Hewlett-Packard took a step toward making its "adaptive
enterprise management" vision a reality, but users were left with
little doubt that it would take years for the strategy to fulfil
its promise of reducing IT complexity and costs.
At the HP Software Forum in Chicago last week, the company unveiled
more than 30 products and upgrades in its OpenView systems
management software line, and made assurances that the products
will bring IT shops closer to an infrastructure that can change
with business needs and even heal itself.
However, attendees admitted they were not holding their breath.
"It's obvious that we're going to get clear [systems] event
management, but it's not happening today," said Steven Yee,
director of channel development at Voyence, an OpenView integrator
in Texas. "There is still no silver bullet."
Others believed their companies would take some convincing that
the products would reduce costs
Many of the product releases, such as OpenView Network Node
Manager (NNM) 7.0, were demonstrated at the event, but will not
start shipping until 30 September.
Nora Denzel, senior vice president and general manager of HP's
Global Software business unit, said in her keynote speech that
adaptive management will provide the ability to "automate IT
infrastructure to adapt to any business decision". Adaptable and
self-healing networks will, eventually, free IT workers from
maintenance and let them take on higher-level strategist and
developer roles instead, she added.
Analysts agreed that the ultimate promise of adaptive management
is still years away.
"[HP has] shown us a high-level view of a [yet-to-be] fully
implemented strategy for leveraging IT resources in a virtualised
business environment," said Tim Grieser, an analyst at IDC.
But Grieser noted that HP has already signed dozens of large
customers for its Utility Data Center product, which he called the
closest thing to a fully implemented adaptive management
system.
"Obviously we aren't there, but we're closer. And this is more
achievable than you think," said Laura Koetzle, an analyst at
Forrester Research.
Still, Koetzle predicted that it would be 10 to 15 years before
such software satisfied business and IT managers alike.
Matt Hamblen writes for Computerworld