Aiming to equip network admins with deeper insight and more secure control over large-scale, complex networks, EMC this week announced Version 7.0 of its EMC Smarts Service Assurance Manager (SAM) and IP Availability Manager (IPAM). Smarts SAM, an integral part of EMC's EMC Smarts management suite (picked up in 2004), integrates and correlates topology, events, and analysis from multiple network sources, deliver Smarts SAM, an integral part of EMC’s EMC Smarts management suite (picked up in 2004), integrates and correlates topology, events, and analysis from multiple network sources, delivering a real-time, end-to-end perspective on the IT environment and its health, according to EMC.IPAM automates real-time, root-cause analysis of network connectivity layers, including NAS, by analyzing thousands of simultaneous events, according to the company.Improvements to the products include enhancements aimed at highly secure networks. Among them is SNMPv3 authentication support for traps, “which is a key requirement for government agencies and managed service providers.” This support gives users two layers of security, providing full encryption of packets as well as full encryption and authentication for polling and discovery, EMC says. Also new is an IP Tagging feature, which helps admins get a handle on overlapping IP addresses in MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching ) and IP environments. Specifically, it can now tag and monitor multiple links with the same address, allowing it to deal with duplicate addresses across disparate domains – useful for companies with various business partners, for example. Additionally, EMC has added a capability for isolating MPLS service down to the LSP (Label Switch Path) connection, which the company says can reduce the amount of time it takes to uncover the root cause of a network service problem.Further, EMC has added SAN Mercury SiteScope support, as well as increased support for OSes, including VMware. “One of the key success drivers of the EMC Smarts suite has always been its ability to automatically manage highly distributed, complex IT environments spanning a variety of domains,” said Chris Gahagan, EMC’s senior vice president of resource management software. “[This] announcement takes this capability even further – better enabling customers to bridge management gaps to enhance reliability of their core business services, which are built atop of these complex IT infrastructures.”Pricing starts at $30,000 for the Express Pack, which includes Smarts SAM, IP-AM with a 50 device license, an SNMP Trap Adapter, SYSLOG, and one Global Console.For more information about EMC Smarts, go here. Technology Industry