January, 2008

Jan 31 2008   5:04PM GMT

Month in Review - January 2008

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, Application monitoring, CMDB, IT Process Automation, ITIL, RBA, Run Book Automation, OSS, Virtualization

Thanks for all your feedback and insights during this months postings. Keep them coming!

Development of Data Center Automation Blueprint (DCAB)

• Digging into the DCAB’s functional areas:  Configuration & Change - provisioning, patching, deployment, auditing, etc.
• Digging into the DCAB’s functional areas:  Security & Protection - variety of proactive & reactive approaches
• Digging into the DCAB’s functional areas: Process Orchestration - automation across silos
• What are the most desired features in IT Process Orchestration (e.g., RBA) - discussion on key features
• Digging into the DCAB’s functional areas:  Resource Reconciliation - CMDB, Asset Mgmt, etc.

Discussions beyond the DCAB functional areas

• Came across a great BSM blog series in process - the quest for the ultimate heads-up display for CxO’s
• Will virtualization end world hunger, bring down gas prices? - no, but it is important for the world of DCA.

Overall DCA Trends and Observations

• Data Center Automation 2008 perspectives - discussion on some year end and looking ahead topics.
• Cisco & BMC?  Why IT fears ITIL? - pondering a couple articles I read after the holidays brought these topics up.
• Innovations and evolutions in Performance Management - discussions about performance management beyond reporting

Current events in DCA

• Quick Monday Summary of events from last week/weekend -  Some current events around Open Source and APM
• Couple recent notes on CMDB, aka Resource Reconciliation - other write-ups and some awards in the category

Keep the feedback and conversations flowing.  As I’ve mentioned before I just enjoy learning and talking about the innovation occurring in DCA…I’m really hoping and attempting to facilitate dialog from vendors and customers alike on various topics.  So don’t be shy, create an ID and leave some thoughts/comments!

Jan 30 2008   10:41PM GMT

Will virtualization end world hunger, bring down gas prices…?

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, Virtualization

Well, the short answer is no.  BUT, I do believe virtualization is the key to the possibility of a “lights out data center”.

I know what I’m about to say is going to be a gross oversimplification, but the point I’m trying to make here is all the hype and buzz is justified!

Once you have your data center equipped and architected with the necessary virtualization capable infrastructure (e.g.,physical hardware, interfaces, cables, power, HVAC) you are on your way through the power of virtualization!

Five basic steps (I know, very oversimplified):

1. Determine how much infrastructure capacity you need
2. Review what you can re-use and what new infrastructure you will need to purchase.
3. Select your virtualization providers
4. Deploy this abstraction layer
5. Make sure you have all the necessary management/automation products you need.

From one location now you should be able to completely manage the data center without anyone stepping foot onsite.  Well almost…

The only times you will need to do something manually in the data center (aka have a human switch on the lights) will be when infrstructure fails, you need more capacity or you want to swap out newer/more efficient “green” infrastructure.

That means anytime you want to:

• Install/Update/Configure an application - “check”
• Check Backup/Restore anything - “check”
• Allocate bandwidth - “check”
• Direct traffic flow - “check”
• this list goes on…all from the comfort on your laptop.

Now for smaller companies, don’t fret - I honestly believe we are coming upon a time where you can outsource your entire IT through going to a web page and selecting what you need from the catalog (think building a Dell computer but now for your entire IT).  The provider in turn will ask you for key deliverables (e.g., your internally developed applictions, list of users for all necessary productivity tools, where to send the employee computer/laptop).  On the back side they have the infrastructure and software supply chain where the laptop magically shows up and everything works.

Now the tough part is within all this virtualization hype there are a variety of approaches or technologies an enterprise can take/use.  How do we make sense of all this?  That’s where we will pick up next time…

Flame on if you wish…but my personal view is very optimistic once we get through all this yelling (aka buzz & hype) on who/which/what technologies and approaches are best.

Jan 25 2008   9:00AM GMT

Couple recent notes on CMDB, aka Resource Reconciliation

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, CMDB, Opalis, Scalent, Symantec, BMC, NetIQ, CA

Another great post by Glenn O’Donnell; CMDB is the new integration mechanism. I’m looking forward to seeing his forthcoming book on the same topic!

2007 TechTarget Products of the Year - Data Center include (categories by DCAB functional categories):

Resource Reconciliation (category combined with Configuration & Change) solutions from CA, BMC and Scalent

A couple other categories that map to the DCAB are;

Process Orchestration solutions from Symantec, Opalis and CA

Performance & Capacity solutions from NetIQ, BalancePoint and CiRBA

I find the CiRBA solution very intriguing after my read and post on Innovations in Performance Management yesterday.

Jan 24 2008   3:11PM GMT

Innovations and evolutions in Performance Managment

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Integrien, Netuitive, BMC, NetQoS

Great write-up by Glenn on the innovation occurring in Performance Management; Get Innovative About Performance.  He has tremendous perspective and I’m excited to sees his candid perspective back now that he has departed EMC.  Great job Glenn, keep it up!

A well articulated summary of entire post from my perspective is this statement:  “Analysis has proven effective for fault management (evaluation of up/down conditions), but performance is a different animal. Whereas fault management deals with binary conditions of black and white, performance involves the full pallet of colors and shades of gray. Of course, dealing in colors is much more difficult than black and white, but help is now here.”

If your a vendor or enterprise doing something innovative, beyond reporting, in Performance Management please throw down some details in the comments section sharing the company, capability and benefits for other (including myself) to check out.

BTW, my conversation thread on virtualization I’ve put on hold for a week or two.  I’m still pulling together some research and thoughts.  In the meanwhile, a great resource I’ve come across for learning and tracking the world of virtualization is Virtualization.info. 

Jan 21 2008   1:43PM GMT

Quick Monday Summary of events from late last week/weekend

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Compuware, Symantec, BMC, Quest Software, NetIQ, Indicative, NetQoS, NetScout

 Symantec to sell off Application Performance Monitoring group.  Looks like Precise Software is back and the Symantec Data Center group will focus in on the configuration and change management side of things.

BarcampESM took place over the weekend.  Here are some materials to take a look at.  BSM by Doug,  Discussions around open software and open standards, the desire for an “open agent” .  From this point forward keep track of things via the Open Management Consortium discussions.

Application Performance Management(APM) rolling review continues at InformationWeek - recently highlighted, ProactiveNet (recently acquired by BMC).  Previous reviews include Quest Software Foglight (Dec 2007), Network General (Nov 2007), Nimsoft Nimbus (Oct 2007), Compuware Vantage (Oct 2007), NetIQ AppManager (Sept 2007), NetQoS SuperAgent (Sept 2007),  Indicative (Aug 2007).  As you can see this is a very congested space, pardon the pun, but it is sized to be over $2B in size by Forrester.

Now that we’ve run through the entire 6 functional areas of the Data Center Automation Blueprint we plant to discuss the impact of virtualization over the next couple posts.  Thanks in advance to those I’ve been talking with and their perspectives on this topic.

Jan 18 2008   4:14PM GMT

Digging into the DCAB’s 6 functional areas: Resource Reconciliation

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, CMDB, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, ITIL, Symantec, BMC, EMC

 The second up and coming area goes by many names these days.  Some call it next-generation asset management, many others call it CMDB.

I’m calling it resource reconciliation as I would like to see it extend beyond a discovery engine, IT asset database, dependency mapping and the necessary graphical topology and reports.  I also believe that these tools not only should communicate directly with the infrastructure outlined in the Data Center Automation Blueprint (DCAB) - but also synchronize and provide reconciliation capabilities with the 5 other DCAB functions.

What I’m saying is I want to make sure that all my other functional products always are 100% accurate to what my IT infrastructure contains.  There is no reason my performance & capacity products don’t know about a specific IT resource.  Nor, do I want multiple discovery engines combing my infrastructure setting off false alarms in my security products or requiring me to open additional communication avenues making the infrastructure less secure.

Here are a list of the vendors I know of, this space saw some major consolidation during  2006.

BMC
CA (Cendura acquisition)
EMC (nLayers acquisition)
HP (Opsware acquisition)
IBM (Collation acquisition)
Symantec (Relicore acquisition)
Tideway

Another area I’m researching and pondering inclusion in this category are service catalogs (e.g. NewScale)  Any thoughts or opinions on how they compare to the players/products  above?

Jan 17 2008   7:14PM GMT

What are the most desired features in IT Process Orchestration (e.g. RBA)?

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, Enigmatec, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, IT Process Automation, Opalis, Optinuity, RBA, RealOps, Run Book Automation, Stratavia, BMC, LANDesk, NetIQ, OpTier, Scapa Technologies

Alright, looking for feedback on this one. After talking about the players in the IT Process Orchestration space, I’m wondering what are the primary capabilities people are looking for?

Here are my top five, please feel free to throw down yours in the comments below:

1. Drag/Drop graphical interface for designing process workflows
2. Common, normalized Data Model of common/primary attributes
3. Library of pre-defined, re-usable actions/triggers/processes for usage out-of-the-box (bigger the better - even a community that shares is a plus)
4. Policy/Desired-state engine driving things
5. Sandbox, simulator to help test workflows without impacting actual resources/instances within the production enterprise.

Beyond these five core capabilities, depending on the processes you wish to automate you need to verify what interaction/communications protocols are supported (e.g., SNMP, WMI, JMX, ODBC, Telnet/SSH/FTP to CLI, XML/Web Services). Make sure they have what you need to communicate with.

Of course, it also goes without saying (just like with any commercial product) table stakes require RBAC security, reporting, logging, appropriate hardware/software requirements.

Bottom line, I guarantee if your a medium to large enterprise you have current manual processes that these products can automate for you! Reducing errors due to the mundane nature of that task, freeing up people currently doing the task for other projects or tasks and also the intangible benefit of it’s simply faster which provides better customer service depending on the process that is automated. Make this a priority in 2008 and get one of these vendors in there to help out!

Disclosure: I have no relationships with any of the vendors in this space. The comments are all made based on my personal experiences and perspectives.

Jan 14 2008   8:42PM GMT

Digging into the DCAB 6’s functional areas: Process Orchestration

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, IT Process Automation, Opalis, Optinuity, RBA, Run Book Automation, Stratavia, BMC, NetIQ, OpTier, Scapa Technologies, LANDesk, Enigmatec, GridApp Systems

Alright, back on track with our review of the 6 functional DCAB areas. We are now onto the hottest, fastest growth areas! First up, Process Orchestration or what Gartner has coined as Run Book Automation?

These products offer the ability to define, build, orchestrate, manage, monitor and report on workflows that automate specific IT intra or inter domain processes (intra = between different products for the Windows Server team or inter = between the application and network team). There are a ton of case studies and examples on most the players websites.

A couple quick examples to get a flavor include:

A monitoring product identifies a specific condition (e.g., an outage), it then checks a configuration auditing product to see if a recent change was performed for that system.

A configuration auditing product monitoring if a device is in or out of compliance notices an situation and then automatically opens a trouble ticket. Later, it notices again the situation has been resolved and it adds the appropriate details to the ticket and automatically closes it out.

Here are the companies I know about (as always, in alphabetical order)

BMC (formerly RealOps)
Enigmatec
GridApp
HP (formerly Opsware, formerly iConclude)
IBM (formerly ThinkDynamics)
LANDesk (Process Manager product)
NetIQ (Aegis product)
OpTier
Opalis
Optinuity
Scapa Technologies
Stratavia
UC4 Software
xTigo

As always, who am I missing. What are the opinions out there from users or evaluators for each platform (please chime in down in the comments section). I have personal product exposure and experience with only BMC, Stratavia. Some of the key features that I learned from those products included the value of having a normalized, common data model and “action” abstraction capabilities so you re-use previous process actions in new workflows.

Here are a couple good reviews and write-ups for further reading if desired.

Data Center Manager Primed for IT Process Automation
IT Process Automaton Overview and review of some players

Jan 10 2008   6:12PM GMT

Came across a great BSM blog series in process

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Firescope

During the holidays I came across this great blog by Mark Lynd over at Firescope here in Dallas, currently at part 3 in what should eventually be a 6 part series on BSM.  Since it’s on the same path and talks concepts/ideals for IT Management it provides insights around capabilities that also apply to automating your data center through software.  I’ve subscribed now and look forward to reading the next 3 parts.  Here are the first three parts.

Part 3 - History of BSM - great little run down of ITSM, ITIL, BS15000 and MOF and how it leads into the current state of BSM.

Part 2 - Intro to BSM Fundamental -  define the goal of BSM and five supporting points involved with accomplishing that goal.  The goal as defined by Mark is “…To Manage IT investments in alignment with business priorities in order to create competitive advantage.”

Part 1 - Defining BSM

Jan 9 2008   7:06PM GMT

Cisco and BMC? Why IT fears ITIL?

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, BladeLogic, CMDB, ITIL, BMC, Cisco

Here are a couple more reads as I play catch-up from the holidays. First up, ITIL then some thoughts around a recent interview with John Chambers at Cisco.

10 Reasons why ITIL spooks IT managers, originally written back in October by NetworkWorld, it was noted by another blog I read so I checked it out. One more I would like to add making it 11 is around challenges with “organizational stability”. Companies evolve to fast - i know sounds odd (e.g. reorganizations), technologies keep offering new approaches or benefits (e.g., virtualization), M&A activity that requires trying to blend two different organization and the technical and political challenges that offers Bottom line, there are just way to many things conspiring against something so all-inclusive from the top-down that takes years and years and year to accomplish. It touches ever part of the business and it’s snot elf-contained or focused like deploying a new financial application. Now I’m not saying ITIL isn’t useful, for example CMDB (e.g., configuration management) is something all large enterprises should have in my eyes. The amount of savings could/would be immense around effective utilization of resources, reducing redundancies, keeping every thing/one on the same page and the list goes on (more on that when we talk resource reconciliation next week).

Cisco’s John Chambers interview with Paul Musich titled “Cisco Charts New Course” was an enjoyable read as you attempt to read in between the lines and ponder Cisco’s strategy.

My personal thoughts from this center around Cisco’s push into collaborative applications being about driving bandwidth intensive applications to sell more/protect current investments companies have made in network plumbing (everything but servers, storage, desktops) while trying to find a bigger piece of the IT pie. They have to be careful not to upset the apple cart as they wish to bite off more of that IT budget pie. Since applications aren’t core to the main players that channel/sell (e.g., HP, IBM, EMC, Microsoft) their current cash cow products this ensures only light co-opetition today versus hard head-to-head competition. To date their application choices have been very calculated around unified communications and collaboration, not generalized. So with that said I’m not so sure they are about to just yet take that big jump and go after a more general application strategy (e.g., BEA). I think they have some maturing plans here which include finding a way to more efficiently manage applications, then maybe later in 2008 or early 2009 watch for that next step down the stack from actual applications to enabling the development of applications. I started pondering this back in December where I started making the case for Cisco acquiring BMC. With that said, if they do “go large” in IT management and grab BMC instead of someone like BladeLogic then scrap my thought on them doing the BEA thing.