BMC Bmc Software, Inc.

BMC Software (NYSE:BMC) today announced the industry�s most comprehensive virtualization management approach, including nine new, integrated solutions specifically designed to help customers eliminate the rising risk and operational expenses associated with inadequate management of virtualized IT environments. The new solutions are grounded in a BMC-invented, highly automated set of Closed-Loop Change and Configuration Management (CLCCM) process workflows that reduce the latency, cost and risk associated with change management by as much as 75 percent. "Virtualization is being widely adopted as a key technology for reducing IT capital costs through consolidation, as well as for empowering IT with agility and flexibility to meet rapidly changing business needs," said Tim Grieser, vice president for System Management Software at highly regarded analyst firm IDC. "However, to be effective, virtualization must be managed and controlled -- otherwise it can cause more problems than it solves.� Establishing a new leadership position in enterprise management, BMC virtualization management solutions give customers the market�s only holistic, unified approach to IT planning, control, automation and management for today�s virtualized, multi-vendor IT environments. What�s more, BMC delivers these capabilities while maintaining the business agility promised by virtualization. �Our competitors continue to focus on the hardware aspects of virtualization. That�s understandable when you�re primarily a hardware company, but it nevertheless still misses the customer�s real issue,� said Kia Behnia, chief technology officer for BMC�s Enterprise Service Management business unit. �From a software standpoint, they offer little more than reactive monitoring of individual virtual machines (VMs). Their products file an alert when a major business service outage has already occurred, which is a little late. In contrast, BMC�s comprehensive solutions proactively manage the entire physical and virtual infrastructure (VI) with solutions that prevent business service outages, improving customer satisfaction while driving down costs.� BMC has extended its Service Assurance and Service Automation portfolios -- key components of its leading Business Service Management (BSM) platform -- to deliver virtualization-specific capabilities. The nine new offerings have been optimized to support goals for performance, compliance and enterprise visibility by addressing some of the most pressing challenges created by virtualization: Getting Started Properly: Few IT organizations have the experience to effectively plan their virtualization / consolidation initiative. BMC Virtualization Capacity Management and Planning Service is a packaged professional services offering that helps customers accelerate their efforts by taking advantage of BMC�s expertise. Simplifying Management: Containing the costs of virtualization requires a single solution to manage the entire software stack, including virtual infrastructure, guest VMs and applications. BMC Performance Management enables complete performance monitoring across virtual infrastructure and applications with enhanced VI3 and VMotion support. Ensuring Availability: BMC Application Performance and Analytics allows the business to actively manage service levels in its expanding virtual infrastructure without drowning in server events and false alarms. Automatic thresholding capabilities ensure consistent and continuous service levels across both virtual and physical environments. Ensuring Performance: The performance of virtual infrastructures relies on putting the right virtual servers and applications on the right physical servers. BMC Capacity Management replaces educated guesses with automatic assessment, prioritization of server workloads, and ongoing capacity monitoring. The result is high performance while reducing capital and operational expenses and maximizing server consolidation. Stopping Server Sprawl: Virtualization allows new servers to be created very rapidly with just a few keystrokes, often with little or no oversight. As with physical environments, without proper management controls, virtual machine proliferation can drive up cost and complexity. BMC Discovery Solution helps customers keep their virtualized environments under control by finding virtual servers anywhere in the infrastructure. Support for VMware, Solaris 9/10 containers and zones, AIX LPARS as well as z/VM dependencies on Mainframe (z/OS) mean that all types of virtual servers can be discovered and added to BMC Atrium CMDB. Ensuring Security: Both system and data security are major drivers in datacenters around the world. BMC BladeLogic Virtualization Module for Servers ensures security and strengthens licensing and regulatory compliance by deploying only complete, secure virtual environments. Automatic provisioning and configuration of the entire software stack, including virtual infrastructure, �guest VMs� and applications enforces security best practices, including built-in virtual server hardening rules. Enforcing Compliance: IT organizations can�t allow the agility offered by virtualization to undermine compliance controls. Also grounded in BMC�s patent-pending workflows, BMC BladeLogic Operations Management Suite helps customers establish automated, closed-loop change and configuration governance over their virtualized environment. BMC�s policy-driven configuration control prohibits non-compliant servers from being deployed or existing beyond the next audit scan. Automated compliance and remediation capabilities detect and correct any compliance violations. Reducing Administration Costs: The tasks that administrators previously performed on a single physical server now must be performed on rapidly multiplying virtual servers, driving up operations costs. BMC Run Book Automation Platform and BMC Run Book Automation VMware Adapter exploit BMC�s innovative CLCCM workflows to automate routine change management tasks so that the IT staff can focus on higher-value projects. All of these new offerings are architected to support both virtual and physical infrastructures, further reducing cost and complexity by allowing IT operations organizations to use a single set of management solutions across their entire IT infrastructure. IDC�s Tim Grieser added: "BMC's new solutions go to the heart of the virtualization management problem by addressing key requirements including unified physical and virtual management, full-stack management, discovery, provisioning, and performance management, together with significant automation capabilities based on the BladeLogic acquisition." As part of this new virtualization management offering, BMC has completed full solution integration with long-time partners Microsoft, Sun and VMware. �As organizations explore the many advantages virtualization offers, they also must understand that implementing these technologies cannot come at the price of sacrificing control of their environment,� said Dai Vu, Microsoft�s director of virtualization solutions. �BMC significantly extends the value of virtualization technologies like Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V by providing automation, integration and control across the heterogeneous enterprise. This very strong combination helps customers experience the benefits, flexibility and cost improvements provided by virtualization to a much greater extent than they otherwise would be able to.� Vijay Sarathy, Sun Microsystems� senior director of marketing for xVM, said: �Datacenter infrastructures are becoming increasingly diverse, posing new management challenges. BMC and Sun understand that customers place a real priority on strengthening IT manageability and driving operating expenses down. Building on our strategic partnership, BMC and Sun have been integrating Sun�s open, flexible and internet-scale xVM virtualization portfolio with BMC�s industry-leading Business Service Management solutions. The partnership between BMC and Sun provides customers with superior application environments that help customers to maximize the benefits of virtualization while maintaining control over their entire IT infrastructure.� BMC today also published a press release discussing the challenges associated with unmanaged virtualization. See Virtualization: What You Don�t Know Can Hurt You for more information. About BMC Software BMC Software is a leading global provider of enterprise management solutions that empower companies to automate their IT and prove its business value. Delivering Business Service Management and Service Automation, BMC solutions span enterprise systems, applications, databases and service management. For the four fiscal quarters ended June 30, 2008, BMC revenue was approximately $1.78 billion. For more information, visit www.bmc.com. BMC, BMC Software, and the BMC Software logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Software, Inc., are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. � Copyright 2008 BMC Software, Inc.