Configuration Management

HP today unwrapped a new suite of discovery and configuration products dubbed HP Configuration Management System (CMS) 10.  The suite brings together the latest versions of HP’s Universal Configuration Management Database (UCMDB), Universal Discovery with Content Pack 11, UCMDB Browser and UCMDB Configuration Manager.  It also extends UCMDB with multitenant capabilities specifically for managed service providers.

“CMS 10 is about increased visibility and control of the IT service,” said Jimmy Augustine, Director of Product Marketing for HP Software.  “The fundamental trend is increased complexity for IT managers. [It] is all about managing the IT service from a business perspective.”

Today’s IT environments change often and quickly, so HP’s Universal Discovery addresses the need of discovering and mapping the rapidly changing landscape of services and systems.  Universal Discovery adds a Just In-Time discovery method specifically geared towards cloud discovery with near real-time results.  In addition to the new JIT discovery, Universal Discovery provides end-to-end discovery with both agent-based and agent-less discovery methods, intended to be non-intrusive and have no performance impact on systems.  Also included new in this version is Content Pack 11 which includes new discovery definitions for applications from vendors like SAP.

HP’s UCMDB is the core of the suite, storing the critical data which can be leveraged for change management, configuration divergence control and compliance needs in organizations.  UCMDB is a perfect example that data is powerful.  Configuration data is discovered and updated on a consistent basis. Tracking will highlight when and where changes are being made on systems and help keep systems in desired state.  In addition to knowing when changes are made, UCMDB is also powerful in helping to reduce the mean time to resolution of problems by efficiently showing what changes were made and allowing them to be reverted.

UCMDB Browser is specifically targeted at peripheral staff who may not have traditionally had a stake in configuration management for the organization.  Leveraging the wealth of information collected in the UCMDB, the UCMDB Browser summarizes and exposes the data to the needs of the IT manager, application and security teams.  The configuration data can show incidents, problems, defects and events and correlate it back to the specific change made on applications or systems.

CMS 10 is also the first release with multi-tenant capabilities targeted directly to managed service providers.  For service providers, CMS 10 will be used to drive standardization across their datacenters, since standardization is on the keys to their business model.  Configuration management is also extremely important for ensuring compatible builds across hybrid cloud environments so that when bursting is needed, the systems in the public cloud will match the private cloud systems and work seamlessly.

For an overview of the suite and its capabilities and use-cases, see this interactive presentation from HP.