The new HP OpenView Automation Manager line is a policy-based system that converts business requirements into a desired state model. It achieves this through a process HP calls model-based automation. The product is said to be capable of determining when a desired state needs to be changed in order to satisfy business priorities, and automatically provisions appropriate infrastructure resources based on capacity and current demand.

The overriding objective is to seek to automate the link between business processes and IT with tools that provide deeper service-level insight.

This notion of business service management as the top layer of a systems management discipline that enables IT management to be related directly to the business is becoming a key component of initiatives from HP under its adaptive enterprise theme. Ultimately HP argues, IT infrastructure will need to become adaptive, with end-to-end business interactions being managed across multiple services across a completely virtualized IT utility.

In parallel with the Automation Manager announcement was an update to the vendor’s core ServiceDesk and Service Level Manager suites that are used to funnel all critical IT operations data through one enhanced common configuration management database, or CMDB. Version 5 of the OpenView service management mainstay takes in some new out-of-the-box reports and service-level agreement templates and an improved graphical user interface that allows for more flexible viewing options.

The launch is part of a concerted market push within HP during 2004 around a quartet of service disciplines that includes infrastructure management, applications management, IT service management, and business service management. A single CMDB cuts across all the modules of helpdesk (incident and problem management), change management (approvals, setting word orders, project planning, and risk analysis), and service level management (to set the overall SLA and define service level objects).

As well as holding all the normal details such as assets and names of users, the CMDB is also used to hold a catalog of which IT services are being delivered to the business, be it the payroll or a key supply chain management application. Advice on where relevant CMBD data is to be sourced comes out of the box in the form of a service desk data integration module that offers standard views on where the necessary data is likely to reside. Some may be found in the HR database, some in the payroll system, or in email and Active Directory databases, or extracted from management tool databases such as HP’s Network Node Manager.

Automation Manager draws on the process definition and service-modeling software bought with Consera Software Inc, and builds on the change management capabilities from another recent HP acquistion, Novadigm Inc. It effectively extends the ability of the OpenView Change and Configuration Management module, by determining when a desired state needs to be changed in order to satisfy business requirements and then provisioning on-the-fly based on capacity.

Once the Consera system has modeled a desired state, service metrics can be monitored, and should any parameter show signs of drifting out of tolerance, a new desired state is modeled that would bring it back into line, with the Novadigm Radia change system automating the necessary change.