Hewlett-Packard Co is putting its OpenView network management application at the center of a new effort to sell IT services and to give the initiative a kick-start has added a bunch of new features to the technology it hopes will grab customers’ attention. HP has extended OpenView’s management coverage to support any device that includes web server software. It has created a new management information base of information enabling OpenView to support Novell Inc IPX and level 2 media access control layer devices in addition to IP networks. It claims OpenView can now manage an organization’s internal systems through firewalls, and under last week’s pact with Microsoft Corp, is integrating OpenView with Windows NT’s SMS systems management server, enabling users to monitor Windows clients and servers, launch SMS services, and distribute software to SMS systems from an OpenView console. In addition HP has given OpenView a web interface, an FYI four your information service allowing administrators to notify users of events that will affect service levels; a Windows-based version of OpenView’s application resource management software; ownership transfer where an operator can transfer an event to another management server. It’s now also providing GUI-based event correlation and enabling administrators to access SMS and Unix inventory and event information. Next year HP will add a hardware and software inventory component based upon the Desktop Management Task Force’s Common Information Model of describing and modeling management information. It will also add an IT cost management components. The new features will appear in a new version of the Unix-based OpenView Network Node Manager in July. OpenView IT/Operations, IT/Administration and MeasureWare Desktop Agent for Windows 3.11 and 95 are due in the third quarter. HP will presumably feed the new features into the Windows NT version of OpenView once it releases an NT version of IT/Operations and PerfView next year. HP is putting OpenView at the center of a new IT Service Management service it’s offering to enable IT departments to deliver computer and network services to their organizations as if they were a business fulfilling a supply contract and improve the time it takes to get new services implemented. The program offers outsourcing, consulting, integration, training, education and support strategies plus OpenView management tools. The OpenView enhancements are said to fulfill the first phase of an IT service Management product roadmap which will be published in full next month.
