IBM has launched a line of Tivoli appliances in the UK, designed to deliver the benefits of the Tivoli management suite to mid-sized firms which have found it too costly or complex in the past.

The two models, Tivoli Foundations Application Manager and Tivoli Foundations Service Manager, are both available immediately from systems integrator Pirean, IBM's UK launch partner for the products, which is offering them as part of a managed service.

While IBM's Tivoli has been in use in large organisations for many years, the cost of implementation can be prohibitive for smaller companies, which might also lack the necessary skills to configure and operate the system.

The new appliances are designed to offer an easier-to-deploy and more cost-effective solution, according to Pirean.

"IBM has relieved the two biggest problems, which are complexity and on site support, plus cost, and you can manage the appliances remotely," said Pirean managing director Stuart Wilson.

Customers can choose to deploy an appliance themselves, a process that should take just a few hours, or Pirean can take care of everything including installation and configuration.

Each appliance is a multi-processor system with its own Raid array, tuned to meet the demands of companies with up to 150 servers - the limit set by IBM for a mid-sized company.

This gives customers a ready-to-roll service desk with the workflow ready configured and needing just to be populated with user and asset data, according to Pirean.

"You very quickly have a working service desk, whereas Tivoli traditionally required you to go through the process of configuring everything and designing screens," said Mike Cartwright, Pirean's chief technology officer.

Pirean said that it can provide a 'light' managed services offering with remote support for either Foundations Application Manager or Service Manager for £1,000 per month. This would fit out a helpdesk solution to support a team of up to five people or a monitoring solution for up to 10 servers.

For a larger, more complex estate, Pirean can provide a managed service delivery through its Solution Assured Managed Services business.

Supporting a helpdesk team of up to 10 people in this situation will cost from £2,580 per month, while Foundations Application Manager providing Systems Management for up to 50 servers or network devices will cost £2,665 per month.