Computer systems are becoming more complex and the labor costs to keep them online continue to rise. So it's no surprise that the race is on to create software geared at automating upkeep. Last Friday, IBM joined in with its new suite of "self-healing" automation products, released under the company's Tivoli line. "These new products from IBM allow companies to spot and fix many IT [information technology] problems automatically--behind the scenes--so they can focus on strategic problems that are valuable to their business," said Alan Ganek, chief technology officer of IBM Tivoli Software and vice president of IBM Autonomic Computing. "For example, the vast majority of security break-ins occur as a result of problems with known fixes," said Ben Horowitz, chief executive officer of Opsware, whose automation clients include EDS and Drugstore.com With an automated system, you can keep up to date." Horowitz says that added efficiency from an automated environment means a company can increase its server-to-administrator ratio by as much as five times their current levels--to as many as 100 servers per administrator. This frees staff to develop new applications and work on strategic initiatives instead of being bogged down with routine tasks. Source: ForbesPrashanth RaiTag(s):IBM, Hardware