Serena Announces Latest Version of its System Software Manager
Serena ChangeMan SSM 8.2 helps companies manage system software changes, minimize application downtime and lower overall costs
Long Beach, CA - (March 2, 2004) - SERENA Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRNA), an industry-leading supplier of software that automates change to enterprise applications, announced the next version of its System Software Manager, Serena ChangeMan SSM 8.2. ChangeMan SSM 8.2 brings significant value to data management by delivering the functionality needed to help companies align IT with business to achieve corporate governance, asset management and cost control objectives. With new features like access tracking, improved content-based change tracking and several additional usability enhancements, version 8.2 helps companies better manage system software changes, minimize application downtime and increase enterprise efficiency.
"System software is a critical layer of the application infrastructure - any changes to the infrastructure can have an immediate and profound impact on an the performance and availability of key applications," said Tim Grieser, Program Vice President, Enterprise System Management Software, at IDC. "Solutions like Serena ChangeMan SSM play an important part in ensuring the integrity of the system software that underpins enterprise applications."
"SSM has been invaluable to us for data center relocations and consolidations. In one instance, a move of our Virginia-based development systems across the country - which involved over 33,000 application libraries, saved the Bank 23 work hours, several additional man hours and one corporate jet flight," said Terry Gindling, Vice President, Change Systems Support, Bank of America. "SSM also helps us ensure business continuity. We keep our production and development environments synchronized to, and recoverable from, our contingency site in a fraction of the time older traditional methods required."
A crucial component of an effectively managed data center, ChangeMan SSM manages system software files, which form the foundation beneath every business-critical application. SSM automatically detects, records and backs up changes to system files, while maintaining an audit trail throughout. By safeguarding software assets, ChangeMan SSM helps companies better manage the challenges associated with budget cuts, outsourcing, data center migrations and consolidations, security threats, regulatory compliance and the retiring of mainframe programmers.
Version 8.2 extends this existing functionality with new key features. The access tracking capability in ChangeMan SSM 8.2 allows customers to identify references to files, down to the dataset member level. Organizations throughout IT - including Systems Programming, Data Management, Audit and Operations, now have access to the change history and real-time change notifications, and can rollback any change with ease. This streamlines the change process and increases user accountability. ChangeMan SSM 8.2 also uniquely performs content-based change tracking across both HFS and non-HFS files, and maintains a database of all changes on the z/OS platform. This ensures application availability, rapid disaster recovery and business continuity, and lowers the costs associated with both planned and unplanned downtime. Additionally, the product helps companies reduce maintenance and storage costs by eliminating duplicated or unused data, as well as in identifying superfluous software licenses.
"Many large financial institutions rely on ChangeMan SSM to keep their businesses running, and have standardized on the solution because of the industrial-strength functionality it delivers," said Chuck Henderson, Director of Product Marketing, SERENA Software, Inc. "We're pleased to release ChangeMan SSM 8.2, which is rich in process management to give customers even more control over their system software. ChangeMan SSM aligns with Serena's Application Framework for Enterprises (SAFE(tm)), which Serena will continue to deliver upon across its suite of application life cycle management solutions."
Availability
Serena ChangeMan SSM 8.2 will be available in March 2004.
About Serena
SERENA Software, Inc. is the Enterprise Change Management (ECM) industry leader. For over twenty years Serena has focused exclusively on providing solutions that help companies automate change to the applications that run their businesses. Today its products are in use at over 3,600 customer sites - including 46 of the Fortune 50. Serena's Application Framework for Enterprises (SAFE(tm)) is the next step in ECM, providing cross-platform, cross-process and cross-organizational support across application life cycle processes. This approach helps streamline development, improve productivity and lower development costs, resulting in a highly efficient enterprise. With headquarters in San Mateo, California, Serena serves customers worldwide through local offices and an international network of distributors. http://www.serena.com.