BladeLogic

Feb 27 2009   4:07AM GMT

AlterPoint: The End of An Era

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
SolarWinds, NCCM, BladeLogic, BMC, CA, IBM Tivoli, EMC, HP Software

Well AlterPoint has found a home.  The last of the early/original NCCM (Network Configuration & Change Management) vendors, focused on Enterprise, has been acquired.  Others have come along in the later days, but AlterPoint, Rendition and Voyence (formerly PowerUp Networks) are now all part of another organization.  Rendition is part of HP Software via the Opsware acquisition, Voyence is part of EMC, and Emprisa is part of BMC.  IBM & CA decided they had a close enough solution through their Micromuse & Aprisma acquisitions respectively.  An adventure for these companies that started back in 2001ish now sees all of them part of a more holistic solutions.

In the end for my favorite of the bunch, AlterPoint (yes, i’m biased), the end wasn’t what the team along the way had in mind.  It’s great to see a home for the software that can continue to take care of some of our great customers including household names like Citigroup, Microsoft, E-Trade, Yahoo, Hertz and many others.  The acquisition to me personally brought closure but also reminded me of the great team and journey that I personally had the experience to be part of.  I spent about 4 years at AlterPoint and worked with some really great people that were amazing at what they do.  A number of those strong players these days are over at another great company in Austin that many people reading this blog may know called Solarwinds.  Others found themselves helping other network and systems management companies in Austin and beyond.  It was a great ride (at times) and in retrospect I miss those days and those experiences and hope again some day to get to work with one or more of them.  Alright, enough of that sentimental, memories type stuff.

NCCM was a great play that in my retrospective perspective was like what Firefox has done versus Microsoft.  It provided a real challenge to an established vendor that had fallen asleep at the wheel.  What do I mean by this?  Cisco and it’s CiscoWorks product line, since they own pretty much all the networking hardware market, was the incumbant.  The software was really struggling to solve the problems of it’s customers and simply wasn’t a priority to them.  Along came the NCCM vendors and soon enough that all changed.  Cisco after a few years of seeing NCCM success and hearing it from their customers, really started putting significant efforts back into their software products that competed against the NCCM vendors…they even embraced one of them and did an OEM deal with Rendition after evaluating all of us.  They learned from that and in the end they are the ones who stand most victorious from my perspective.  I think either directly or indirectly or however you want to look at it they learned more about the value of management software and it’s affect on hardware and sales in general.  From that I’m sure we will see in the upcoming month some loosely associated results when the announce their “California” Blade Server and explain more about their relationship with BMC (a.k.a. BladeLogic, RealOps, Emprisa).  This is destined to help spark and shake up the Data Center Automation market and even more the Data Center itself.  This is going to be interesting!

So one last hats off to the NCCM vendors, a final salute to AlterPoint and to all those who put in their blood, sweat and tears helping build NCCM.

RS

some news coverage links around the AlterPoint acquisition:

NetworkWorld:  Versata Enterprises acquires AlterPoint

Austin Statesman:  AlterPoint acquired by Versata

Mar 17 2008   1:22PM GMT

BMC makes the big move, buys BladeLogic for $800M

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
BMC, EMC, CA, IBM Tivoli, HP Software, BladeLogic, RealOps

So BMC is the one, not IBM or EMC that decides to piece it all together.  Responding to HP acquiring Opsware (July ‘07); BMC, in less then a year, has acquired RealOps (July ‘07), Emprisa (Oct ‘07) and now BladeLogic pulling together the critical components for their DCA strategy that all tie in nicely with Remedy, Atrium etc.  Very impressive!  They have most the pieces, now it’s about execution on the vision/strategy.

So HP & BMC have acquired the major pieces, IBM has many of the pieces too, but some are showing their age versus the newer products that were acquired by their competitors.  CA has been the quietest of all players, so I would expect for them to make some moves to shore things up ASAP (but most likely at this point having to pay premiums based on previous CCM valuations).  Meanwhile, EMC has been methodically building themselves up in the hope to make a run at knocking off one of the big 4 in IT Infrastructure Management, but they still have some serious work based on the recent moves of some of the current big 4.

Data Center Automation is about to hit the major growth curve now that multiple big guys have strong portfolio’s in the game.  As predicted, 2008 is going to be hot for Data Center Automation!

Mar 11 2008   1:27PM GMT

EMC adds Service Desk to Data Center Management portfolio

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Performance management, Symantec, BMC, EMC, NetIQ, HP Software, BladeLogic, NetQoS, Xangati, Packet Design, DCAB

EMC made a move yesterday that continued to show their intent and desire to compete against the Big 4 in IT Infrastructure Management (e.g., BMC, CA, HP, IBM).  All those other players have their own Service Desk offering, so it was time to join those ranks.

Infra Corporation, was acquired by EMC’s Resource Management Software Business Unit for undisclosed financial terms.

Combined with their previous acquisitions:

SMARTS - Availability & Performance Management - Q1 2005
nLayers -  IT  Resource Reconciliation (e.g., CMDB) - Q3 2006
Voyence - Configuration & Change Management (for Network Devices) - Q4 2007

This acquisition shows a slowly increasing pace of their acquisitions (within the software group).  With that being said, looking at their portfolio, I would be surprised if we don’t see another one or maybe even two (depending on the size) before the year is out.  Areas they could benefit from (aka we could see) would be Configuration & Change Management (for Systems/Applications) or a move to strengthen their Availability & Performance Management offering; specifically more application performance centric.

On the CCM front there are numerous virtual & physical system configuration vendors sprouting up these days, versus before the primary game in town was BladeLogic (or Opsware before HP acquired them).  Meanwhile, on the Performance Management front they have a variety of options that could include grabbing a smaller application performance appliance vendor (e.g., Mazu, Xangati, Packet Design)  or something bigger like maybe a NetQoS.  Or even bigger and more interesting (but convoluted) could be buying out NetIQ who continues to innovate within Attachemate (e.g., Aegis product) or the artist formerly known as Precise Software (and now again known by the same name after Symantec spun them back out).  Probably long shots but just thoughts to ponder as the EMC Resource Management Software portfolio could use portfolio expansion in either or both functional areas of the DCAB.

Bottom line from my outsiders perspective is EMC is one or two moves away from changing conversations from the big 4 to maybe the big 5.

Feb 1 2008   8:04AM GMT

BladeLogic announces Q1 results

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
HP Software, BladeLogic

BladeLogic announced decent quarterly results Thursday of $21.5M revenue spanning 73 customers with a nice growth mix of 32% coming from deals outside the US.  They also noted increased operational costs resulting in a negative balance sheet.  I would expect some of this is coming from increases competition beyond Opsware (now HP) as the market continues to heat up and draw attention from the influx of virtualization management vendors and vendors that historically were more security focused are now diverting more attention to DCA based on recent valuations (e.g., Blade’s IPO and HP acquisition of Opsware).

A crossroad may be upon us where we may finally see a move by BladeLogic to allow itself to be purchased (valuation is now down under $500M vs. expected annual revenues of $90M) or they will decide to increase their breadth and go it alone (aka acquire someone) for now.  At this point with all the competitive pressure I would expect to see one of these two things happen in the next 6 months.  Performing a smart acquisition based on what their current customers are asking for could also provide a nice infusion of energy and buzz that could drive them to break through the $100M revenue ceiling this fiscal year.

As always, this is simply my opinion and perspective based on public information and customer trends.  If you don’t agree, go ahead and let me know below in the comments, if you do then please share your insights as well.

Jan 9 2008   7:06PM GMT

Cisco and BMC? Why IT fears ITIL?

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

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.

Jan 2 2008   11:10PM GMT

Digging into the DCAB 6’s functional areas: Configuration and Change

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
BMC, EMC, Configuresoft, Ecora, DataCenter, CA, IBM Tivoli, HP Software, BladeLogic, Cassatt, Scalent, Solidcore, mValent

There seem to be two key components or approaches to this functional area. Some vendors are focused on auditing & monitoring the configuration/state of a device while others are focused on that and the provisioning/deployment of configuration/software to a device. Typically, the vendors going across data center technology categories are audit-centric.

Vendors doing both Deployment & Auditing (listed alphabetical)

• AlterPoint (for network devices)
• BladeLogic (for appilcations, servers)
• BMC (for applications, servers with Marimba acquisition and networks with Emprisa acquisition)
• CA (for systems)
• Cassatt (for systems, applications, networks
• Cisco (for network devices)
• ConfigureSoft (for applications, servers)
• Ecora (for servers, applications)
• EMC (for network with Voyence acquisition, for storage with ControlCenter)
• HP (former Opsware for applications, servers, networks, storage)
• IBM Tivoli (for applications, servers)
• mValent (for applications)
• Phurnace (for applications)
• Scalent Systems (for servers, applications)
• Symantec (for servers, applications with Jareva, Altiris and storage with CommandCenter)

Vendors focused on Auditing

• Solidcore (for servers, databases, networks)
• Tripwire (for servers, databases, networks)

Vendors that do both primarily for desktop’s which extends to provide some server configuration and change capabilities for the data center

• Avocent (from Landesk acquisition)
• Lumension (former Patchlink)
• Microsoft (former SMS product)

Just as with my previous post on Performance & Capacity I’m not done with this one. I started going through the laundry list of vendors in the “virtualization” space but simply ran out of my allocated time for today. So I’ll pick back up on it at a later time

Dec 14 2007   4:50PM GMT

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

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

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. 

Dec 7 2007   6:52PM GMT

Data Center Virtualization Automation/Management is becoming very, very congested

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Microsoft Windows, Symantec, Virtualization, BMC, DataCenter, InfoVista, IBM Tivoli, HP Software, Quest Software, BladeLogic, Stratavia, Cassatt, PlateSpin, Veeam, Vizioncore, Netuitive

I just saw this snippet from the 451 consulting group and WOW!  In December 2006 they were covering 6 players in the Virtualization Management arena, now their are over 60!

I have some reading to do it seems.  I don’t have the $$$ to pay for the 170 page report but will take the time to go review the website and read articles about many of these vendors then report back what I learn here on this blog.  Reading through the below list I recognize a number of them…but some are names i’ve never even heard of to this point.  My quick notes are mentioned next to the company name…kind of like the word association game “what is the first thing you think of when I say…”

The companies listed by the report that have a virtualization management play include;

3Leaf Systems - who?
Acronis - who?
Akorri - who?
Availigent - who?
Avocent - the ones who acquired LANdesk
BladeLogic - major player in DCA systems/application automation
Blue Lane Technologies - virtual patching appliance
BMC Software - one of the big 4 has something, not sure how deep or what
CA - one of the big 4 has something, not sure how deep or what
Cassatt - virtualization pure play with “green” positioning
Catbird - who?
CiRBA - monitoring product to help with cserver onsolidation efforts
Cisco Systems - big guy with their ambitious Data Center 3.0 initiative
Citrix Systems - acquired XenSource post VMware IPO
CohesiveFT - who?
CollabNet - who?
Configuresoft - big but still growing systems & security mgmt player
Desktone - who?
DeviceVM - who?
Egenera - who?
eG Innovations - who?
Embotics - who?
Enigmatec - who?
Enomaly - who?
FastScale - who?
Hewlett-Packard - major player/move with Opsware acquisition
Hyperic - who?
IBM - one of the big 4 has something, not sure how deep or what
illumita - who?
InfoVista - not sure what they have in virtualization, maybe a performance monitoring for some virtual servers?
InovaWave - who?
Leostream - who?
Marathon Technologies - who?
Mendocino Software - who?
Microsoft - guerilla, who will have an impact in this space!
Netuitive - automated performance threshold monitoring, i assume they must do this for virtual servers to be included here.
Network Appliance - not sure
Nimsoft - application monitoring, been on my todo list to read more on them.
Novell - big guy, has some play here - not sure what
Onaro - who?
Pano Logic - who?
PlateSpin - known virtualization automation player i’ve talked about previously
Platform Computing - who?
Quest Software - database, application monitoring
Qumranet - who?
Red Hat - linux
Reflex Security - who?
RingCube - who?
Scalent Systems - known virtualization player with recent major OEM announcements
ScienceLogic - who?
SteelEye Technology - who?
Stratavia - Run Book Automation
Surgient - austin company, not sure what they have these days…need to look
SWsoft and Parallels - Macintosh ability to run Windows
Sychron - who?
Sun Microsystems - solaris and grid computing initiatives
Symantec - security and storage with some systems products they’ve acquired
ToutVirtual - who?
Univa UD - who?
Veeam Software - known virtualization player i’ve previously talked about
Virtual Iron - heard of them…haven’t looked at them yet though
Virtugo Software - who?
Vizioncore - known virtualization player i’ve previously talked about
VMLogix - heard of them…haven’t look at them yet though
VMware - if you don’t know this name you must dead, or atleast not into technology or the stock market
XDS - who?
Xsigo - who?

Bottom line, I have a ton of reading to do!!!  I’ll start with the smaller guys and work my way up.  If you have any perspectives or insights please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments section.

Dec 4 2007   10:04PM GMT

What are the Six Functional Areas of Data Center Automation

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Microsoft Windows, BMC, NetIQ, DataCenter, InfoVista, IBM Tivoli, HP Software, Alterpoint, BladeLogic, Opalis, Optinuity, RealOps, Stratavia, IT Process Automation, Cassatt, Scalent, PlateSpin, Veeam, Vizioncore, Netuitive, Integrien

Alright, here is my first pass at a graphic I’m attempting to build that will capture the spirit of my previous posts (this is a work still in progress as previously mentioned);

• Building out a reference model for data center monitoring/automation
• Reference model build out, take two

I’m attempting to come up with a 30,000 foot reference model (functionality focused) for when you’re building out a data center’s software automation architecture.

The yellow areas are the 6 current areas I’ve functionally identified. The tricky part is based on the complexities of each category in the Data Center Infrastructure (e.g., Network vs. System), many of the functional areas require technical depth and audience-specific focus (e.g., network engineers vs. SAP administrators). The arrows are trying to capture that.

I know this still needs work but this is an evolution, and I only have a little time each week to currently work on it during these blog posts.

Below the graphic are some current vendors by function that have product(s) in each function that I’ve mentioned during previous blog posting so far.

• Configuration & Change: BMC (Marimba), CA, EMC (Voyence), HP (Opsware), IBM, BladeLogic, Cassatt, AlterPoint, Platespin, Scalent, Veeam, Vizioncore
• Security & Protection: Symantec, IBM, EMC, McAfee, nCircle, Lumension, ArcSight
• Performance & Capacity: BMC, CA, EMC, HP, IBM, Quest, InfoVista
• Availability & Notification: BMC, CA, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Quest, Integrien, Netuitive, NetIQ
• Process Orchestration: BMC (RealOps), HP (iConclude), Opalis, Optinuity, NetIQ, Stratavia
• Resource Reconciliation: Symantec, IBM, HP, BMC, EMC

I know I’ve missed many and also it would probably be helpful to not simply mention the company but also the product name but that will have to wait until another time.

Nov 28 2007   8:22PM GMT

IT Operations Process Automation - aka “Run Book” continues to mature!

Posted by: Ryan Shopp
BMC, NetIQ, DataCenter, HP Software, Alterpoint, BladeLogic, Opalis, Optinuity, RealOps, Stratavia, RBA, Run Book Automation, IT Process Automation

This is an area I haven’t hit on yet but will also need to fit into the reference model (that one of these days I’ll get back on track)

Lots of action what Gartner and others are calling Run Book Automation or RBA!!!  So let’s summarize the latest.

Optinuity launched a new version of their product that has also been re-branded. Attempting to elevate and differentiate itself beyond the other RBA vendors through re-focusing their primary target audience (from IT Operation Executives to Enterprise Application Executives) and adding specific functionality to provide a self-contained (not reliant on IT Operations) closed loop, automated process (e.g., application monitoring).  The goal, per talking with CEO Scott Stouffer, is to get as close to the enterprise applications themselves as possible (e.g., the teams that develop and/or perform the advanced support/administration for them).  One example discussed was a unique “locked account” scenario that was happening thousands of times a month and thus wasting hundreds, if not thousands of man hours a month!

Opalis launched a new version of their product (version 5.4) which includes some intriguing enhancements in the areas of automating virtualization and the ability to run simulations of process automation workflows prior to deployment in the live environment. They also continue to sport a very impressive list of out-of-the-box IT Operations centric connectors for products/companies that don’t have a process automation product including; BladeLogic, EMC, IBM, Microsoft, Symantec along with support for various product from the other big 4 vendors that do have competing products (e.g., BMC, CA, HP).

HP announces their re-branded suite that includes the former iConclude product HP has so many pieces for automating the data center (beyond the RBA capabilities)…the question now is can the execute on it’s organization (e.g., product bundling/branding), integration (e.g., focus on delivering the right use cases end-to-end) and deployments (e.g., making this all come together inside complex enterprises).

BMC made their move into this space back in the summer time (July) with their acquisition of RealOps. They re-branded this product as BMC Run Book Automation and are using it to tighten up and automate the process flows between their other products; Remedy, Atrium, Marimba, etc. Of course you can still use the platform to integrate with non-BMC product but they are going to focus on their own product line.

NetIQ recently threw their hat into the ring also. Now a subsidiary of Attachmate, they built their solution internally over the past couple years (prior to BMC or HP joining in). Their focus appears to be, in my opinion, around helping ensure their product AppManager stays competitive with other System/Application monitoring vendors (e.g., BMC, HP, IBM, CA, Microsoft). The challenge will be that the service desks they would integrate with are part of companies that now also offer this Run Book Automation technology. So basically, if your a current NetIQ customer and happy then you now won’t be as motivated to go to BMC or HP who own all three components (e.g., system monitoring, process automation and service desk).  Smart strategy move to continue innovating and keep current customers happy.

Stratavia also announced their latest product release in October.  Originally more focused on automation tasks for databases, they continue to evolve their product to be competitive with the other non-database centric but more system/applications centric vendors.  This database automation functionality evolved from their original business model of being a managed service provider for remote database management (at that time they were called ExtraQuest).

To that point, it’s amazing how many of these RBA or IT Process Automation companies come out of operational businesses.  Stratavia was original a managed services provider, RealOps came out of the consulting ranks from Windward Consulting.  This makes sense with various Data Center Automation function…they are very complex and challenging tasks that originally are tackled with service-based approaches only then to be automated with software.  Beyond this RBA sector, another couple vendors that started from similar origins would be Opsware (originally a managed service provider) and BladeLogic (whose founder were previously responsible for operating the infrastructure for a managed service provider)

I also read in a recent Forrester report by Jean-Pierre Garbani that the first market sizing forecast for the IT process automation software space is about $50 million today, but forecasted it to grow to about $700 million by 2015.  Now that is some SERIOUS GROWTH!

One last item, I want to give credit where credit is due to a former boss, colleague and friend Dave Williams who is now at Gartner.  I remember him talking about this space looong before anyone else!  That is recognized in this write-up by internetnews.com. When he left AlterPoint back in February 2006 I remember talking about these products over lunch a number of times.  I had the chance to work closely with the RealOps executive team when AlterPoint built a partnership and integration with them.

So if you have a very, very complex IT Operations environment or are seeing skilled people doing very unskilled/mundane tasks over and over and over…it’s time to check out one or more of these vendors!

So what other “Run Book Automation” vendors are out their at what have been your experiences so far with their products, the company itself and their partners???  Please chime in with your comments as I know their are a ton of people evaluating and using these products these days!