Tivoli will bring year-2000 testing and remedial functionality to its IT Director Edition network management product by linking to Symantec's Norton 2000, Corporate Edition 1.01, officials at the companies announced last week.
The bundle will be deployed by way of software hooks that join the two products.
The linking technology will be built into the forthcoming release of Norton 2000 1.01, and will be downloadable from Tivoli's Web site.
Symantec Norton 2000 scans desktops for year-2000 anomalies in data files, system BIOS, and real-time clocks, and then relays log files and other reports to Tivoli IT Director. The Norton product also automatically updates its application database with Symantec Live Update.
Based on conditions reported by Norton 2000, IT Director generates automated events, such as paging or e-mailing an administrator, when a severity threshold is detected. IT managers can then assign and apply upgrades, patches, or entirely new applications to affected desktops.
"You are combining the depth of Norton 2000 with the breadth of IT Director," said Doug Kern, market segment manager at Tivoli. "Y2K is not a point-in-time problem; it's an ongoing maintenance. You have constantly changing environments. That is the beauty of continuous management."
Kern said the Norton product is not the first such snap-in for Tivoli IT Director, following Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft SQL Server, in that role. He added that Norton's anti-virus products, as well as backup and restore products from IBM -- Tivoli's parent company -- and Cheyenne are also being evaluated for similar use with Tivoli IT Director, which is aimed at small and midsize business use.
Tivoli Manager for Norton 2000, IT Director Edition will be included with Symantec Norton 2000, Corporate Edition 1.01, available later this month.
The product will be available in English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish, and Italian editions.
Pricing was not available. Tivoli IT Director Management Server pricing begins at $8,995 for a 20-node environment.
The product supports Windows products, OS/2, and NetWare.
Tivoli Systems Inc., in Austin, Texas, can be reached at www.tivoli.com. Symantec Corp., in Cupertino, California, can be reached at www.symantec.com.