BMC and Hewlett-Packard, two key software management
tools suppliers, are upgrading their applications to provide more
automation and help organisations to align business with
IT.
BMC will flesh out its business service management strategy with
major updates to its Marimba and Remedy products at the end of the
year.
Business service management is the company's eight-point approach
to helping IT directors align business with IT. The strategy is
designed to provide proactive service management, predict IT
problems, automate fixes and prioritise IT resources.
BMC said it would take a major step towards business service
management with the introduction of a configuration management
database in December, part of a new version of BMC Service Impact
Manager.
The configuration management database will integrate with two newly
available tools, Marimba Configuration Discovery and Discovery
Express, to support automatic installation of patches and
software.
Jim Grant, vice-president and general manager at BMC, said the
database would allow Marimba to find the configuration of computers
on a network, and roll out patches and software to target machines
based on a predetermined IT policy.
The software includes what Grant described as topology discover,
which he claimed would be able to build a model of how system
components, such as a database, relate.
"This model can then be used by Marimba to target patches and
software updates," he said.
An update to Remedy provides workflow, which is used to prioritise
how the software or patch is rolled out.
Analyst group Ptak, Noel & Associates said an existing Remedy
user could implement the policy-based configuration automation
component to automate an existing process. Alternatively, a Patrol
user may focus first on rolling out the discovery engine to improve
problem resolution times.
HP has also improved the automation in its Openview Change and
Configuration Management software product.
The upgrade offers additional PC client management tools, better
administration and improved reporting capabilities, said HP. It
added that this will enable better business and IT decision-making,
with automation that takes action quickly on those decisions.
HP Openview can automate the change and configuration management of
software across any computing device and platform, according to the
company.
"Change in business takes many forms, and the most successful
companies today rely on their IT systems to adapt quickly to
changing business requirements," said John Schneider,
vice-president and general manager of HP's technology solutions
group.
HP added change and configuration management to Openview after it
bought Novadigm in April.
In August, rival software firm Computer Associates released
Unicenter Desktop DNA r4.7, its product for managing PC data,
system settings and application settings and configurations.
Coping with all business eventualities
Change and configuration management software is designed to
close the gap between the changing needs of a business and the
reality of the typical IT environment by solving a number of
problems.
- According to Jasmine Noel at Ptak, Noel & Associates, it
meets several challenges:
- A lack of standardised processes and change implementation best
practices across locations and various layers of the
infrastructure
- A lack of centralised and standardised configuration management
practices that continually detect and enforce a desired state in
the IT environment l Manually executed client and server software
upgrades and security patches that frequently fall outside the
change and release process. Change and configuration management
software accelerates the implementation of business service
management applications for an organisation.