Last week HP announced the OpenView Network Configuration Manager. The product is the result of an OEM agreement with Voyence and helps makes HP the first enterprise management platform vendor to engage in a formal business commitment to network change and configuration beyond purely technical integrations. (Cisco, in network management, announced an OEM relationship with Opsware earlier this year - and will soon be introducing a major change management initiative - so this isn't the first public mention of an OEM in network configuration across the full IT management marketplace.)

HP's is both making a business commitment to the network change and configuration management (NCCM) market and enhancing an integration that already exists at an event-level between Voyence's Control NG (Next Generation) and HP OpenView Network Node Manager. Through the OpenView Network Configuration Manager, network managers seeking to relate shifts in network performance and availability with recent changes made to the infrastructure will have an integrated set of navigational options to do so. HP is also investing in correlation capabilities to tie configuration changes with service delivery issues so that the linkages become more quickly and readily visible.

Since 60% (conservatively - some instances have documented as high as 90%) of service performance and availability issues are due to configuration changes, this integration makes sense. It is a smart move and HP can be expected to tighten the integration to support more effective troubleshooting navigation so that problems across the network can be resolved in context with non-policy compliant configuration actions - including those numerous instances of human error, and those very real instances of security-related threats. The integration also supports HP's directions in compliance management through new capabilities for change audits and access control.

Later this year, HP will move ahead with an OpenView Service Desk integration that will provide solid workflow options for integrating network change and configuration into IT operations more broadly, such as in support of lifecycle asset and capacity planning. HP is also looking to integrate network configuration into a broader change and configuration management system through ties with its Radia-based systems configuration management functionality and through the evolution of its Active CMDB.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.