Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2005/12/08/hp_software_conf/
Finding lights under bushels
HP has more news than it thinks
Posted in Software, 8th December 2005 15:23 GMT
Comment It is true that there was not a great deal of hot news lying around at HP’s annual bash, Software Universe, held this year in Nice. Even the departure last week of VP of the software division, Norah Denzil, caused only quizzical speculation as to why someone should depart having just delivered on a corporate objective to bring the division into profit for the fourth quarter of the company’s financial year.
Not even the declaration of Todd DeLaughter, VP and general manager of the division’s OpenView business unit – and acting head since Denzil’s departure – that he had not tossed his own hat in the ring as her replacement caused much excitement or surprise.
But there were issues of some interest to developers and architects, not least of which was DeLaughter’s suggestion that, whoever took over, the objective would be the continued development of the current strategy, which he suggested is the creation of the “lights out” datacentre. In practice, this does seem an odd focus point for a company pitching at creating an infrastructure platform on which adaptive enterprises can readily be built. The datacentre that needs little thought or attention, particularly from business users, is no bad target: as DeLaughter said, the target is the “man and a dog” datacentre where the man feeds the dog, and dog stops the man from touching anything. In an agile business that can respond quickly to business changes, automation of the process of change is important, but it does mean that the lights should be shone elsewhere, such as what can be done with an adaptive enterprise.
The company did have some of those lights to shine in Nice, though it could be argued they perhaps could have focussed them better. For example, it announced OpenView Dashboard Version 1.0 and Version 2.0 of Business Process Insight with only the shortest of muted fanfares. I, for one, sat and tussled with a jaded memory that could remember the words “OpenView” and “Dashboard” used by HP in close proximity some 15 years ago, probably more. Version 1.0 still lived?
Well, no, this is something significantly different. According to DeLaughter this is, in practice, the new user interface to Business Process Insight, and the pairing is designed to provide business users with a business-wide view of business activity, expressed in business metrics, in as near real-time as possible.
He observed that many businesses are not yet interested in exposing Line of Business (LOB) managers to what is happening in IT departments, or how IT is supporting business processes, and lies an important issue: the on-going misunderstandings between IT and business managers as to what the other is all about. The one advantage that tools such as Business Process Insight and the Dashboard bring to the IT function is the ability to demonstrate their capabilities in ways that LOB managers can clearly see and understand. It could even allow IT to identify potential business problems or improvements to business processes.
Another light hidden under a bushel is Open Call, the Division’s Service Control Platform that is at the heart of most of the major telecoms operations around the world. Though telecoms software is often seen, even by software vendors, as a separate corner of the world with little direct connection to other markets, the fact is that the Platform exactly mirrors the core operational services required by a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) run on those “lights out” datacentres. It can establish all the elements needed to provide a phone user with the services requested, monitor their operation and manage their interaction with a billing system, and finally tear down the service once the process is complete. These are exactly analogous to the processes needed for an SOA, making HP one of the few vendors with a provable – and profitable - track record in making such a process work.
HP’s Software Division has spent the last two years or so on a significant buying spree and has integrated 11 company acquisitions into its portfolio over the last two years. The latest is Trustgenics with its identity management tools, which is planned to provide the company with strengthened capabilities in the service management arena, and in particular the provision of federated services. This acquisition is allowing the company to not only catch up with others in the field but also to move ahead in some areas.
It provides a solution to the problem of travelling staff connecting to corporate systems from several points around the globe. In Europe, for example, someone going from one country to another cannot officially take data with them, so they need to either share it anonymously or opt-in to approved services. It also provides the tools for users to be signed up for new company services, have their access to services such as the Microsoft Exchange Servers provisioned and have Microsoft Outlook installed – and uninstalled should they leave the company – automatically. This last also has an impact on software licence management, as many companies these days are paying licence fees for old user IDs that have not been deleted.
The Trustgenics acquisition will also give HP the opportunity to integrate directly with the other identity management offerings from the likes of IBM, Novell and Sun.®