Sun Asset Connection Demonstration on Fresh Tools

IT Asset Management (ITAM) enables organizations to save money and create a better performing environment. Managing hardware assets in complex and geographically dispersed operating environments is a daunting, but increasingly necessary, undertaking. For example, reducing costs through server consolidation is popular, but you'll first need to know the number, type, and location of installed systems, plus the applications running on these systems, and any software licenses attached.

Other ITAM needs include negotiating software contracts, improving total cost of ownership, developing service level agreements, chargebacks, obsoleting end-of-life equipment, and more.

On My Sun Connection, you'll find a demo of the Sun Asset Connection in the Fresh Tools tab. The Sun Asset Connection helps systems managers track and report Solaris, UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac and AS400 hardware, plus identify the installed base of software, too.

Here's an example from the demo, a pie chart showing operating systems distribution:

Clicking on any segment (representing an OS) displays details for the machines in that group. You can view DNS hostname, make and model, asset tag and serial number (important information required by most vendors when requesting support), and more.

Give the Sun Asset Connection demo a try, and as always, we're very interested in your feedback.

New Content and Features Available

We've made improvements to My Sun Connection with new content and features. On the home tab, the My Downloads portlet now lists Related Links first, followed by Sun Blogs and Forums. This change helps you to locate important product resources more easily, such as the home page, documentation, and available support options.

The home tab has three new additions, the Sun of Interest, Upcoming Events, and Bookmarks portlets. Use Sun of Interest to read customer testimonials and case studies, and learn about promotions for training, products, and services. Upcoming Events shows technology conferences and field events with Sun participation and sponsorship, such as the International Supercomputer Conference ISC2006.

With Bookmarks, you can easily locate commonly-accessed Sun web sites for training, support, downloads, and more. Better yet, you can add bookmarks to your favorite web sites, and edit or delete the default bookmarks shown.

We've added a Communities tab to feature relevant social networks for developers and system administrators. Here, you can find the most recent news, features / articles, and message of the day from the BigAdmin community for Sun system administrators. You can directly subscribe to this content using RSS, and automatically receive the latest updates in your news reader or Web browser.

You'll also find links to developer communities covering Java technology, security, and more.

We're constantly looking for ways to improve My Sun Connection, and provide you with the most relevant and useful content and features to enable your success using Solaris Enterprise System software. Please let us know if you find these changes helpful, or if anything is missing that would help you do your job.