HP Steps Up Datacenter Automation

Hewlett-Packard announced the release of Automated Operations 1.0, an integrated set of products that automates IT operations across technology and organizational domains. HP has been on a buying spree for a while and added a lot of horsepower when it purchased Opsware earlier this year. The HP Automated Operations 1.0 software suite is composed of IT Service Management, Business Service Management, and Business Service Automation solutions (HP OpenView, Peregrine, Mercury, and Opsware).

If HP can deliver on the promise of the technology, it will have a real leg up over competitors. We have reviewed the Opsware/PAS (formerly iConclude) in our labs and found it had a lot of compelling capabilities around IT process automation. With Opsware's other SAS and NAS products for network and servers, HP is one of the few large enterprise software vendors that has this complete solution without using external partners.

While HP may have a tougher time with CMDB competing with BMC's Remedy/Atrium powerhouse, IBM's Tivoli/Netcool for network event management, and CA's application prowess, it is definitely putting all of the pieces together for customers.