000 fax
`http://www_bmc.com
`
`@ S
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`OFTWARE
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`PLATFORMS: The .;I_3_:l\AC/PATROL event management
`technology consists of Consoles, Agents and Knowledge Mod-
`ules (KMs) available across a wide range of industry—leading
`operating systems. applications and databases. Platforms and
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`operating systems supported include Bull BOS, DG/UX, Digi-
`tal Alpha OSF/l, Digital Alpha VMS. Digital VAX VMS, HP-
`UX, IBM RS/6000 AIX, NCRf§’yramid. Sequent, SUN Solaris.
`SCO UNIX. SGI. OS/2 and Windows NT. Applications and
`databases supported by PATROL KMs include CA—OpenIngres,
`DB2 for AIX and OS/2, Informix. Oracle, Rdb, Sybase, Lotus
`Notes, Oracle Financials and Tuxedo. PATROL also integrates
`with Network Management Frameworks.
`BACKGROUND: Operating from offices in Dallas,Aus-
`tin and Houston, Breckenridge Software delivers open system
`software products, consulting and education services prima-
`rily with the Oracle7 Server, PowerBuilder, Business Objects
`and BMC/PATROL.
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`PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY: PATROL is actually a
`suite of products that allow an organization to automate the
`proactive monitoring and management of important systems.
`applications and databases.
`ln its simplest configuration. a
`PATROL Console. a PATROL Agent and a series of loadable
`Knowledge Modules combine to provide open systems admin-
`istrators with up-to-the-minute information regarding the
`"health“ of their computing environment.
`The PATROL Console provides a graphically-rich means
`of displaying to the user the current state of system and net-
`work components in a well defined object hierarchy of com-
`puters, application classes, instances of applications and moni-
`tored application parameters. Specifically the PATROLAgent,
`using loadable knowledge, runs autonomously on monitored
`computers automatically discovering applications; collecting
`parameter values; communicating with and alerting the PA-
`TROL Console; and executing predefined recovery actions
`when warranted. Many customers use PATROL in this con-
`figuration to monitor departmental environments where the
`critical application is usually a database server such as Oracle
`or Sybase. ln these environments, customers are recognizing
`numerous benefits including proactive application management.
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`PRODUCTREVIEW‘
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