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We first provide an overview of the state-of-the-art architectures for continuous availability, briefly covering such traditional concepts as high-availability (HA) clustering on distributed platforms and on the mainframe. We explain how HA can be achieved in environments based on Sun Microsystems J2EE™, which differ from classical clustering approaches, and we discuss how disaster recovery DR) has become an extension of HA. The paper then presents aspects of service management, including the use and orchestration of process-based (ITIL®) systems management tasks within DR scenarios, where the key challenge is to ensure the right level of redundancy in the integration and service-oriented management of heterogeneous information technology landscapes.

Fulfilling the IT service management proposition of providing IT as a service aligned with the company business presents many interesting challenges. Among these we consider the challenge of integrating business performance management (BPM) of critical applications with the systems management and provisioning of the IT infrastructure that supports the organizationpsilas business processes.

Event correlation is a necessary component of systems management but is perceived as a difficult function to set up and maintain. We report on our work to develop a set of tools and techniques to simplify event correlation and thereby reduce overall operating costs. The tools prototyped are described and our current plans for future tool development outlined.