InfoStor : HP merges storage automation technologies, November 2007 Page 1

By Kevin Komiega

November 29, 2007—Hewlett-Packard this week announced a complete reorganization and re-branding of its portfolio of data-center automation technologies and, in the process, disclosed its plans for merging its StorageEssentials storage resource management (SRM) software with the server, network, and storage automation products recently gained through the company's $1.6 billion acquisition of Opsware.

HP's new umbrella offering for IT automation is HP Automated Operations 1.0, an integrated set of products that automates IT operations across technology and organizational domains in the data center.

The Automated Operations 1.0 software suite comprises IT service management, business service management, and business service automation products from HP's own OpenView portfolio and technologies acquired from Peregrine Software, Mercury Interactive, and Opsware.

As part of the announcement, the company launched the Business Service Automation (BSA) software solution, which is billed as a single platform for automating IT processes across applications, servers, networks, storage, and clients.

The BSA software incorporates Opsware's automation software and HP's client and storage automation capabilities to provide a central configuration management database (CMDB) that serves as the nerve center for the software's reporting, auditing, and compliance features.

The software records and manages all configuration updates and change activity to infrastructure and applications for compliance purposes and works in conjunction with HP's Operations Orchestration software to create automated processes.

Products in the BSA portfolio that are now available include HP Server Automation 7.0, Network Automation 7.0, Operations Orchestration 7.0, Service Automation Visualizer 7.0, Service Automation Reporter 7.0, Live Network 7.0, and Application Storage Automation 1.0, which is bundled with Storage Essentials 6.0 to form HP's new Storage Automation solution.

The main aim of the software is to eliminate manual management tasks and to reduce the day-to-day costs associated with data-center management.

"We're bringing together all of our business service management, business service automation, and IT service management products under the umbrella of Automated Operations 1.0," says Helen Tang, director of software product marketing for HP. "We're tying together the end-to-end service lifecycle in a single, automated suite."

Tang says the first step in the integration process is to bundle StorageEssentials with Opsware technology under the BSA umbrella. In the future, StorageEssentials and Opsware's storage automation technology—now called HP Application Storage Automation 1.0—may be combined into a single product.

"We have begun the deep integration of StorageEssentials with the Opsware suite to provide server and application administrators a view into their storage environments," says Dean Snyder, HP's software marketing manager. "There will be further integration in this area in 2008."

Page 1 of 1