So what about Tripwire, Configuresoft, Ecora, Active Reasoning, Solidcore?

Posted by on 24 Oct 2007 at 10:38 pm | Tagged as: BMC, Opsware, BladeLogic, HP, EMC, Emprisa, Voyence, AlterPoint, Intelliden, Configuresoft, Lumension, Shavlik, Bigfix

Based on some of my recent postings I’ve had some comments and questions come in about these type of vendors.  Great question…first up, what are these vendors’ “type.”

These vendors carefully watch a resource (e.g., system, application, network device) for a configuration changes, tracks new vs. older configurations and continuously watches them through established rules, called policies.  This is what they excel at, but they also offer various level of configuration change automation.  So this is where things get sticky…are they a direct competitor to Opsware or BladeLogic?

Opsware and BladeLogic have a the same capabilities but from my experience their primary focus is that second half of the equation (configuration & provisioning automation) with a secondary or even lower focus on change tracking/monitoring.

So what’s very interesting here is when you look at a base functionality checklist all these vendors for systems/applications/network configuration & change automation/monitoring (aka Data Center Automation) can checkmark the same boxes.  The devil is in the details around what type of use cases you wish to solve.

If your primary use case is around automation to streamline and automate the deployment, provisioning, turn-up, turn-down, etc of new applications, databases, operating systems, network services then Opsware, BladeLogic and maybe ConfigureSoft would be the way to go.

If your primary use case is around automated monitoring, tracking, reporting down to very, very specific use cases when a file system, registry setting, network configuration, etc has changed then Tripwire, ConfigureSoft, Ecora, Active Reasoning, Solidcore are probably better choices.

Now it gets trickier then this.  It also depends on:

* Size of company (e.g., how big, how many times you need to do something)
* Type of company (e.g., web based vs. brick & mortor vs. telecommunications)
* Geographical distribution (e.g., are you regional, national, semi-global, global

So I guess the point to make here to Enterprises that may be reading this.  If you looking for Data Center Automation or more generically IT Infrastructure Management Automation solutions you should figure out your top 5 use cases you hope to solve with automation software then select 3 vendor to talk through how they solve those use cases.

Now one last thing to consider before picking which vendors to engage.  If network device automation is important to you Opsware must be on your short list  but BladgeLogic or ConfigureSoft won’t be.  Meanwhile, Tripwire, Ecora, Solidcore and Active Reasoning all have some capabilities here but depending on how important the network is to the overall project may merit you having to look at two vendors solving the entire problem (if you don’t go with Opsware).  To cover the network, depending on how in-depth your use cases are, you may need to look at AlterPoint, Voyence, Intelliden or Emprisa (now part of BMC).

Another consideration is how involved will the security group be in this project and what are their use cases.  Of all the vendors ConfigureSoft has some of the best capabilities related to understanding the challenges of security patch & configuration automation and monitoring/auditing.  But this muddies the waters even more since if your taking a more security edge now you also have to think about looking at Lumension (former Patchlink),  Shavlik and Bigfix.

Oh the complex web we weave…so let me state it again…before you start evaluating a single vendor, do them and yourself a favor.  Figure out what are the primary use cases you need to solve, how much money they could save you (this helps prioritize them), determine which organization(s) are going to pay for the solution (most likely their use cases will get weighted higher) and finally engage based on previous guidance.  There is no silver bullet here where I can say one vendor is best fit for everyone…the honest truth is each vendor has their appropriate strengths & weaknesses.  One way to learn more about what use cases have driven them to this point is ask for a references in your industry or similar type and for someone within that company in a comparable job role or organization structure (e.g. if your a security guy don’t talk to a network engineer).

At the end of the day configuration change automation & provisioning, configuration change tracking and monitoring and security-related patching and monitoring are all important and needed….it comes down to what your group, company needs now.

Meanwhile, IBM, EMC may also want to take a look at some of these other vendors to help them better compete against the HP & BMC moves made recently.