HP Introduces Data Center Software, Services

An improved portfolio aims to help IT organizations make sure IT and non-IT managers work on the same business goals.

Hewlett-Packard announced June 18 what it described as a "significant expansion" of its software and service portfolios as part of its overall strategy to help IT organizations improve data center efficiencies.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company revealed the improvements at HP Software Universe, the companys annual customer event focused on its software business and related partners and resellers in Las Vegas.

According to a recent study conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of HP, companies are experiencing unacceptable levels of IT delays.

Although 62 percent of companies surveyed said that faster IT meant higher profits, the study showed that about 25 percent of IT projects are delivered late.

In addition, the majority of those surveyed said no more than 50 percent of IT initiatives produced positive business outcomes, the EIU said.

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This gap results from tight budgets and limitations imposed by manual processes, point solutions and teams working in silos, an HP spokesperson said.

To address this growing disparity, the spokesperson said, the augmented HP portfolio aims to help IT organizations make sure IT and non-IT managers work on the same business goals; speed up internal processes within IT functions, such as IT strategy, applications and IT operations; and automate processes across the different IT roles.

"Demand for greater business agility is driving the majority of new application implementations and changes, and it requires the optimization of every aspect of the applications life cycle," said Gartner Research Director Thomas Murphy.

"When it comes to delivering applications that meet the needs of the business, quality assurance teams must look for ways to greatly accelerate their testing cycles in order to meet increasingly stringent schedules from business and application teams," Murphy said.

Updates to HPs Quality Center software and LoadRunner software include the following:

Quality Center Software: Includes the first-ever business requirements and quality management capabilities fully integrated in a single real-time system, the HP spokesperson said. This new release enables customers to adopt "agile testing" methods to facilitate more frequent software releases while taking a risk-based, business priority-driven view of quality management.

LoadRunner Software: Enhancements help address the major shift in the way IT will deliver applications over the Internet, including advanced performance testing of Web 2.0-enabled service-oriented architectures and rich Internet applications.

Quality Management Ecosystem: Provides broad support for platforms, applications and environments by allowing HP Software partners to develop and market test accelerators for HP Quality Center and HP LoadRunner software.

Quality Factory Services: This set of best practices and services helps IT organizations successfully implement improved application quality and performance.

Enhancements to HPs Service Management portfolio include upgrades in HP Change and Configuration Management Center, Service Management Center software solutions, and new related services. The offerings include the following:

Change Control Management Software: Helps IT organizations accelerate the delivery of change by automating approval processes and eliminating the need for time-consuming change advisory board meetings. This new software release is part of HP Softwares end-to-end change control solution.

Configuration Management Software: Helps reduce the risk of business disruptions by allowing customers to automatically deploy new applications and operating systems, such as Windows Vista, to the entire enterprise.

Best Practices for Service Center : Provides predefined ITIL processes for service management that help IT organizations accelerate HP Service Center deployment.

HP also unveiled new cross-product integration software that helps customers automate key processes across IT silos, including the following:

Universal CMDB: The only configuration management database built on dependency mapping and integrated with help desk, change and configuration management and business service management offerings.

Service Center Software: Several new integrations help to better align the change request, approval and deployment processes, and accelerate delivery of IT services to business users.

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