BMC Buys Into IT Process Automation

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So much emphasis has been placed on IT process automation in the past year
that if there were more startups, they’d be snatched up like buttery sweet hot
cakes. Opsware got the ball rolling when it purchased RealOps rival iConclude in March for $54 million.

RealOps today became the second IT process automation (also called run book
automation) startup to get gobbled up, with BMC Software agreeing to buy the company for an undisclosed sum.

IT
process automation applies the correct resources to changes that arise
in computer systems to prevent downtime. The idea of the technology is to
keep computer systems running as needed and eliminate a lot of manual work
for IT administrators.

The deal is no stretch; RealOps and BMC are already partnered and offer an
integrated operations automation platform to enable IT organizations to
define and automate their IT processes.

Fully united, RealOps’ AutoPilot software and AMP platform will further
automate problem, change and service management in computer systems,
complementing the Atrium Configuration Management database (CMDB) in BMC’s
Remedy IT process automation platform.

With AMP and Atrium, BMC hopes to boost the availability of business
services by minimizing service interruptions and speeding up problem
analysis and resolution.

Buying Real Ops will help BMC compete with Opsware (Quote), IBM
(Quote), HP (Quote), CA
(Quote) and others in the competitive market for management software
that helps enterprises react quickly and make intelligent business decisions
about processes or transactions.

The deal also leaves Opalis and Optinuity as the standalone players in the
IT process automation market and is interesting because Opalis
partners closely with BMC and makes an integration pack to work with BMC’s
Patrol package.

Opalis CEO Todd DeLaughter may have proved prescient in telling internetnews.com at the Gartner IT Operations and
Management conference last month that Opalis would be the last standalone
player left standing. But where does this leave Opalis in BMC’s plans?

A BMC spokesperson would only say “BMC is not currently planning to make any
changes to the Opalis relationship. Like all partnerships, we will evaluate
customer demand and business value on an ongoing basis.”

Enterprise Management Associates senior analyst Andi Mann called BMC’s move
a smart one and said Opalis may have to worry, with RealOps seemingly
supplanting any need for Opalis.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.