EDS began using Opsware's software two years ago in densely populated data-center environments, managing about 65,000 servers for hundreds of customers. The second phase, now under way, involves using recently introduced Opsware Satellite software to provide automated management to remote servers. That will let EDS better manage 160,000 more servers in hundreds of countries.
In one test, Lozon used Opsware to deploy a security patch to 250 servers in a single day; previously, the task would have taken a week, he says. Provisioning an operating system with a database and apps used to take eight hours; it now takes one. Deploying 60 servers with software was a four-week task; it now takes three days.
Remote facilities pose special challenges, says Raj Gossain, Opsware's senior director of product marketing. "Half of all servers are deployed in non-data-center remote facilities," he says. "A lot aren't managed at all. They become a security vulnerability, failure modes are fairly high, and they're likely to go down with nobody there to take care of the problem in a reasonable time frame."
As EDS deploys Opsware Satellite over the next few years, better remote maSnagement will give customers more options to place processing capabilities wherever the best business value can be determined, Lozon says.
Still, systems-management tools have a ways to go before they let businesses "transparently manage all of a company's enterprise, even appropriate links to external supplies and customers," says Gordon Haff, an analyst with research firm Illuminata. "We're still clearly removed from the rather grand ambition of a single data center."
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