IBM and HP last week separately announced updated systems-management software designed to make it easier for customers to deploy programs to client machines and to cut the cost and manual effort needed to maintain desktops.

IBM says its Tivoli Provisioning Manager 5.1 can help IT staff automate parts of the process to deploy and decommission laptops, desktops, wireless devices and servers. The product includes technologies that can gauge when to distribute software to clients based on available network bandwidth. The software can "sense" the utilization of the network using TCP/IP protocols and adapt software distribution accordingly, IBM says.

"This feature enables the product to be aware of how the network is being used for business needs at a given time and help IT staff to reduce resource requirements and avoid overprovisioning to accommodate software distribution," says Dave Lindquist, IBM Tivoli chief architect. "The updates shouldn't impact network traffic or an end user's experience."

The software also can reduce the impact of software rollouts on the network with a new peering feature, which lets clients download updates from a local server or desktop if the network traffic or high server volume slows the process. Based on grid technology, the peering capability enables files, such as e-mail applications or video clips, to be downloaded from a nearby system, rather then directly from the central distribution software, to ease the burden on traffic and that server.

"The features such as adaptive bandwidth control and peering are network and systems performance-related upgrades, which is a bit of a different direction for software distribution technology," says Joe Clabby, president of research firm Clabby Analytics. "IBM is automating workflows and the pragmatic processes within IT shops. The idea of doing software updates en masse without wreaking havoc on performance will hit IT managers where they live."

This release incorporates technology IBM acquired with Rembo Technologies in June. At that time, IBM said Rembo software performs "the bare metal basic operating system install," a gap in IBM's offerings. Integrated into Tivoli Provisioning Manager, the Rembo software uses a differencing technology that stores and saves the various customizations in client and server operating systems images to maintain the changes and enable speedier recovery if a system needs to be rebuilt.