BMC Enhances Patrol

In what the company dubbed an "enablement release," BMC released a software upgrade to the Patrol agent, improved the installation process and added security features to Patrol, said Sean Duclaux, director of product marketing at BMC, Houston.

"Instead of a big bang approach, we're using a phased approach [to release version 7 that's modular," said Duclaux. "We don't have a phase project plan that says we start here and end here. It's more of a rolling release that builds on previous releases," he said.

This summer, BMC plans to release new consoles and software distribution capabilities, he said.

BMC has been releasing elements of version 7 since last August.

The upgrade to the Patrol agent software improves data sharing through new APIs, he said.

BMC also implemented a common installation method that solution providers can use to lay upgrades on top of existing implementations, preserving customization work and eliminating the need to uninstall the previous version, Duclaux said.

This is functionality solution providers have been waiting for, said David Eastwood, systems engineer at Maryville Technologies, a BMC solution provider partner based in St. Louis.

"The business of migrating customers from one release to a new release was a difficult thing to do," Eastwood said.

In addition, the release allows for customers to select security levels ranging from basic password encryption to the FIPS 140 Level 3 certification required by some government clients, Duclaux said.

The enablement release is free to customers on BMC's maintenance plan.