[Infrastructures] The Major Products

[Matt Peterson]

> What systems management tools do you use and recommend?  We're looking
> at Zenworks 7, Aduva OnStage, BMC Marimba, CA Unicentre, Symantec
> iCommand, HP Openview, Tivoli *something*, etc.  

Some of those seem more like monitoring/ticketing systems vs. Systems 
Management.  In the commercial arena, Blade Logic and OpsWare come to mind.

> I'm looking for professional opinions on these and other products.  What
> have you done, what would you do again, and what would you avoid even if
> it was given to you?  How do you manage 1000 'identical' boxes in very a
> very geographically diverse network with very little (if any - we use
> satellite) real bandwidth between us and them for management?  It's a
> mix of Linux/SCO servers with Windows XP workstations hanging off them.

As for other:  cfengine + homegrown frontends seems very common in SoMa 
around San Francisco.  In theory cfengine works with Windows, but I 
think kixstart is more powerful.

--Matt