Stratavia™, the leading provider of data center automation software for Fortune 1000 organizations, today announced the immediate availability of its latest release, Data Palette™ 5.0. This new version introduces a groundbreaking AJAX-based user interface design, providing a rich user experience for centralized global IT administration. It also features advances in standardizing and automating complex, error-prone tasks that traditionally require days of manual intervention and oversight.

“Consider the average data center network – it's comprised of nearly 1000 servers and growing 30 percent per year; they’re highly heterogeneous and support over 5000 desktops for up to 7000 employees,” said Andi Mann, research director, Enterprise Management Associates. “Customers are concerned with siloed approaches to data center automation. Building a centralized, Web-based console for global coordination and standardization can greatly reduce inconsistencies. We predict data automation solutions that address this will deliver substantial benefits.”

Data Palette is Stratavia’s award-winning patent-pending platform that automates complex, manually intensive but repetitive IT administration tasks. It has been recognized for its unique approach to “intelligent” run book automation, having evolved from a managed service operation, where it served as the database automation platform for over 40 customers. This latest version includes those database automation capabilities and provides further innovations in the areas of:

• Policy-Driven Automation, to further standardize and streamline IT administration tasks. For large IT organizations, it is no longer possible to manage servers individually, nor rely on ad hoc “best practices” of an individual user. Operations can be managed much more efficiently by using policies which span hundreds of servers. This process sharply reduces system outages and saves significant man hours.
• Automated Server Provisioning for physical and virtual Linux, Windows and Solaris environments. Customers adding new servers to their data center can use Data Palette to recognize and integrate the new hardware into the network and automatically provision requisite operating systems, applications and patches, among other elements. Customers which have already deployed this capability have realized 60-80 percent efficiency gains in provisioning both physical and virtual servers.
• Automated Virtualization Management enables IT operations teams to achieve the highest levels of efficiency, simplicity and quality in managing their virtualized environments. Data Palette provides comprehensive virtual life cycle management to accelerate enterprise deployments, seamlessly managing physical and virtual environments with technologies such as VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Sun Solaris 10 and XenSource.
• Centralized Web-based Administration that allows users to create standard operating procedures through an intuitive “digital whiteboard.” IT administrators can create workflows for specific tasks, using a drag and drop approach, rather than hard coding. Data Palette features an internal search engine capability to tag and track these workflows, increasing the ease for team members to collaborate by sharing steps or workflows across common tasks. Data Palette 5.0 is the only server provisioning platform to be 100% Web-based – both the administrative and user console are hosted on a Web server, eliminating the need to download thick-client consoles which are traditionally required to communicate with server components. As software versions are upgraded, there is no longer a need to ensure that all administrators download and install updated software to their desktops.

Leveraging information about the environment in which it resides, Data Palette is the only automation platform to provide decision automation – the ability to drive more intelligent automation based on variables throughout the data center. Coupled with its innovative rules engine, Data Palette empowers IT administrators to:

• Dynamically expand, virtualize and allocate server and storage space when needed;
• Automatically trigger resolution policies with no manual intervention;
• Administer and track upgrades and configurations;
• Forensically report on database and IT operations for auditing and analysis;
• Deploy patches to prevent security threats and ensure optimal performance; and
• Support adherence to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) framework of best practices.

“Data Palette 5.0 is designed for organizations with globally distributed data center operations running a heterogeneous universe of applications and databases,” said Thor Culverhouse, CEO, Stratavia. “Given this model, it is no longer possible for large IT organizations to manage servers individually, no matter what level of standardization and asset tracking exists. With Data Palette’s introduction of policy-driven automation, Data Palette dramatically streamlines operations and lowers operating costs, by as much as 80 percent.”