ServersVoyence Teams Up With Opsware, DCML

Voyence Teams Up With Opsware, DCML

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Looking to offer system administrators and IT managers a more complete view of their network infrastructure, Voyence Monday announced it will offer its network configuration management products along with Opsware’s server automation technology.

The network configuration tool provider will partner with server-management specialist Opsware to offer an end-to-end view of network infrastructures. Voyence also announced its membership in the standards-based Data Center Markup Language Organization.

The partnership appears to be a well-conceived marriage of convenience: Dallas-based Voyence specializes in managing heterogeneous network devices such as routers, switches, firewalls and so on. The Opsware’s platform is designed to provision, deploy, scale, secure, recover, consolidate, audit, and re-allocate servers and applications.

Now, as part of Opsware Solution Partner Program, Voyence can offer its VoyenceControl! configuration suite with Opsware’s IT automation software, Michael Bunyard, Voyence’s vice president of worldwide marketing, said. Under terms of the agreement, Voyence will receive access to Opsware’s Web Services interface and APIs. The companies will also participate in joint selling and co-marketing activities, according to Bunyard. Currently, Voyence’s customer base is split evenly between enterprises and managed service providers (MSPs), he said.

“The combination of Opsware’s IT automation software and Voyence’s network configuration management solutions provides productivity improvements and increased data center security,” said Bunyard. “Customers will be able to manage critical servers and network devices, reducing the chance of manual errors being introduced into the data center environment during the change process.”

More specifically, Voyence’s VoyenceControl! offer benefits in three areas, Bunyard said:

  • Network design management (e.g., reduced administration and engineering cost, recovery of stranded network assets, and more accurate budget forecasts)
  • Change management (e.g., improved network availability, reduced errors through automation, and improved mean time to repair)
  • Compliance management (e.g., tighter security, single point of network configuration change, update automation, and audit trial of network changes)

“Network configuration management is a key to automating IT operations and reducing costs stemming from security vulnerabilities from improperly configured devices,” said Sharmila Shahani, senior vice president of marketing at Opsware. “Enterprises are demanding solutions that can automatically track, store and recover critical software and server configuration information.

Voyence also revealed it has joined the Data Center Markup Language (DCML) Organization as a contributing member. The DCML Organization was formed last October with the goal of bringing a vendor-neutral standard for IT system interoperability and utility computing to data centers. The 25 founding members include EDS, Computer Associates, Opsware, BEA Systems, Mercury Interactive, and Akamia.

DCML uses a common language for describing disparate hardware and software components within the data center. The goal of DCML is offer enterprises a standards-based approach to ensure interoperability among the software, hardware and component mix in their data centers. (For more on DCML, see Hardware Today: Standardization, Coming Soon to a Data Center Near You.)

“Historically, there has been a lack of visibility of network device configurations as IT organizations have attempted to reduce costs while remaining competitive through rapidly deploying new network services,” David Schrodel, chief technology officer of Voyence, said in statement released today. “DCML will facilitate exchange of the network information we capture in VoyenceControl! with other key solutions.”

The DCML organization describes the standard has an extensible data model and corresponding XML schema that describes the physical and logical components in data centers, their relationships and interconnects, how to build and configure those components, and key operational policies and best practices.

Dan Muse is executive editor of EarthWeb’s Networking & Communications Channel and ServerWatch.

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