HP Links Business Processes And IT ManagementHP Links Business Processes And IT Management

Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday introduced products it says will automate the link between business processes and IT, allowing for resources to more effectively meet business priorities.

OpenView Automation Manager is designed to automatically optimize the configuration of services and applications to match predefined service levels, says Todd DeLaughter, VP and general manager of HP's management software organization. The software was introduced at HP's European Software Universe event in Madrid and will be available early next year.

HP created Automation Manager by combining technologies developed by HP Labs and Novadigm and Consera, two companies HP acquired earlier this year.

The product will solve two key IT-management problems, DeLaughter says. "How do you take the ton of information coming from different technology silos and pull that into meaningful, insightful, and useful information that you can act on?" he says. The software gathers all the information and then uses model-based or "business-triggered" automation, he says, such as peaks in order processing or increased use of E-mail, as well as business-process intelligence, to kick off an IT response. "We think this is unique in the industry in that most of the automation tools on the market today are using scripts and templates to do automation tasks and are not model-based," DeLaughter says.

HP also disclosed the release of OpenView Service Desk 5.0, which helps companies and service providers manage service levels from a customer-experience perspective, DeLaughter says. The software centralizes all IT-critical operations data in the Configuration Management Database, providing a synchronized and consistent method of improving service-quality levels.

HP and Cisco Systems also revealed an agreement this week in which Cisco will resell HP OpenView products along with the company's networking products. Beginning in the first quarter of next year, Cisco will offer HP's OpenView Network Node Manager, Smart Plug-in for IP Multicast, Route Analytics Management System, Performance Insight Report Pack for Cisco IP Telephony, Performance Insight Report Pack for Network Node Manager, and Telecom Management Information Platform.

"This gives our customers choice in pairing up the best in the market around networking equipment with the recognized leader in management solutions," DeLaughter says. The agreement will let Cisco offer the OpenView products as an alternative to its own management products or a combination of products from the two companies.