In a move that can help several HP 3000 software companies at once, ORBiT Software (www.orbitsw.com, 800.89.orbit, HP World booth 700) and SMA (www.smausa.com, 281.446.5000, HP World booth 116) announced a new arrangement to let the datacenter vendor ORBiT sell the OpCon/xps software to shops including those operating HP 3000s. ORBiT president Paul Meszaros said the arrangement puts another arrow into ORBiT’s datacenter quiver, one already stocked with lights-out software from Design 3000 and ORBiT’s own Backup+, among others.

The extra value comes from SMA’s support of a wide array of operating environments, including the AS/400 from IBM, Unisys, and Windows NT. “Today’s datacenter has become increasingly heterogeneous in terms of the computing platforms supporting the IT department,” said Meszaros. “Enterprises that once relied solely on the HP e3000 may now also employ Unix, Linux, NT and other platforms. By joining forces with SMA, ORBiT Software is now able to meet our customers’ need for cross-platform automation. SMA will also benefit from ORBiT’s long-standing presence in the HP user community.”

SMA launched a serious effort in the 3000 community last year, and is looking for a partner to help it get introductions at shops which rely on MPE/iX. SMA president Michael Taylor said “By forming this relationship with ORBiT, SMA will expand our strategic direction to a broader horizon. A solid unified customer focus and excellent seamless products will benefit the strategic alliance.” OpCon/xps becomes a complement to Design 3000’s NetAlert Plus, which is a enterprise-wide event monitoring solution for hardware and environments, as well as job completion. “It’s the alerting component,” Meszaros said, using a hierarchy to notify IT staff when problems occur.

At some e3000 sites where uncertainty about the server’s future has frozen any purchases for it, the multiple-platform OpCon/xps might serve as a replacement product for a 3000-only solution like Design 3000’s JMS. Both are intelligent schedulers, and ORBiT hopes having both arrows in its datacenter quiver will let companies unsure about a JMS purchase buy with the assurance they can move OpCon/xps into place if the 3000 gets powered down — with credit for the JMS purchase that they really want right away, since their 3000 is still mission critical. “Amisys and Ecometry groups have front ends that are NT-based, or have lab systems on Digital VAX,” Meszaros said. “These are increasingly hard to monitor as global organisms. This is a great opportunity for us to take the concept of scheduling into a heterogenous environment.”