BMCpositions itself firmly in the BSM (business systems
management) sector - partly because the company invented the
term.
Five years ago, BMC strategists decided there was a fundamental
flaw with all systems management companies, according to Peter
Armstrong, BMC's corporate strategist.
"Everyone was measuring everything to do with IT functions,
without ever tying that up with business processes. We set out to
make IT run as a business function. So our rationale is to measure
the business services we want to run," says Armstrong. BMC
christened this business service management, he says.
BMC has a large range of products that tie in classic systems
management with this new aim to ensure that IT assets and resources
are used from a business perspective, confirms Roy Illsley, senior
research analyst at the
Butler Group.
A good BSM solution hinges on a
configuration management database (CMDB), and BMC is well
served in this area, says the analyst, with its CMDB product the
BMC Atrium.
Unlike others, BMC does not use the CMDB as a tie-in to its
other products, so end users may use BMC Atrium CMDB without being
committed to BMC's other applications, which is a show of faith.
Atrium CMDB is available as a stand-alone version through BMC
Atrium CMDB Enterprise Manager. But it can provide an enterprise
integration engine (EIE) for integrating into the CMDB, as well as
a definitive software library (DSL).
This stand-alone version includes Atrium CMDB and is capable of
reconciliation, federation, data modelling, and integration. The
EIE simplifies the mapping of external data sources to the CMDB by
providing graphical mappings directly to BMC Atrium CMDB Common
Data Model. The DSL can organise and standardise applications too.
This makes deployments more precise and means more accurate
information is gathered.
BSM only realises its full value if it reaches across the entire
organisation. This calls for BMC's Workflows application, which
co-ordinates cross-IT processes, automates and provides a panoramic
view of the entire infrastructure, no matter how diverse it is. It
delivers new IT services quicker and more accurately by using
policy-based configuration automation, confirms Illsley.
BMC Workflows allows infrastructure problems to be found and
fixed quickly, says the analyst, which is a boon to cost reduction
in management systems. "BMC achieves this," says Illsley, "by
cutting configuration, support, and compliance costs for the full
range of client devices."
In systems management,
service level agreements (SLAs) - be they on bandwidth or web
server - are always closely scrutinised now. This is another of
BMC's strengths. It can define so they can be supported by the IT
function, instead of being some unrealistic pinnacle of excellence.
If SLAs could just be more pragmatic and less likely to cause
management contention.
With Workflows built on an open architecture, it has a shared
data repository, unified service model, and common user and
reporting interfaces. This helps Atrium give cross-IT process
integration and a single view of the services the IT department
provides.
Though the product set is valid in any environment, it's
especially strong in an
ITIL (information technology infrastructure library) context.
Especially with ITIL V3, which cites CMDB as a federated database,
where version two of ITIL described it more ambiguously.
BMC's strategy is to have a range of individual products that
can be implemented independently or configured as functionally
related groups to solve a specific problem.
"The extensive BMC tools and solutions come from a strong
background of systems management," says Butler Group's Illsley.
"They extended a strong business focus to the management,
understanding, and use of the IT function and infrastructure."
Another selling point of BMC's systems management offering is
its support and training around ITIL. As ITIL becomes the de facto
framework for good systems management (according to analysts at IDC
and Butler) it becomes the foundation of strong organisation.
"ITIL was getting leverage," explained BMC strategist Armstrong.
"Customers were all adopting it. So we decided to make BSM the
practical embodiment of ITIL and rode the wave of systems
management."
As rationalisation of companies becomes the imperative, so will
ITIL, and so, by implication will BMC's CMDB Atrium.
The challenges now, says Armstrong, are to get businesses to
explain what they actually want, decide how much they can spend,
and work out how much their IT has actually cost them. The chronic
inefficiency of many data centres is proof that systems management
- generally - hasn't been up to this challenge. If BMC can achieve
this, it could make significant gains.
VITAL STATISTICS
Main products: Atrium CMDB Atrium CMDB
Enterprise Manager. Atrium CMDB Common Data Model, BMC Mainframe
Service Management BMC Patrol
Major customers: Group Danone, Diageo, Met
Office, NHS Trust
Market share: 15 per cent
Annual revenue (to June 2008): $1.78 bn
Number of staff: 5,800
Licence fee: Not disclosed
Butler Group Financial Rating: 6.08