* HP, Computer Associates and the CMDB in alignment
This week’s column was spawned by two-and-a-half events that demonstrate the management market’s coming of age.
The first event is the OpenView Forum held recently in Denver. The second event is Computer Associates’ recent analyst meeting in New York. And the “half” event is the availability of Enterprise Management Associates’ second report on the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) market – which I promise you is the most complete listing of vendor solutions, as well as IT perspectives, you can probably find anywhere.
Let’s look at some common themes between the two (and a half) events, and I’ll let you decide if this is all mere coincidence or emblematic of something more.
* Both HP and CA presented a strong focus on architecture. Of course, EMA’s CMDB landscape is at least as much about architecture, or “under-the-covers” evolution, as it is about ITIL processes. The very heart of CA’s story resides in the understanding that enabling technologies should be shared across management disciplines. Its MDB (Management Database) is roughly the equivalent of a CMDB, a common trusted data store that can enable data sharing across virtually all management disciplines and applications. HP similarly has a rich architectural story with a focus on Web services and service oriented architecture, not only as an environment to manage, but also as an architectural foundation for data integration. It similarly has a committed CMDB direction. HP’s architectural plans have governed many of its acquisitions from last year, often described in terms of model-based automation, in which modeling captures relationships and dependencies.
* Integration was a theme in both events – integration both across and within each portfolio, and integration with third-party products. Both events demonstrated that integration is evolving well beyond the event-driven or console-driven strategies of the past towards a much more complete sharing of information and actions across components and multiple sources. Once again, the relationship with CMDB strategies, in which federated data stores will need to embrace multi-vendor options, is far from coincidental.
* The “a” words – auto-discovery, analytics and automation – were similarly highlighted in discussions I had at both events. From a CMDB perspective, auto-discovery and auto-population are required whenever possible, or else a common trusted (often federated) data store becomes, as one IT skeptic once stated, “an impossible dream that will collapse of its own weight.” Analytics and automation are, on the other hand, what the CMDB should help enable more effectively across management disciplines. Without investments in analytics and automation, the CMDB becomes cumbersome and useful for only the most manual and least time-sensitive of management tasks.
* Integrated security with a focus on identity management is a clarion call at both HP and CA. HP has invested in Select Access and TruLogica, and CA has acquired Netegrity for eTrust, an entire business unit devoted to security and one of its fastest areas of growth. Security overall, and identity management in particular, is an area to watch, and once again, it’s also relevant to many CMDB strategies in managing appropriate access to information.
* Business alignment and what the industry now calls business service management was a dominant theme in both events. Modeling services and understanding services in a business context is core (as it is for the CMDB as well) for both HP and CA.
* A more simplified portfolio was also stressed by both companies. This is, of course, much needed for both to succeed. HP is already moving towards a solutions-based model and CA is leveraging the draconian simplicity of its MDB initiative to bring much more effective product integration later this year.
This isn’t to say that CA and HP have identical portfolios or strategies. That would be a huge and misleading exaggeration. Just for starters, half of CA’s business is mainframe-related, while HP is all but exclusively focused on the distributed management environment.
But the themes of architecture, product integration, attention to security and identity management, and a focus on the “a” words are shared by both companies. Is this just a coincidence of convenient marketing ideas, or is it something more – a sign that the industry is at an inflection point and beginning to play by new, and overall more enlightened, rules? Time will tell, but I believe that the evidence is pointing towards the latter.
