HP
Adds To Its OpenView Portfolio
Part
of the fun of observing the Virtual Computing space (our name for
what IBM calls On Demand and what HP calls Adaptive Enterprise and
Sun calls N1 and so forth), is that so much is going on.
Every
month, new players enter the field (we are currently working on
adding Computer Associates, Veritas, and Opsware to our charts). And just as often, the players are buying up interesting
small technology companies, adding depth and breadth to their
virtual computing portfolios.
HP
has recently announced the acquisition of two companies, Novadigm
and Consera, to add to their OpenView strategy.
Novadigm,
a 13-year old public company with expertise in automating change and
configuration management. Across heterogeneous environments and
multiples devices, will be acquired at a price of $6.10 per share
(all cash); the deal is expected to close by mid-year.
The products are already complementary to OpenView and HP is,
in fact, a Novadigm customer. Other
customers include Seven-Eleven, Schlumberger, and the US and UK
governments.
Consera,
goes beyond policy management, creating a service model view of IT,
to manage change better and visibly link change to automation. It contains a complete IT workflow to standardize repetitive
tasks. Consera, a small
private company, is being acquired on undisclosed terms. The deal will close within 30 days.
HP
suggests that products like Novadigm and Consera offer an
environment where IT management is on “cruise control.”
IT staff still has access to manual control for non-standard
or one of a kind changes, but can manage standard changes in
automated ways. Novadigm
will make these changes, OpenView will monitor them, and Consera is
integrated with the monitoring tools to identify when changes need
to be made.
As
an example, Denzel chose the all too familiar case of a virus attack
on a SQL server and its enterprise-wide PC’s.
With Consera and Novadigm a service model would automatically
deploy patches, remove the virus, and update software where
required. Security and
reliability would be improved and costs lowered.
Novadigm
and Consera will be added to three companies previously acquired:
Select Access for identity management, Talking Blocks for web
services management, and Persist for information life cycle
management, all part of the Open View portfolio, contributing to the
HP Adaptive Enterprise.
HP’s
goal, said HP senior vice president for software and Adaptive
Enterprise Nora Denzel, is to provide unified management of the
complete IT environment. Denzel
noted that such management software is crucial to customers who want
to become more agile (HP’s messaging word for flexibility).
She added that at HP there are more than 500 IT changes
required each week, including pricing changes, hiring decisions, and
compliance with government regulations.
IDC
estimates that companies spend nearly $174 billion on ongoing
operations and management of their existing IT infrastructure; new
and better software will let IT and the demand for IT be
automatically managed at significantly lower cost.
HP
sees management software for IT as the next IT battleground, in a
game HP is planning to be a very important player.
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