Opsware 4.5, Extension Builder Tool Integrates Disparate Apps

IT automation and utility computing software vendor Opsware Inc. on Monday announced Opsware System 4.5 and the Opsware Extension Builder.

Opsware lets IT automatically provision, patch, configure, secure, change, scale, audit, recover, consolidate, migrate, and reallocate homogeneous and heterogeneous servers and applications, according to a policy-based framework that controls how, when and where system management takes place.

The combination of the new version and extension collectively provide data center automation. Extension Builder tool allows IT to integrate disparate applications like server virtualization into the overall management process, which lets these applications to be viewed and managed from a centralized Opsware console. Also, according to Opsware, Extension Builder also allows IT to automate any process and any technology, and to integrate with any existing IT management system in their environment.

Examples of custom data center automation that an IT department could do using Opsware System 4.5 and the Extension Builder, according to Opsware, include:

creating a custom automation Extension that would enable patches to be categorized according to severity levels using a customer's own classification model and automatically applied to servers based on the customer's own change management windows.

building a custom automation Extension to provision dynamically based on servers reaching maximum capacity or failing.
In addition, customers can use the Extension Builder to integrate with other reporting systems for custom report generation, integrate with other IT management systems or automate specific hardware, operating systems or software infrastructure that is not already supported out-of-the-box.