Butler Group believes that there is an increasing need for sophisticated management tools to manage the IT infrastructure. Enterprises and service providers are facing huge demands to improve their service levels, but have to contend with increased pressure on their infrastructures from applications such as content management, data warehousing, and enterprise portals. We believe that the complexities now present within the average IT infrastructure will be dwarfed in the medium term as new technologies such as Web services and Grid computing are introduced.
There is a strong move in the market to provide business service management, which is variously described by vendors as service assurance and business impact management. This is shown in Butler Group's Business Level Infrastructure Performance (BLIP) Management Model that identifies the following layers:
Stage 1: Component Management.
Stage 2: Problem Management.
Stage 3: Performance Management.
Stage 4: Service Management.
Stage 5: Customer/Business Impact Management.
Traditionally, Infrastructure Management products have addressed Stages 1, 2, and 3, but there is now a new breed of products taking a business service management approach, addressing Stages 4 and 5. This is causing a considerable shake-up in the market, and forcing the established vendors, such as IBM, Computer Associates (CA), and Hewlett-Packard (HP), to reshape their product offerings to meet this challenge. However, while they may have a strategy to extend their product offerings to include customer and business impact management, the tools are not necessarily yet available from these major players.
There is a move towards the management of the IT infrastructure for business, with the Web sites of enterprises becoming an important and sometimes crucial channel to market. There is no way that these complexities can be managed through skilled staff alone, even if they are available. The shortage of skilled staff will continue and the problem will get much worse unless they are supported by technology to enable them to perform a more proactive role. More and more enterprises are becoming global and they require the capability of being able to manage their infrastructure centrally.
The Costs of Lack of Service
Both service providers and enterprises are in danger of losing customers if they do not supply a quality service, and yet without technology to help them, there is no way that they will be able to supply anything like a satisfactory service. The cost of a single hour of downtime in some enterprises has been estimated at US$ millions, but this could be a conservative estimate when one considers the effects on the company's share price. These days, customers of all kinds are much more discerning. If they cannot get the level of product or service in the time that they expect from a company, they know that the nature of today's business is such that there is a competitor organisation with a more efficient or friendly Web site ready to pick up their business. The retention of customers is something that organisations ignore at their peril. The cost of obtaining new customers is generally believed to be in excess of five times that of retaining existing customers.
Similarly, the cost of downtime is expensive in staff productivity. Recently, a survey showed that an average of 13 days per annum were lost by companies due to downtime. This represents 6% of staff costs that were lost because the system was down. In the IT department, up to 80% of downtime is spent in locating the problem, dwarfing the time required to actually fix it.
The Needs of the Customer
Butler Group believes that:
We have also found in compiling this Report that the same customer names appear as customers of more than one vendor. This can mean either a customer has found that deployment of a solution was too great a commitment and abandoned any further implementation, or they have adopted a best-of-breed approach.
This latter course of action is to be expected with clients of Managed Objects or SMARTS, due to the architecture of their solutions. Managed Objects' solution concentrates solely at the top layer of the architecture, and SMARTS, with its Service Assurance Management module, also works at the top layer. There is an increasing requirement for solutions in the top layer of Butler Group's BLIP architecture. The demand from the market, coupled with players such as Managed Objects entering this market space, has awoken many vendors to this requirement, and some already have offerings that they say addresses this demand, although some are still struggling to come to grips with a coherent solution.
Future Requirements
Butler Group also believes that the shape of the market will change with an increased emphasis on the management of security. This is also becoming complex and the need is there for solutions that carry out this function. Some vendors already have modules that tightly integrate with their Infrastructure Management solutions, and we see that this will become a growing trend.
In addition for the need to build more intelligence into solutions to cope with current technology, there is a need to incorporate the management of emerging technology into products. Some vendors have already made moves to incorporate the management of Web services into their solutions. There is also going to be a major requirement for Infrastructure Management capabilities to manage the intricacies of Grid computing and autonomic computing. IBM Tivoli already claims that it has incorporated autonomic computing capabilities into some of its products.
Market Analysis
The vendors in this market cover a wide range of management tools and solutions. This is hardly surprising when one considers their varying backgrounds. One group is made up of vendors formerly described as large framework suppliers: BMC Software, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM Tivoli. Unfortunately, we were unable to include BMC Software in the main body of this Report, as the company was unable to supply us with the information that we required, but a profile of the vendor is included in Section 9, Vendor Profiles, along with ten other vendors.
Computer Associates' Unicenter came out at the top of our scoring chart due to its breadth of product, and the re-design of its former framework architecture. We are, however, disappointed that the company has yet to adopt a business-focused strategy for Unicenter. IBM Tivoli has also recently followed in the rationalisation of its architecture, but we feel requires a more clearly defined marketing strategy. Recently, Hewlett-Packard has also put more impetus behind its OpenView solution, although the absorption of Compaq may lead to confusion in the near to medium term.
SMARTS and Managed Objects also scored well for their business-focused approach. These two companies seem to have led the way in managing the infrastructure for business. Managed Objects' Formula utilises exclusively the underlying technology of other vendors to provide its solutions. Mercury Interactive is unique among the vendors that we considered, in that it addresses the subject as a supplier of system testing tools, and this may be the reason that its Topaz product did not score well.
Report Structure
In recognition of the fact that Butler Group Technology Evaluation and Comparison Reports are read by a wide variety of senior management personnel, each of whom will possess specific areas of interest and expertise, this Report has been written with the aim of making each section as free-standing as is practical. Accordingly, Report sections can be read in any combination or order, and a brief summary of each section is presented here for the convenience of readers who wish to locate particular areas of interest.
Section Two - Introduction
This section provides an introduction to the Infrastructure Management market. It reviews and considers the factors that have contributed to the IT environment of today. There is discussion of why Butler Group believes there is a need for Infrastructure Management, and what situations could be remedied by its use. Lastly, Butler Group introduces its model that presents the different levels of functionality that vendors, particularly in the performance and availability sector of Infrastructure Management, are offering in their solutions.
Section Three - Technology Features
This section looks in more detail at the component technologies commonly found within Infrastructure Management products across the five stages of Butler Group's Infrastructure Management Model. The monitoring technology that forms the foundation for any Infrastructure Management product within the area of Performance and Availability has not been neglected. However, particular attention has been paid to the newer technologies that provide proactive management and fault fixing, intelligence, and correlation, and are enabling vendors to offer the higher levels of functionality detailed in stages two and three of Butler Group's Infrastructure Management Model, and the new business level functionality detailed in stages four and five. The standards and protocols and integration that are necessary to any product in this area are also covered within this section.
Section Four - Architectures and Models
This section of the Report considers the architectures that previously dominated this space and compares them with the newer architectures that are emerging today, including best-of-breed models. It also examines the new focus on business level infrastructure performance management and shows how companies are approaching the delivery of this higher level, business-focused Infrastructure Management. In this section we also take a look at the emerging technologies that Butler Group believes these newer technologies will need to support. The security aspect is reviewed along with ITIL compliance issues.
Section Five - Market Analysis
In this section an analysis of the dominant players, geographies, and industry sectors is provided together with a discussion of the drivers in the market and the future directions that Butler Group believes the market will take. As implementation issues are an important current driver, and play a major part in sales negotiations, these are also discussed, but in a separate part of this section. A subsection entitled Vendor Analysis discusses acquisitions and movements in the market, as well as examining the strategies of other prominent players.
Section Six - Tables
The array of features and functionality available today in Infrastructure Management products has been conveniently displayed in a tabular format in this section of the Report. This will enable the differences and similarities between products to be seen at a glance. This table features the products that Butler Group believes are playing an important role in the Infrastructure Management market and, as such, they formed the basis of the research carried out for the purpose of writing this Report. This section also features a score chart, which combines the individual scores given to each product featured in a Technology Audit to enable comparison and ranking of the products reviewed. Each product was scored according to seven different categories to give as fair an overall view of the product as possible.
Section Seven - Comparisons
The main aim of this new style Butler Group Report is to provide comparison between the products in the Infrastructure Management market. This section discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the specific offerings included in this Report as Butler Group Technology Audits, covering both market and product strategies.
Section Eight - Technology Audits
Butler Group examined a selection of the leading Infrastructure Management solutions on the market, chosen specifically to give a view of wide spectrum of diverse offerings available today. This comprehensive examination of various vendors' technologies and strategies is reproduced in the detailed review documents in this section. These Technology Audits, which form the basis of the research in this Report, are presented in their entirety in this section, and include background information on the vendors, along with contact details.
Section Nine - Vendor Profiles
As there are so many players in the Infrastructure Management market, Butler Group felt that it was appropriate to give an overview of how some other vendors are approaching managing infrastructure. Eleven products have been profiled, and comprehensive details of the vendor for each product, including contact details for those wishing to make further enquiries, have also been included.
Der vollständige Bericht kann bei der Butler Group bestellt werden.