Search results matching tag 'Peter Spielvogel'

The best way to manage VMware environments

pspielvogel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:28:00 GMT

Virtualization management seems to be the hottest topic for discussion, among both customers, partners, and my product marketing and product management peers. I was recently involved in a conversation with some sales people about why HP’s approach is unique.

The reference platform for virtualization management of VMware environments is vCenter (formerly Virtual Center). But, many customers do not want their virtualization experts to spend their (very expensive) time managing first level events. So, they look to a centralized management console such as Operations Manager to handle events from both the virtual and physical IT infrastructure. This is the value behind a consolidated event and performance management approach.

So, the challenge is how to get information about the virtual infrastructure into central event console. The old way, which we used to do, was to install our agents on the VMware hypervisor. We worked closely with VMware to ensure that it worked and was supportable but customers got nervous because the general advice is "do not install anything in the hypervisor". Obviously, if the hypervisor becomes unstable then all of the virtual machines suffer.

The new, and recommended by VMware, approach is to use the vMA or “vSphere Management Assistant”. The vMA is a pre-build Linux virtual machine. It is built and owned by VMware and is downloaded free of charge from their web site. You run the vMA just like any other virtual machine.

The vMA includes all of the VMware-approved and supported interfaces and APIs to enable access to VMware environment monitoring. It provides access to information such as current configuration of the VMs, fault information and very accurate performance information. This is the new way that VMware wants other management systems to get their information from the hypervisor. vMA provides more granular, fine grained, and real-time information than you can get from vCenter. HP was the first vendor to release a management product using the vMA.

We install our agent and Virtualization SPI onto the vMA and make use of the interfaces. One vMA can provide access to monitoring information from multiple VMware server hosts. The “resolution” of the data that we get with the Virtualization SPI vs. vCenter is really just a reflection on what customers told us they wanted. I'm sure that VMware could provide much of the same detail - certainly for a VMware server - but they did not. Customers told us they wanted more - "Don't just give us what Virtual Center provides, go deeper".

The advantage of using the HP Virtualization SPI and Operations Manager is that you can see very granular fault and performance data for both physical and virtual infrastructure in your Operations Manager console. This means your tier 1 operators can manage events and handle basic triage and remediation functions. This keeps your virtualization experts focused on more strategic tasks, until they need to manage an escalation.

This is just one example of HP’s close ties with VMware. We also have integration between HP Insight Control and vCenter that allows customers to manage both physical and virtual infrastructure through the VMware vCenter console. We announced this capability at VMworld in September.
This is aimed at server administrators who want a single expert tool for troubleshooting complex problems that could span the hardware and hypervisor.

For HP Operations Center, Jon Haworth and Peter Spielvogel.

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Software Universe in Hamburg sneak preview

pspielvogel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:53:00 GMT

Software Universe is only five weeks away. We hold this event twice each year, alternating between a United States and European location. The upcoming event is in Hamburg at the Congress Centre Hamburg (CCH) from Wednesday, December 16th – Friday, December 18th 2009.

(If you missed our last Software Universe in Las Vegas, you can download some of the presentations here.)

I’m very excited about this year’s show, as it gives me a chance to connect with many European customers and colleagues, many of whom I have only “met” through email and phone calls. In addition, there are many interesting presentations. Some highlights* (based on their relevancy to managing IT infrastructure - both physical and virtual) include:

Wednesday December 16

16:00-16:45	Optimizing cost by automating your ITIL v3 processes Jeroen Bronkhorst, Hewlett-Packard
17:00 - 17:45	“Monitoring ....inside the Cloud" Vincenzo Asaro, Telecom Italia
18:00 - 18:45	Orchestrating Virtual Infrastructures with HP OO Ralph Capasso, Hewlett-Packard

Thursday December 17

09:00 - 09:45	Automating operations management with HP Operations Orchestration Ralph Capasso, Hewlett-Packard
09:00 - 09:45	HP management of VMware vSphere: How does VMware fit in with your HP Software Infrastructure? Terry Lyons, VMware
10:00 - 10:45	The all new Operations Center licensing model: escaping the hardware bonds Jon Haworth and Peter Crosby, Hewlett-Packard
11:45 - 12:30	HP Operations Manager i: Best practices and lessons learned at CMT Kai-Uwe Jensen, Hewlett-Packard
15:15 - 16:00	BTO Impact of Virtualization on IT Management Dennis Corning, Hewlett-Packard
15:15 - 16:00	Operations Center, the road ahead Norm Follett, Hewlett-Packard
16:30 - 17:15	HP Operations Manager on Linux Lillian Hull and Hans-Peter Schmollinger, Hewlett-Packard
16:30 - 17:15	Capabilities in a Virtualized environment Lutz Bartsch, Hewlett-Packard

Friday December 18

09:00 - 09:45	Virtualization SPI - VMware management plug-in for HP Operations Center Jagannath Harish Gangaiah, Hewlett-Packard
11:45 - 12:30	HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping: a solution to regain control on your infrastructure Thomas Wirtz, Hewlett-Packard
11:45 - 12:30	Integrated approach to monitoring and the challenges encountered and overcome Mark Laird and Romain Maitret, Steria Ltd

* dates, times, and speakers subject to change

Hope to see you there.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn.

Two strategies for your new data center

pspielvogel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:33:00 GMT

I read an interesting article in eWeek on “HP vs. Cisco: Polar Opposites in Data Center Strategies.”

The article focused on whether it is better for companies to choose from a collection of partners or a one-stop shop. From my personal experience with my home electronics purchases, I prefer to purchase components from a single vendor, as the integration and support generally runs more smoothly. On the other hand, I have other friends and colleagues (many of whom are more technical than I am) who follow the opposite approach, picking what they believe are the best in class components and integrating all the pieces themselves.

In both cases, when the systems run smoothly, both approaches work equally well. The challenge, of course, is when things do not go as planned - either during the setup or when something breaks. In a home environment (at least mine), things are pretty static. I don’t add or update components very often. A corporate data center is another story. Data centers are very dynamic, with companies adding servers, applications, and other components daily in many cases. And, add to that the changes from virtualization, where business services are created on-the-fly, based on changing demands. And, if you want to leverage runbook automation, it’s probably easier if you are automating software from a single vendor.

The data center has no time for finger pointing or blame storms. When an incident occurs, I want a single console to see what broke, its impact on the business, and the shortest path to resolving the problem. In my mind, this is a clear reason to follow the one-stop approach.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

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BlackBerry Management Webinar (Empowering a Mobile Workforce)

pspielvogel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:52:00 GMT

We have written about the challenges of managing Black Berry Enterprise Server environments, mostly because of all the disparate elements that must work together properly to ensure that people receive their email. For a user to successfully send or receive a message, the following applications must interact smoothly: BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory, and Microsoft SQL Server.

You can imagine the challenge of troubleshooting performance problems if you do not have a single console from which to manage faults and performance data. When the CEO is calling about his or her email, I would certainly want an easy way to determine when the service will be back online.

If you manage BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, you will certainly want to attend this.

One lucky attendee will win a BlackBerry (actual device will depend on your coverage area)!

Title: Empowering a Mobile Workforce: A Holistic Approach to Managing your BlackBerry Ecosystem
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Time: 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern / Check Your Time Zone
Additional Speakers:
- Pierluigi Buonicore, Product Manager, Research in Motion (RIM)
- Jonathan Evans, Product Marketing, Research in Motion (RIM)
- Jon Haworth,Product Marketing Manager, HP

Behind every executive’s BlackBerry is a complex IT infrastructure for delivering messages and mission-critical mobile applications. So, when performance or availability issues occur, the Operations Team has no time to waste in identifying the cause of the problem and fixing it. Using a single event monitoring console improves visibility across the BlackBerry ecosystem and streamlines communications among your subject matter expert teams - enabling faster problem resolution and less downtime.

In this one-hour webinar EMA VP Dennis Drogseth, Research in Motion (RIM) Product Manager Pierluigi Buonicore, Jonathan Evans from RIM Product Marketing, and HP Product Marketing Manager Jon Haworth will explore solutions that will enable a holistic support environment for managing BlackBerry resources across the enterprise. Topics of discussion will include how to:

Identify the most common challenges to enterprise BlackBerry management
Utilize best practices, such as ITIL, to increase the supportability of mobile devices
Enable prompt problem identification and improved time to resolution
Evaluate new solutions that will enable a common interface for managing enterprise BlackBerry support services

This is a can’t-miss event for any organization supporting BlackBerry devices or looking to empower their mobile workforce.
Register now (and have a chance to win a BlackBerry).

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn.

Why I love Information Technology (IT)

pspielvogel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:21:00 GMT

Last night I watched the U2 live concert webcast on YouTube (www.youtube.com/u2). During the show, I just enjoyed the concert, which of course comes with Bono’s philosophizing. (BBC News review of the concert.) Afterwards, I marveled at the technology that made it all possible.

Billed as “the world's biggest band performing on the world's largest stage” (on the YouTube ad for the event). They said that people were watching on all seven continents. I can’t even imagine how much bandwidth this single event consumed.

I cannot recall a live event available in the identical format to people everywhere on the planet. Sure, major news events are followed around the world, but people typically watch on their local news channel or in some local language portal.

There was a similar effort several years back with Live 8, a free concert to “make poverty history”. But, this contained several channels, one for each of the global venues, and I recall the user experience was less than optimal, both in video and audio quality. The U2 show was crisp on my home DSL connection (1.5 Mbps), which is far from speedy compared to what is available here in Silicon Valley or especially in Asia. There were a few sub-second lapses, but overall the experience was amazing.

Think about the U2 event for a moment. Technology (and global standards) made it possible for anyone on earth to experience the same concert at the same time in the same format, regardless of the viewing platform.

To me, this is truly amazing. And that’s why I love IT and am proud to work for a company that makes so much of the infrastructure possible.

Kudos to Google and YouTube (and U2) for pulling this off!

If anyone knows what IT infrastructure they used to do this, please let me know.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn.

Operations Manager Basics (product overview videos)

pspielvogel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:29:00 GMT

I spent the past two days in a planning meeting with my product marketing peers from different product groups including infrastructure monitoring, application monitoring, network monitoring, CMDB, service management, and IT financial management. We reviewed all our respective product plans and our go to market strategies (you will need to watch during the year to learn what we decided). While everyone had some idea about what high-level problems each product line solves, some people were not familiar with specific Operations Manager functionality, especially the current version's capabilities.

They asked for the fastest and easiest way to come up to speed. After some thought, I pointed them to two videos - one for Operations Manager (focused on consolidated event and performance management) and another for Operations Manager i (focused on advanced event reduction using topology-based event correlation). I have posted the links below.

HP Operations Manager
Peter Spielvogel and Jon Haworth discuss how Operations Manager allows customers to monitor heterogeneous IT environments, reduce management costs, and speed time to problem resolution.

(While the demo is on Operations Manager on Windows (OMW), the functionality is virtually the same for Operations Manager on Linux (OML) and Operations Manager on Unix (OMU).)

HP Operations Manager i
Jon Haworth and Dan Haller talk about increasing IT event processing efficiency with OMi.

If you have additional questions, please let me know.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

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The full stack (OMW, SiteScope, OMi, NNM, Service Desk, CMDB)

pspielvogel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:35:00 GMT

As I was getting ready to leave yesterday, a colleague stopped by my desk and asked “do you want to be a hero?” That certainly peaked my interest. It turned out we had a customer downstairs in our executive briefing center that wanted some clarification about all the pieces of our stack fit together.

Background
The customer was the CTO of a major IT firm in the Asia-Pacific region. They manage approximately 4,000 servers using OMW 8.1. They use both agents and SPIs, as well as SiteScope agentless monitoring. In addition, they monitor the faults and performance of their network using NNM, and roll those events into their Operations Manager console. In addition, they use Service Desk 4.5 along with a CMDB (configuration management database) that tracks all the configuration items and relationships among them across their enterprise. A *very* rough schematic of what they have appears in the diagram below in red.

Our discussions were divided into two main areas:
1. What they are doing today and what they should be doing?
2. What can they do in the future?

Current Situation
The first question was about best practices. Were they using the software correctly to manage their infrastructure? The answer is a resounding yes. They use OMW as the central event management console, collecting data from agents, SiteScope (agentless monitoring), and NNM for network events.

And, they integrate their service desk with OMW, opening and closing tickets, and tracking changes to the IT infrastructure in their CMDB. They implemented the CMDB about two years ago, in conjunction with their Service Desk implementation.

Next Steps
The next questions focused on what should they be doing or what can they do next to improve their IT management.

We started with a discussion about OMi. The customer was confused about how OMi fits with OMW - the first question was whether it replaces OMW, whether they receive OMi as part of an upgrade (entitlement), and finally, what specific value OMi provides since they currently use OMW as the centralized event consolidation tool.

As readers of this blog know, OMi is a separate product that adds on to Operations Manager. (See green box at top of the above diagram). Its main value is that it leverage the system topology information in the CMDB to greatly speed the time to repair IT problems, especially in complex environments. We have many resources to learn more about OMi, including:
Product overview
High-level webinar on OMi
Deep-dive technical webinar on OMi
Answers to technical questions on OMi

The next topic was automation. We talked about how companies use Operations Orchestration (OO) to automate their IT processes (runbooks). OO uses events in OM to trigger its process flows. The good news was that this customer has spent the past two years documenting and improving their IT processes. They already know what processes occur frequently and how much manual effort they require. This may be the next logical step for them as it leverages their existing IT infrastructure and processes. EMA recently write a white paper on how process automation augments event consolidation.

Migration Challenges
One issue that arose was that the CMDB connected to their service desk is not the latest UCMDB that OMi uses for its topology-based event correlation (TBEC). The customer has two options here.
1. Leave the existing CMDB in place and let OMi create an operational data store that contains the configuration information it needs. The advantage of this approach is that it leaves the current management infrastructure intact and just adds OMi on top. OMi uses the SPIs to auto-discover the IT infrastructure and relationships among the elements. OMi’s data store is self-contained and requires minimal external input.
2. Migrate the existing CMDB associated with Service Desk to the latest version of UCMDB. The advantage of this approach is that the customer ends up with a single CMDB. They can migrate their existing data using a tool such as ICM (information consolidation manager) from Netscope.

Conclusions
For organizations already integrating their events into a single Operations Manager console, you are on the right track. If you already use a CMDB to track your IT infrastructure, you are very far along the IT management maturity curve, even more so if you use some means of automatic discovery to keep it current.

To take things to the next level, you have two options: focus on further event correlation and reduction with OMi or automate your existing IT processes with Operations Orchestration. You can pursue these in series or in parallel, depending on your priorities. Both will deliver a tangible return on investment and fast payback period.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

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Virtual Infrastructure Management (Q&A from HP-VMware webinar)

pspielvogel — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:52:00 GMT

Thank you to everyone who attended the joint HP-VMware webinar on how to “Reduce Costs and Gain Control of Your Virtualized Infrastructure with Consolidated Management.” The speakers were Terry Lyons, Technical Alliance Manager, Enterprise Systems Management, VMware Corporation and Mike Shaw, Director of Product Marketing, HP.

If you missed the live event on October 7, 2009, you can view a replay here.

Here are the questions that people asked during the event, along with the answers.

Question	Answer
Great to see you are working closely with VMware. What are you doing to support other hypervisors?	For now, the HP Virtualization SPI supports VMware ESX and Microsoft HyperV. We are looking at adding other hypervisors, based on our customer’s needs.
Can you explain the difference between siloed management compared to Central? What is the benefit to centralizing?	Siloed management refers to managing each IT silo using a separate element manager. Centralized management relies on a single event console to consolidate and correlate events from disparate IT domains. Using a single event console can reduce costs and speed the time to problem resolution.
How do you plan the systems and applications for the data center capacity? Which kind of instruments/solutions do you use for the capacity planning?	Please see our blog post on capacity planning, written by Hyperformix.
What is the minimum release of HP Operation Manager that enables the VMware API integration, or is the VMware SPI the only dependency?	First, the Smart Plug-In (SPI) is called the Virtualization SPI, because it supports hypervisors beyond just VMware, although that is the most commonly requested platform. The Virtualization SPI works with Operations Manager on Windows 8.10, Operations Manager on Windows 8.16, Operations Manager on Unix 9.0, and Operations Manager on Linux 9.0.
Can you talk about how HP SIM fits in to this? i.e. hardware and VM Management. thanks,	HP Operations Manager consolidates events from all the various element managers across the enterprise. In the scenario you mention, SIM will send its events to Operations Manager where a single team can monitor the HP servers and any other infrastructure. There is a SIM Smart Plug-In (the SIM SPI is available at no charge) that integrates between SIM and Operations Manager. If an operator needs to perform advanced troubleshooting of the HP servers, he or she can launch SIM through the Operations Manager console.
Can this solution allow me to generate FTE savings?	We answered this during the webinar. This solution centralizes event management to a single Operations Manager console, leaving vCenter as the expert tool for advanced troubleshooting or escalations. This shifts event management to your tier 1 operators in the Operations Bridge, freeing your virtualization administrators (very hard to find these days) to work on more strategic tasks.
What specific HP software products are needed to implement the scenario presented?	We answered this during the webinar. You would use Operations Manager, agents for each of the managed nodes, along with the Virtualization SPI to manage the hypervisor.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

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Network Management Customer Success Story (webinar)

pspielvogel — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:29:00 GMT

My colleague, Aruna Ravichandran, in Network Management Center Product Marketing, asked me to share information about a customer webinar in which they describe their success in upgrading to NNMi. Since many Operations Bridges also manage networks in addition to the server infrastructure, I agreed. As an aside, OMi and NNMi share the same underlying technology in their respective causal engines.

Listen to this on-demand webinar with a customer working for a leading $15 Billion consumer manufacturing company. You will get the complete story on their upgrade to NNMi. The speaker focuses on the ROI he was able to demonstrate to his management to justify spending the time and resources to go through the upgrade process.

In this webinar, you will learn how the customer was able to:

Increase network availability from 97.5% to 99.98%
Reduce capital and operating costs by consolidating 5 servers down to 1
Increase operator efficiency and productivity by decreasing the time spent on L2/L3 escalations from 8 hours to 2 hours/day through automation
Enhance its disaster recovery solution with automated application synchronization

Here is the link to the recorded ROI webinar.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

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2 upcoming virtualization webinars

pspielvogel — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:16:00 GMT

It seems that every conversation about IT infrastructure management eventually turns to virtualization. To help you better understand how we help you reduce the cost of administering virtualized environments and better manage performance of applications running in a virtual machine, we have two virtualization webinars next week.

1. Wednesday 10/7/09 Reduce Costs and Gain Control of Your Virtualized Infrastructure with Consolidated Management (HP and VMware)

2. Thursday 10/8/09 What's New in Operations Management: Virtualization & BlackBerry Smart Plug-ins Demo (HP and VIVIT)

Details and registration links appear below:

Webinar 1
Webinar title: Reduce Costs and Gain Control of Your Virtualized Infrastructure with Consolidated Management
Webinar date : Wednesday, October 7, 2009 12-1 PM Eastern Time, 9-10 AM Pacific Time

Abstract: Virtualization is hot! Even in this tough economy, virtualization was cited as the top spending priority for CIOs in a 2009 CIO Insight survey. Most organizations are seeing real benefits in flexibility and utilization but virtualization also creates some unique management challenges. Join HP and VMware, industry leaders in virtualization and infrastructure and application management for this one hour webinar to learn how you can reduce management costs and gain increased visibility and control of your virtual infrastructure.
During this webinar, you'll learn:
• How virtualization can introduce new management silos and actually increase the time and cost to detect and resolve issues
• How consolidated event and performance management can reduce costs and regain control
• How new technology from HP and VMware can pinpoint the root cause of system issues and eliminate duplication of effort chasing symptoms
Don't miss this chance to get maximum value from your virtualization investments.

Webinar 2
Webinar title: What's New in Operations Management: Virtualization & BlackBerry Smart Plug-ins Demo
Webinar date : Thursday, October 8, 2009 12-1 PM Eastern Time, 9-10 AM Pacific Time

Join us for an exclusive webinar on October 8th and be one of the first to see a demo of the new HP Operations Manager Smart Plug-ins for Virtualization and BlackBerry Enterprise Server. During this webinar and demo, we'll show you how to get more from your existing Operations Management environment by adding the new smart plug-ins for Virtualization and BlackBerryEnterprise Server. These new smart plug-ins include domain-specific discovery, fault detection and performance data collection policies that provide explicit insight into the application and their impact on the entire IT ecosystem.

For HP Operations Center, Peter Spielvogel.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP OpenView & Operations Management group onLinkedIn.