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HP Enhances Automation Software to Reduce Cost of Managing Virtualization Technology
Wednesday 08. April 2009 - HP today announced new enhancements to its Business Service Automation (BSA) software suite to help customers better manage and reduce operational costs associated with virtualized data centers.
Enhancements within the HP BSA software suite include updated versions of:
HP Storage Essentials, a standards-based storage resource management software, helps customers manage the increased storage requirements of virtualized data centers by optimizing capacity allocation and utilization.
HP Operations Orchestration, a run book automation software that automates incident resolution, change orchestration and routine maintenance tasks in the data center. This new release allows customers to reduce operational costs by better provisioning and repurposing servers and storage without service downtime.
HP also launched HP BSA Essentials, an online community and subscription services offering that helps customers maximize the value of their HP BSA software investments.
Virtualization can help IT organizations consolidate resources, cut capital expenditures and meet changing business requirements. However, the downside of virtualization can be higher operational costs due to increased complexity and storage management requirements. The new offerings are designed to help customers address these challenges so they can fully realize the benefits of the virtualization technology.
“Savvis is using HPs Business Service Automation suite to provide advanced visibility and control of our multivendor virtual and physical infrastructures,” said Mark Shoemaker, vice president, Operations Support Systems, Savvis. “We now have the ability to automate, provision and deploy new servers in minutes and get near-real-time application and network visibility, benefiting our managed hosting and cloud compute customers.”
Automated storage provisioning, visibility and management
HP Storage Essentials software helps customers lower costs for managing, visualizing and reporting on heterogeneous storage infrastructure. It can automatically baseline, configure and provision storage resources to match changes in virtual infrastructure. Using HP Storage Essentials, customers have reduced the amount of time required to provision storage by up to 90 percent.
New enhancements to HP Storage Essentials software help customers:
Optimize storage capacity allocation and utilization by allowing IT organizations to discover and map VMware hosts to storage and storage area network (SAN) dependencies. This enables IT staff to remove storage from virtual machines that are not being fully utilized, making it available to areas that need it most.
Improve storage administration efficiency and reduce task errors by automatically provisioning storage to a VMware hypervisor or guest operating system.
Deliver better business service visibility and automated change execution across application, server and storage domains through new integrations with HP Operations Orchestration workflow software and across the HP BSA software suite.
According to Gartner research, “As virtual deployments rapidly increase in scale and complexity, IT organizations are looking for tools to automate many of the activities surrounding the management of virtual infrastructures. Updates to the virtual environment are increasingly requiring a holistic approach that takes into account not only virtualization dependencies, but also those related to the physical infrastructure.”(1)
New and enhanced integrations for HP Operations Orchestration software
HP Operations Orchestration software saves customers time and money associated with managing routine IT operations by standardizing processes. The software automates incident resolution, change orchestration and maintenance tasks in the data center.
New enhancements to HP Operations Orchestration software help customers:
Provision and repurpose additional servers and storage capacity without service downtime through an automated workflow.
Reduce virtual server deployment time from hours to minutes through enhanced integration with the HP BSA suite.
Manage heterogeneous virtualization technologies with a single solution through new integrations with VMware Virtual Infrastructure, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft HyperV.
“Some customers have reduced the amount of time it took to provision and configure servers by 85 percent by using HP Business Service Automation software,” said Michel Feaster, senior director, Products, Business Service Automation Software, HP. “Unlike other vendors that focus only on virtualized infrastructure or individual infrastructure silos, HP offers an integrated server, storage, network, client and process automation solution to coordinate the deployment of IT applications in virtual and physical infrastructures.”
HP BSA Essentials maximizes the value of BSA software investments
HP BSA Essentials helps customers maximize the benefits of automation and virtualization. The online portal connects customers to BSA Essentials Subscription Services and the BSA Essentials Community.
BSA Essentials Subscription Services provide access to security alerts and updates to regulation policy templates used for compliance auditing. This helps customers reduce risk by assessing and correcting security or policy violations that affect the technology infrastructure.
The BSA Essentials Community allows customers to find updated product information, share best practices and get new content, such as virtualization management workflows for HP Operations Orchestration software.
HP BSA Essentials is available now at www.hp.com/go/bsaenetwork. Access is available to HP BSA software customers with a current maintenance contract. HP Software Professional Services provides consulting services for BSA software to help customers maximize the value of their BSA virtualization solution.
HP Operations Orchestration and HP Storage Essentials software are available now from HP and select channel partners. More information on HP Business Service Automation software is available at www.hp.com/go/bsa. HPs “Clear Skies in Virtualization Land” video demonstrating the enhancements to the companys automation solutions for a virtualized environment is available here.
The newly enhanced HP Business Service Automation software will be featured at the upcoming HP Software Universe 2009.