Dec 14 2007   4:50PM GMT

Recent activities in Configuration Management, tis’ the season of webinars

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, Alterpoint, BladeLogic, mValent, Solidcore, Ecora, Configuresoft, BMC, CA, EMC, NCCM, Network configuration

December is a time when things typically “slow” down for the holidays.  Many data centers are under a freeze where no major changes can occur (or should occur), etc.  So I guess it’s a great time to do a little research for next year.  Bring on the webinars which many vendors seem to be offering up this time of year:

BladeLogic had a very successful webinar, over 400 people, where real customers talked about real benefits of configuration management automation for their data center.  The press releases on the survey results & the webinar sound like a infomercial (which it should be since it’s marketing).  I was hoping to take a watch but their archived link doesn’t allow me to register and watch.  I enter my registration information and it says the event is full.  Oh well, another time.

ConfigureSoft also had a webinar, more process centric (PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT: Closing the Loop on Change), but it’s archived and I was able to check that one out.

 Tripwire, not wanting to be outdone, had 4 differerent webinars recently.  The one I checked out was The Five A’s of a Healthy Data Center.  Where their focus was around the 5 step process of monitoring your configurations in the data center (Assessing, Assuring, Auditing, Achieving, Automating)

Ecora back on the 11th had a webinar around surviving audits through monitoring your configurations.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it archived anywhere to check it out.

Solidcore didn’t have a new webinar to offer but did put out a press release highlighting how they can help with the upcoming PCI deadline on December 31st with monitoring configurations.

mValent, who focuses on very the specific challenges of application/middleware configuration management, had a very interesting press release with some hard ROI numbers;

• The average application migration project takes 20+ man-weeks with an average labor cost of just over $72,000.
• Total IT direct-headcount costs associated with application migration initiatives range from $500K to $800K.

AlterPoint, focused on the network side of the data center, announced their analytics solution can now extend/compliment a customers previous investment in CiscoWorks (if they are a predominately Cisco networked Data Center) without requiring replacement.

I also looked to see if their was anything new from HP (Opsware), EMC (Voyence), BMC, IBM, CA but didn’t see anything specific.  And I recently talked about configuration vendors that are focused on virtualization so I didn’t rehash that.

I know I must have overlooked some vendor(s) out there, throw your information in the comments section (if your the vendor) or if your an enterprise using another product please tell us who your using and what you think.  I’ll take a look and update the post if appropriate.